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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



not the men who are verging on three-score 

 years and ten. Who are likely to be needed in 

 case we should get into a war again ? Not those 

 old men ; not the men alluded to by the Senator 

 from Vermont; men who he says left our own 

 Army and went into the Confederate service. 

 They are not at all likely to be called into the 

 service of the United States should we again 

 become a belligerent. No, Mr. President, but 

 there is a large body of young men, men of mil- 

 itary experience, men of military talent, who 

 are as ready to fight now for the Star-spaTlgled 

 Banner as any man between here and Canada, 

 and we are asked to exclude them or reject their 

 services in order simply to put a brand upon 

 them for which there is no political or other 

 necessity whatever. 



"I am not afraid of the Southern people on 

 this question not the least bit of it, sir. The 

 Northern people want, the best of them, a ma- 

 jority of them want to bury the hatreds of the 

 war; they want peace, they want fraternity 

 once more. That is what they want, and they 

 do not want to reject the services of any com- 

 petent and now loyal man by inquiring whether 

 or not he did at some time or other bear a mus- 

 ket in the Confederate service." 



Mr. Beck, of Kentucky : " Mr. President, ref- 

 erence has been made by the Senator from Ar- 

 kansas to the fact that the bill which is now 

 before the Senate is a substitute for an original 

 bill which had been introduced by myself and 

 urged upon all proper occasions, and sometimes, 

 perhaps, I may add, when it was not quite prop- 

 er. I desire to say one word as to my motive 

 for so doing. I will first read the section itself : 



" SECTIOX 1213. No person who has served in any ca- 

 pacity in the military, naval, or civil service of the so- 

 called Confederate States, or of either of the States in 

 insurrection dimng the late rebellion, shall be appoint- 

 ed to any position 'in the Army of the United States. 



" It so happened that a year or two ago a 

 young man living in southern Kentucky sought 

 to apply for a place in the Army of the United 

 States, but he had been a page in the Tennessee 

 Legislature during the war, when he was too 

 young to be either loyal or disloyal. That was 

 a civil office under one of the States then in 

 rebellion. His father was so poor that he could 

 not educate him without making the boy work 

 for a living, and as there was little else doing 

 but public matters at that time, he accepted the 

 position of a page in the Legislature of Tennes- 

 see, and was therefore disqualified by law from 

 applying even for a place in the Army of the 

 United States ; that seemed to me to be obvious- 

 ly wrong when I saw the Vice-President of the 

 Confederacy sitting in the other end of the Cap- 

 itol, when the men who occupied the highest 

 positions during that war are here and at the 

 other end of the Capitol, and when the sons of 

 those gentlemen, not being compelled to accept 

 any service either under the Confederate gov- 

 ernment or under any State in rebellion, can all 

 enter the United States Army because their fa- 

 thers were able to educate them themselves, 



and only the poorer boys, who were obliged to 

 work for a living and had to do whatever was 

 required or could be obtained either under the 

 Confederate States or under the States, were 

 excluded. As all the higher, richer, great, and 

 important persons were allowed to fill places of 

 the highest honor and profit in this Govern- 

 ment, it seemed to me the Congress of the 

 United States was not acting justly to itself or 

 to the people to exclude by law even the right 

 to apply for a place in the Army from the 

 younger, poorer men who were obliged to work 

 at whatever they could get to do during the 

 years of war. Hence, I thought it was a proper 

 thing to repeal this statute, and I had hoped it 

 would be done unanimously. No law should 

 remain for a moment on the statute-books under 

 which such a condition of things is possible." 



Mr. Logan : " Mr. President, I should have 

 no objection myself to the application of the 

 principle that the Senator from Kentucky 

 speaks of to persons like the one that he men- 

 tions from his State ; but this law to-day is no 

 greater hardship on a person who served in the 

 Confederate service than it is on one who served 

 in the Union Army, for if the Senator will ex- 

 amine the law in reference to appointments in 

 the Army he will find that all those persons are 

 now over the age that would allow them to be 

 appointed in the Army. So this in itself does 

 not act as an inhibition solely upon those par- 

 ties." 



Mr. Jones, of Florida: "Then it is useless.' 



Mr. Logan : "The repeal of it is useles 

 certainly, because by the repeal of this law yc 

 do not authorize their appointment in the ser- 

 vice unless you appoint them as brigadier-gen- 

 erals or major-generals, because up to that point 

 men rise by promotion in the Army ; and ap- 

 pointment in the Army now can not be made 

 except of persons who are not over a certaii 

 age. This statute was passed, as I understam 

 it, for the reason that the people of this country, 

 certainly not differing from the people of oth< 

 countries in that particular, concluded that per- 

 sons who served in the Confederate army against 

 the Government were not as likely to be as 

 faithful to the Government as those who were 

 on the other side of the question." 



Mr. Thurman : "May I ask my friend 

 question ? " 



Mr. Logan : " Certainly." 



Mr. Thurman : " If my friend from Illinois 

 were President of the United States, as he may 

 at some future time be, and we were in war, 

 would he not call into the service Souther 

 men? As a brave soldier, would he be afrak 

 to go into battle commanding those men? " 



Mr. Logan : " No, I would not be afraid to 

 go into battle commanding any men that had 

 volunteered on my side, while they were under 

 my command, nor would any man who had com- 

 mand of soldiers. 



" But the point I am getting at is this : This 

 law was passed for the purpose of making a dis- 

 tinction in the Army between those who pre- 



