300 



CONGRESS, U. S. 



charge ? I have learned incidentally that such 

 is not the fact." 



Mr. Wickcliffe, of Kentucky, opposed the 

 resolution, saying : " Sir, I do not approve of 

 this exercise of power which does not legiti- 

 mately reside in this House. The Secretary 

 of the Treasury has the power of appointing 

 clerks, and the power of removal, and if he has 

 not got sense enough to exercise that power 

 with discretion, I say let him be removed and 

 somebody appointed who has. Let us not divert 

 the great and legitimate powers of this House 

 into an inquisition to find out something against 

 the character of these poor dependent clerks." 



Mr. Potter, in reply, stated as follows : " The 

 committee was appointed at the July session 

 of Congress. It has been at work during the 

 period which has intervened ; and in reply to 

 the inquiry of the gentleman from New York 

 as to whether we have permitted to come or 

 have called before us clerks charged with being 

 disloyal, I frankly say to him that we have 

 not. The reason why the committee adopted 

 the resolution to send the charges which had 

 been made before them, with the evidence, as 

 to the disloyalty of certain clerks to the heads 

 of departments, was for the purpose of enabling 

 the clerks so charged to have the opportunity 

 of going before their respective heads of de- 

 partments, who have the whole control of the 

 matter, and vindicate themselves against the 

 charges, if it was in their power to do so. The 

 committee has no power and has claimed the 

 exercise of no power of dismissal. They have 

 merely sent the evidence taken by them to the 

 departments, where the character of the clerks 

 could be properly further investigated, and 

 where the clerks could be heard in their own 

 defence. 



" The gentleman from New York asks why 

 these poor, persecuted men were not permitted 

 to appear before us in their own defence. Be- 

 cause such men who are properly charged with 

 disloyalty have no right to ask to come before 

 the committee ; they have no right to ask to 

 be retained in any position under this Govern- 

 ment. I say that in these times no man should 

 be retained in the employ of the Government 

 against whom there is a reasonable suspicion 

 as to his loyalty. I say that in times like these 

 no head of department has the right to require 

 from a committee of investigation, or from any 

 other source, evidence against an employ^ un- 

 der him strong enough to hang him for treason 

 before he will dismiss him. Yet that seems 

 to be the position taken by the heads of some 

 of the departments." 



i In the Senate, on the 6th of January, the 

 credentials of Benjamin Stark, a Senator from 

 Oregon, appointed by the Governor to fill the 

 vacancy occasioned by the death of Edward 

 D. Baker, were presented and read, and it was 

 asked that the oath of office be administered 

 to him. 



Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, moved that the 



oath of office be not administered, but that the 

 credentials with certain papers be referred to 

 the Committee on the Judiciary. He said : 

 " The papers which I have in my hand are 

 well attested as well as they can be. They 

 are in the shape of affidavits and written repre- 

 sentations, most of them sworn to, and certi- 

 fied beyond all question to be from a large 

 number of the most respectable inhabitants of 

 the city of Portland, where Mr. Stark resides. 

 They state in the most unqualified terms facts 

 which, if true, in my judgment, go to show 

 that Mr. Stark should not be admitted to a seat 

 in this chamber. They state that Mr. Stark is 

 understood by everybody in his vicinity to be 

 an open and avowed supporter of secession ; 

 that he has openly defended the course of the 

 South in seceding, and has given utterance to 

 sentiments totally at war v with the institutions 

 and preservation of our 'country, such as ap- 

 proving the attack on Fort Sumter ; making 

 declarations to the effect that in the event of a 

 civil war, which, in fact, had then already com- 

 menced, he would sell his property in Oregon 

 and go South and join the rebels ; that they 

 were right ; that Mr. Davis's government was 

 the only government left ; that there was, in 

 fact, no government of the Union at all. Nu- 

 merous declarations of that kind are sworn to 

 by persons who are certified and proved to my 

 satisfaction to be persons perfectly reliable. 

 Under these circumstances, as they have been 

 made known to the Senate in such an authen- 

 tic form as they are, I think it grossly improp- 

 er that the oath of office should be adminis- 

 tered to Mr. Stark, and he be permitted to 

 take a seat on this floor before an investigation 

 has been had." 



Mr. Bright, of Indiana, opposed the motion, 

 saying : " I think, sir, there is no precedent 

 for a motion of that kind. I have never known 

 a case where the Senate refused to allow a 

 Senator to take his seat when his credentials 

 were properly authenticated, and he applied for 

 admission upon this floor. I have a very ac- 

 curate recollection of what took place in my 

 own case, and in the case of my colleague, Dr. 

 Fitch, when our right to seats on this floor was 

 denied. I think there was a general admission 

 on both sides of the chamber that a Senator 

 presenting aprima facie case had a right to be 

 sworn in, and that the Senate would, after the 

 administration' of the oath, take cognizance of 

 any papers that might be presented questioning 

 his right to a seat. I think there would be 

 great propriety in allowing the Senator to be 

 sworn, that he may be heard in his own de- 

 fence. The fact that these papers are certified, 

 and the fact that statements are made deroga- 

 tory to the loyalty of the Senator who claims 

 his seat, furnish no evidence to my mind of 

 their truth. Never have baser falsehoods been 

 put on record against any man than have been 

 sent to the Senate against me since I took my 

 seat at this session." 



Mr. Fessenden replied by avowing his disin- 



