256 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



laws recognizing the relation of master and 

 slave, shall not be enforced. 



" The committee have also in this bill omitted 

 the section which authorized the collection of 

 taxes in the State, thus leaving the original bill 

 of last session to stand with those modifications, 

 and with the addition of the thirteenth section 

 of the amendment which I offered yesterday. 



" I prefer to stand there. I prefer not to offer 

 my substitute, and thus commit myself to a rec- 

 ognition of the governments of Louisiana and 

 Arkansas, unless I can secure that which I think 

 of paramount importance in the reorganization 

 of the other States, and which I felt confident 

 would follow in these States if they were rec- 

 ognized even with their present form of govern- 

 ment." 



Mr. Davis, of Maryland, followed in explana- 

 tion of the bill, saying : " The bill which is now 

 the test, to which amendments are pending, is 

 the same bill which received the assent of both 

 Houses of Congress at the last session, with the 

 following modifications to suit the tender sus- 

 ceptibilities of gentlemen from Massachusetts : 

 first, the sixth section, declaring rebel officers 

 not citizens of the United States, has been 

 stricken out; second, the taxation clause has 

 been stricken out; third, the word 'govern- 

 ment' has been inserted before 'trial and pun- 

 ishment,' to meet the refined criticisms of the 

 two gentlemen from Massachusetts, who suppose 

 that penal laws would be in force and operative 

 when the penalties were forbidden to be en- 

 forced ; that discriminating laws could survive 

 the declaration that there should be no dis- 

 crimination between different persons in trial 

 or punishment. There has been one section 

 added to meet the present aspect of public af- 

 fairs ; that section authorizes the President, in- 

 stead of pursuing the method prescribed in the 

 bill in reference to the States where military 

 resistance shall have been suppressed, in the 

 event of the legislative authority under the re- 

 bellion in any rebel State taking the oath to 

 support the Constitution of the United States, 

 annulling their confiscation laws and ratifying 

 the amendment proposed by this Congress to 

 the Constitution of the United States, before 

 military resistance shall be suppressed in such 

 State, to recognize them as constituting the legal 

 authority of the State, and directing him to re- 

 port those facts to Congress for its assent and 

 ratification. With these modifications, the bill 

 which is now the test for amendment, is the bill 

 which was adopted by this House at the last 

 session. 



"All I desire now to do, is to state the case 

 and predict results from one course or the other. 

 The course of military events seems to indicate 

 that possibly by the 4th of next July, probably 

 by next December, organized, armed rebellion 

 will cease to lift its brazen front in the land. 

 But whether sooner or later, whenever it comes, 

 there is one thing that will assuredly accompany 

 it. If this bill do not become a law, when Con- 

 gress again meets, at our doors, clamorous and 



dictatorial, will be sixty-five Representatives 

 from the States now in rebellion, and twenty- 

 two Senators, claiming admission, and, upon 

 the theory of the honorable gentleman, entitled 

 to admission beyond the power of argument to 

 resist it ; for peace will have been restored, there 

 will be no armed power but that of the United 

 States; there will be quiet, and votes will be 

 polled under the existing laws of the State, in 

 the gentleman's view. Are you ready to accept 

 that consequence ? For if they come to the door 

 of the House they will cross the threshold of the 

 House, and any gentleman who does not know 

 that, or who is so weak or so wild as to suppose 

 that any declaratory resolution adopted by both 

 Houses as a condition precedent can stop that 

 flood, had better put his puny hands across the 

 flood of the flowing Mississippi and say that it 

 shall not enter the Gulf of Mexico. 



" There are things, gentlemen, that are possi- 

 ble at one time and not possible at another. You 

 can now prevent the rise of the flood, but when 

 it is up you cannot stop it. If gentlemen are hi 

 favor of meeting that state of things, then do as 

 has been already so distinctly intimated in the 

 course of this debate, vote against this bill in 

 all its aspects ; leave the door wide open ; let 

 ' our brethren of the South,' whose bayonets are 

 now pointed at our brothers' hearts, drop their 

 arms, put on the seemly garb of peace, go 

 through the forms of an election, and assert 

 the triumph of their beaten faction under the 

 forms of political authority after the sword has 

 decided against them. I am no prophet, but 

 that is the history of next December if this bill 

 be defeated ; and I expect it not to become a law. 



" But suppose the other course to be pursued ; 

 suppose the President sees fit to do what there 

 is not the least reason to suppose that he desires 

 to do ; suppose that after he has destroyed the 

 armies in the field he should go further, and do, 

 as I think he ought to do, what the judgment 

 of this country dictates, treat those who hold 

 power in the South as rebels, and not as gov- 

 ernors or legislators; disperse them from the 

 halls of legislation, expel them from executive 

 mansions, strip them of the emblems of author- 

 ity, and set to work to hunt out the pliant and 

 supple ' Union men,' so called, who have cringed 

 before the storm, but who will be willing to 

 govern their fellow-citizens under the protection 

 of United States bayonets; suppose that the 

 fruitful example of Louisiana shall spread like a 

 mist over all the rest of the Southern country, 

 and that Representatives like what Louisiana 

 has sent here, with such a backing of votes as 

 she has given, shall appear here at the doors of 

 this Hall ; whose representatives are they ? I 

 do not mean to speak of the gentlemen now hero 

 from Louisiana in their individual character, but 

 in their political relations to their constituency. 

 "\Vhoserepresentativesarethey? In Louisiana 

 they are the representatives of the bayonets of 

 General Banks and the will of the President, as 

 expressed in his secret letter to General Banks. 

 If you admit such representatives, you must 



