CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



289 



erty to tell, who the distinguished citizen is 

 that said it was all a humbug? " 



Mr. Sumner : " He did not call it humbug. 

 He called it a stupendous hoax." 



Mr. Grimes, of Iowa, said : " I only wish to 

 make a suggestion to the Senator from Mary- 

 land. If he is anxious to obtain the names of 

 those who were in New Orleans when the con- 

 vention was held, and who do entertain the 

 opinion stated by the Senator from Massachu- 

 setts, I can furnish him with a large number ; 

 and I will say furthermore in this connection 

 that if the Senate will give a committee, I will 

 undertake to prove and I will prove that the 

 voters whose votes were polled in the outlying 

 parishes at Thibodeaux and Plaquemines, and 

 other places, were carried in army transports 

 to those places where they polled the votes, 

 being discharged soldiers and persons belonging 

 in New Orleans, and were brought back to 

 New Orleans, and were not residents of the 

 places where they purported to vote." 



Mr. Sumner : " I doubt not that my friend 

 from Iowa is right, but I understand that it is 

 not proper to discuss the merits of the propo- 

 sition on this preliminary motion, and I do not 

 design to discuss it. I was simply characteriz- 

 ing it, and I was going on to say that in my 

 opinion the proposition which the Senator from 

 Illinois is so earnestly pressing upon the Senate, 

 when we consider its origin and character, is in 

 itself very little different from a stupendous 

 hoax. I say nothing about the convention, for 

 I was not there. I did not see it. On that 

 point I simply cite the testimony of another. 

 But the proposition of the Senator is before us, 

 and we are familiar with its nature. Every 

 moment gives us new glimpses of the violence 

 and fraud with which it is associated. Perhaps 

 this expression I have quoted is hardly grave 

 enough in speaking of such a proposition, where 

 military power and injustice to a whole race 

 have been enlisted in forming the constitution 

 of a State, in defiance of the self-evident truths 

 of the Declaration of Independence. The United 

 States are bound by the Constitution ' to guar- 

 antee to every State a republican form of gov- 

 ernment.' Now, when called to perform this 

 guaranty it is proposed to recognize an oli- 

 garchy of the skin. The pretended State gov- 

 ernment in Louisiana is utterly indefensible 

 whether you look at its origin or its character. 

 To describe it, I must use plain language. It is 

 a mere seven-months' abortion, begotten by the 

 bayonet in criminal conjunction with the spirit 

 of caste, and born before its time, rickety, un- 

 formed, unfinished whose continued existence 

 will be a burden, a reproach, and a wrong. 

 That is the whole case; and yet the Senator 

 from Illinois now presses it upon the Senate at 

 this moment to the exclusion of the important 

 public business of the country." 



The motion to take up the prior orders was 

 agreed to by the following vote : 



YEAS Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Car- 

 lile, Chandler, Clark, Collamer, Conness, Cowan, 

 VOL. v. 19 A 



Davis, Dixon, Farwell, Foster, Grimes, Harlan, Hen- 

 derson, Hendricks, Howard, Howe, Johnson, Mor- 

 gan, Morrill, Nye, Powell, Riddle, Saulsbury. Sher- 

 man, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Wade, Wilkinson, 

 Wilson, and Wright 34. 



> NATS Messrs. Doolittle, Harris, Lane of Indiana, 

 Lane of Kansas, McDougall, Nesmith, Pomeroy, 

 Ramsey, Ten Eyck, Trumbull. Van Winkle, and 

 Willey 12. 



ABSENT Messrs. Foot, Hale, Harding, and Rich- 

 ardson 4. 



In the Senate, on Feb. 17th, Mr. Sumner, of 

 Massachusetts, offered the following resolution : 



Whereas, certain persons have put in circulation 

 $he report that on the suppression of the rebellion 

 the rebel debt or loan may be recognized in whole or 

 in part by the United States; and whereas such a 

 report is calculated to give a false value to such rebel 

 debt or loan : Therefore, 



Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representa- 

 tives concurring), That Congress hereby declares that 

 the rebel debt or loan is simply an agency of the re- 

 bellion, which the United States can never, under 

 any circumstances, recognize in any part or in any 

 way. 



It was adopted without a division. 



In the House, on Feb. 6th, Mr. Edgerton, of 

 Indiana, offered the following resolution, 

 which was laid over : 



Whereasthe "Daily Morning Chronicle," of this city, 

 the reputed political organ of the President, in recent 

 editorials upon the subject of negotiations for peace, 

 has referred to the President of the United States as 

 having gone "in his sovereign capacity" to treat 

 with the commissioners from Richmond, and has 

 further described the President as "the sovereign head 

 of the greatest Government on earth ; " and whereas 

 the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has, 

 by a late solemn adjudication, affirmed principles as 

 the law of the land which recognized arbitrary dicta- 

 torial powers in the President, not only as to military 

 but as to civil offenders, which are subversive of civil 

 liberty and of the public welfare : Therefore, 



Resolved (as the judgment of this House), That the 

 President of the United States is in no constitutional 

 sense the sovereign thereof, but that all his govern- 

 mental powers are derived from the Constitution and 

 constitutional laws of the United States, and are 

 limited by them ; and this House sincerely deprecates 

 all political teachings and judicial decisions having a 

 tendency to exalt the President above the Constitu- 

 tion and laws, or to clothe him with attributes un- 

 known to them, or to derogate from the powers of 

 Congress ; and they affirm that the principle that 

 the people are sovereign, and that all departments 

 of the Government are their agents or servants, and 

 should be kept in strict subordination to the Consti- 

 tution and laws, is essential to the permanence of 

 republican government and to civil liberty. 



In the House, on Jan. 15th, Mr. Cox, of Ohio, 

 offered the following resolution relative to paci- 

 fication : 



Whereas the country hails with manifestations of 

 patriotic joy and congratulation the victories recently 

 achieved by our brave armies; and whereas "the 

 recognized object of war, at least among civilized 

 and Christian nations, is an honorable and satisfac- 

 tory peace ; and that although we do not know that 

 the insurgents are yet prepared to agree to any terms 

 of pacification that our Government would or should 

 deem acceptable, yet as there can be no possible 

 harm resulting from ascertaining precisely what they 

 are ready to do, and in order to refute the imputation 



