298 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



not judge him. But ho will pardon me if I say 

 that from the beginning he has shown a strange 

 insensibility to this cause. He is for liberty, 

 but he will not help us assure it to those who 

 have for generations been despoiled of it. Sir, 

 I am in earnest. Seriously, religiously, I ac- 

 cept emancipation as proclaimed by the Presi- 

 dent, and now, by the votes of both Houses of 

 Congress, placed under the sanctions of consti- 

 tutional law. But even emancipation is not 

 enough. You must see to it that it is not 

 evaded or nullified, and you must see to it espe- 

 cially that the new-made freedmen are pro- 

 tected in those rights which -are now assured to 

 them, and that they are saved from the pre- 

 vailing caste, which menaces slavery under 

 some new alias ; and this is 'the object of the 

 present measure. 



""Would you know the perils of freedmen 

 ever since emancipation ? Listen, then, to the 

 words of that true patriot, General Wadsworth, 

 who, after his visit to the valley of the Missis- 

 sippi, and personal observation of the freedmen 

 there, wrote thus : 



There is one thing that must be taken into account, 

 and that is, that there will exist a very strong dispo- 

 sition among the masters to control these people and 

 keep them as a subordinate and subjected class. 

 Undoubtedly they intend to do that. I think the ten- 

 dency to establish a system of serfdom is the great 

 danger to be guarded against. I talked with a planter 

 in the La Fourche district, near Thibodeauxville : 

 he said he was not in favor of secession ; he avowed 

 his hope and expectation that slavery would be re- 

 stored there in some form. I said, " If we went away 

 and left these people now, do you suppose you could 

 reduce them again to slavery?" He laughed to 

 scorn the idea that they could not. " What," said 

 I, "these men who have had arms in their hands?" 

 "Yes," he said; "we could take the arms away 

 from them, of course." 



"But this emphatic testimony is simply in 

 harmony with accumulated testimony from 

 other quarters. The freedraen, now rejoicing 

 in recovered rights, must for a while be saved 

 from the traditional harshness and cruelty to 

 which, for generations, they have been exposed. 

 Call it protection ; call it what you will. The 

 power of the Government must be to them a 

 shield. And yet you hesitate. 



" The Senator from Iowa renews now the ob- 

 jections which he made at an earlier stage of 

 this legislation. It will not be forgotten that 

 he most earnestly protested against the bill as 

 giving to persons a control of the freedman. It 

 was then shown, I think, to demonstration, that 

 he was mistaken. But out of deference to his 

 sensibilities, and that nothing might seem to be 

 wanting to the protection of the freedman, 

 other safeguards were introduced, as amend- 

 ments on his motion, or in pursuance of his sug- 

 gestions. But all this is not enough to secure 

 his favor. He objects again. 



"Very well. So far as I understand his ob- 

 jection then and now, it is twofold : tirst, that 

 the freedman is placed under constraint, and 

 that he is not a free man ; and, secondly, that 

 he is treated too much as an infant or a pupil. 



Now, I undertake to say that the objection in 

 both these forms is absolutely inapplicable." 



The motion to postpone was lost yeas, 13 ; 

 nays, 16. 



Mr. Hale, of New Hampshire, hi opposi- 

 tion, said : " Now, sir, the report of this Com- 

 mittee of Conference goes upon the suppo- 

 sition that the negro is wholly incompetent to 

 take care of himself. The reasons assigned for 

 slavery by slave-masters for the last fifty years 

 has been that these people are helpless, utterly 

 unable to take care of themselves; that they 

 have been under the guardianship of their mas- 

 ters so long that you cannot trust them with 

 their own interests. As long as you keep them 

 under the guardianship either of their masters, 

 or of overseers to be appointed under this bill, 

 so long will they be helpless and unable to take 

 care of themselves. As long as you hold them 

 np they will never stand alone ; but the very 

 moment you make them freemen and secure 

 their rights in the courts of justice, I believe 

 they will be fully competent to take care of 

 themselves. This proposition of the committee 

 of conference only proposes a change of mas- 

 ters, under the provisions of the ninth section. 

 You appoint commissioners who have a right to 

 take possession of the farms, lease them to 

 whomsoever they please, and then they may 

 hire out these negroes at any price they shall 

 agree upon between themselves and the lessees 

 of the lands. That is what I understand to be 

 the provisions of the bill ; and under such provi- 

 sions, it would introduce, in my opinion, a sys- 

 tem of fraud and swindling unheard of in the 

 history of the world. You give these poor crea- 

 tures to the kind protection of broken-down 

 politicians and adventurers, and decayed minis- 

 ters of the gospel, and make them overseers to 

 make fortunes out of these poor creatures ; and 

 they will treat the negroes, in my opinion, under 

 this bill, far more cruelly than their masters un- 

 der the old slave system did. I am opposed to 

 the theory of a Freedman's Bureau. I would 

 make them free under the law ; I would pro- 

 tect them in the courts of justice; if necessary, 

 I would give them the right of suffrage, and 

 let loyal slaves vote their rebel masters down 

 and reconstruct the seceded States ; but I wish 

 to have no system of guardianship and pupilage 

 and overseership over these negroes. 



" If this objection were not insuperable with 

 me, the constitutional objection to placing under 

 the Rules and Articles of War persons who have 

 never belonged to the naval and military ser- 

 vice would be sufficient ; and if that reason did 

 not stand in the way, there is another reason : 

 this bill comes here in a questionable shape. 

 The House of Representatives passed one bill 

 upon the subject of freedmen, the Senate passed 

 another; they differed in their provisions; 

 and the Committee of Conference instead of, 

 under parliamentary law, taking into considera- 

 tion the disagreeing votes of the two Houses, 

 over which alone they had any jurisdiction, 

 come in and report a substitute essentially dif- 



