120 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



application of the Governor of Georgia, the Presi- 

 dent of the United States shall employ such military 

 or naval forces of the United States as may be neces- 

 sary to enforce and execute the provisions of this act. 

 SEC. 8. And be it further enacted, That the Legis- 

 lature of Georgia shall be regarded as provisional 

 only until the further action of Congress. 



Mr. Morton, of Indiana, offered the follow- 

 ing amendment, which was, to strike out the 

 eighth section, and in lieu thereof to insert the 

 following : 



That the Legislature shall be provisional only, and 

 until after it has ratified the fourteenth and fifteenth 

 amendments to the Constitution of the United States, 

 and Senators and Eepresentatives in Congress from 

 the State of Georgia have been admitted to their 

 seats. 



Mr. Carpenter, of Wisconsin, said: "Mr. 

 President, that provision requiring the Legis- 

 lature to adopt the fifteenth amendment to the 

 Constitution was omitted from the hill hy the 

 committee, or a majority of the committee, 

 purposely, and not by accident. My objection 

 personally to the Senator's amendment is two- 

 fold : first, I think it wholly unnecessary. If 

 the people of Georgia do not understand al- 

 ready that they will not be admitted into the 

 Union until the fifteenth amendment to the 

 Constitution is adopted by them, they certain- 

 ly will understand it before they get in. But 

 I think the amendment is pernicious in this 

 respect : it will be claimed hereafter, and will 

 be the subject of much discussion, that these 

 Southern States have not voluntarily ratified 

 that amendment to the Constitution. I do not 

 say that that claim is well founded ; I do not 

 believe it is ; but we shall hear it, and I am 

 opposed to any amendment of this bill which 

 shall lead manifestly to the discussion of these 

 troublesome subjects hereafter. They will say 

 that they were held by military power ; they 

 will say that Congress dictated to them the 

 terms upon which they were to come into the 

 Union ; that they were practically and sub- 

 stantially in duress, and are not bound by the 

 vote of adoption they have passed." 



Mr. Drake, of Missouri, said : " I did not 

 know but that the question of whether those 

 constitutional amendments were ratified was 

 in some future day to be brought for decision 

 before the Supreme Court of the United 

 States, where it might be denied that they had 

 been constitutionally adopted, and the plea of 

 duress put in by the State of Georgia to show 

 that she had been coerced into the ratification, 

 and therefore that her ratification was void. 

 Unless this subject is in that way to go before 

 some outside tribunal, which is regarded by 

 the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate 

 as having a higher power than that of Con- 

 gress, I do not see that we need have any par- 

 ticular apprehension about the matter being 

 put in the shape proposed by the Senator from 

 Indiana. If it is to come before Congress, 

 then it will probably make no difference 

 whether Georgia ratifies these amendments 

 under the coercion of this section or not. 



" Mr. President, I want that these rebel 

 States should he made to feel the power of this 

 nation through its Congress. I want that the 

 rebels of the South, as much rebels probably 

 in heart to-day as they ever were, may be made 

 to feel that there is a power here that can 

 hold them to their places under this Govern- 

 ment. I wish especially that the infamy of 

 that Georgia Legislature should be wiped out 

 by this kind of retribution. I was the first to 

 raise a voice in the Senate-chamber against 

 the swearing in of the two Senators-elect 

 from that State ; and I am glad to see that, 

 after the lapse of more than a year, the time 

 has come when the rights of the loyal men of 

 Georgia are to have a hearing upon the floor 

 of this Senate, and the arm of the United 

 States Government is to reach down there and 

 vindicate them. I am glad to find that the 

 time is approaching when the men who seized 

 the dominion of the Legislature of Georgia 

 are to be told that that dominion must end, 

 and that the loyal men elected by the people 

 of Georgia to the Legislature of that State 

 shall have their seats there no matter what the 

 color of their skin may be. And, sir, I want 

 the thing to appear right on the face of this 

 bill if it is to become a law ; I want it to be 

 understood throughout the United States that 

 there is a Congress of the United States that 

 wields the sovereignty of this nation, and that 

 that sovereignty can neither be arrested by 

 States nor by the Supreme Court of the United 

 States. 



" Sir, I hope that the amendment offered by 

 the Senator from Indiana will prevail." 



Mr. Morton, of Indiana, said : " Mr. Presi- 

 dent, the objection made by the Senator from 

 Wisconsin, I take it, is a direct impeachment 

 of the whole reconstruction policy from first 

 to last. The original act provided as a condi- 

 tion-precedent, as one of the conditions of re- 

 construction, that the rebellious States should 

 ratify the fourteenth amendment. We did not 

 put them in durance ; we cannot require them 

 to do it; we do not' by this amendment pro- 

 pose to require them to do it, but we put it to 

 them as a condition upon which they may re- 

 turn, for the future security and peace of this 

 nation. 



" Sir, it is not our fault that Georgia has 

 not been reconstructed. It is the result of her 

 treachery, the treachery of her Legislature, the 

 violation of good faith upon her part. She has 

 by her acts put off her reconstruction until the 

 fifteenth amendment has come before the coun- 

 try, and until reflection and experience have 

 shown that the ratification of the fifteenth 

 amendment is necessary to the preservation 

 of the whole work of reconstruction from the 

 beginning. 



" Without the fifteenth amendment, there is 

 no security for colored suffrage in any of the 

 Southern States. When the late rebels shall 

 get the power, and when colored suffrage is 

 secured in no other way except by the constitu- 



