CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



137 



in the Senate. I was very unwilling that 

 that should be changed. If the House i.f I;.-|>- 

 atives, for its own convenience and in 

 order to aeemnplMi business, finds it ne< 

 to adopt another rule, that rule can ho adopted 

 by the House as applicable to its own proreed- 

 togft, but not here ; and hence I was oppn-.'d 

 to that particular provision, and thought it un- 

 M tar as we were concerned. 



"My judgment was that every tiling that 

 was necessary could be accomplished by the 

 inero appointment of n joint committee of the 

 two Houses ; that it was not necessary to pro- 

 vide that all the credentials of members should 

 be referred to that committee. There was an 

 apparent constitutional objection to it; and 

 tin re is much force in the argument that if 

 that should be done, and the provision retained 

 that no action should be had until there was a 

 report from that committee, constituted as the 

 committee is to be, each House is putting into 

 the hands of the other a power to control its 

 action in a matter which, by the Constitution, 

 is left to itself. I might have been willing even 

 to strain a little upon that point had I con- 

 ceived that there was any danger; but, sir, 

 when we come to look at it, a committee is ap- 

 pointed by the ordinary rules of proceeding; 

 every thing relating to the proper subject- 

 matter, referred to that committee goes there ; 

 no harm would happen from a discussion in 

 this body on that subject; it would very soon 

 be settled, and we should avoid the apparent 

 difficulty that arose with reference to what was 

 our constitutional duty. I was not frightened 

 by any idea that it was necessary now to tie 

 up this body or that body by a joint rule which 

 could not be altered without the assent of the 

 other, because, on snch a subject, a majority 

 at any time will rule. If this body chooses 

 at any time to become false to its duty, it 

 will find P. way to accomplish the wrong; 

 and so will it be witb the House of Repre- 

 sentatives. 



" If the members of that body are, as I be- 

 lieve they will be, firm in their convictions of 

 right and what the good of the country re- 

 quires, there is no need of putting them under 

 the control of the Senate in order to keep them 

 so. Hence I agree with the honorable Senator 

 who moved this amendment that it is best to 

 strike out that clause, and simply appoint a 

 committee, and then if the Senate chooses to 

 pass a rule of its oVn to refer all the papers on 

 this subject, even credentials, to that commit- 

 tee, so be it ; it will have the control of that 

 subject: and if the House of Representatives, 

 on the other hand, chooses to do the same 

 tiling, so be it; it will have the control of its 

 own action, and we have accomplished the 

 great purpose, which is to put the considera- 

 tion of the question which lies at the founda- 

 tion of this subject of the admission of members 

 into the hands of a joint committee to be thor- 

 oughly consulted upon and considered. That 

 is the only ground upon which my judgment 



coincides with that of the honorable Senator 

 from Rhode Island. 



"My friend from Michigan (Mr. Howard) 

 will allow me to say to him that I do not think 

 the question of whether the men who may pra- 

 M nt themselves as members are n't to conn- in 

 now, or whether the States of which they pro- 

 ho the representatives are lit to come in 

 now and act with ns and ought to be admitted 

 to do so, is involved in this question at all. He 

 has argued it as if by striking out this portion 

 of the resolution we have settled that. By no 

 manner of means. If it would do so, I would 

 vote with him. We are only settling, on the 

 contrary, that that question shall be deferred 

 until a committee of both branches have thor- 

 oughly considered it and reported to this body : 

 and certainly I shall go with him, as long as I 

 believe that committee is doing its duty, in op- 

 posing action upon the subject committed to it 

 until it is ready to enlighten us with the infor- 

 mation it may have received and the conclu- 

 sions to which it may have arrived. I say this 

 simply to bar the inference that by this action 

 in amending it any one who may vote for it 

 means to say or intimate that he is ready to act 

 upon that question now and admit anybody 

 from any of these so-called Confederate States. 

 Certainly I am not one of them, and yet I shall 

 vote with the honorable Senator from Rhode 

 Island. 



" Allow me to say, sir, in closing, one thing 

 which I may as well say now in the beginning 

 of the session, because it is the principle which 

 I intend shall guide my action, and I hope will 

 guide the action of all of us. We have just 

 gone through a state of war. While we were 

 in it, it became necessary all around to do cer- 

 tain things for which perhaps no strict warrant 

 will be found ; contrary, at any rate, to pre- 

 vious experience. That I admit most distinctly. 

 Sir, I defended them from the beginning. I 

 laid down the principle that the man who, 

 placed in a position such as the President and 

 other officers occupied, would not, in a time of 

 war, and when his country was in peril, put 

 his own reputation at hazard as readily as he 

 would any thing else in order to do his duty, 

 was not fit for his place. I upheld many things 

 then that perhaps I would not uphold now, be- 

 cause they are not necessary. The time must 

 come when the Senate and House of Represent- 

 atives, the Congress, must revert to its own 

 original position. I do not think there wjll be 

 the slightest danger ; I have no apprehension of 

 any ; but if I act upon different principles now 

 and hereafter in a state of peace, from those 

 which I adopted and defended before, I wish 

 everybody to understand the reason for it. In 

 all countries, in all nations in a time of ex- 

 tivmc peril, extreme and somewhat quc-stiun- 

 ablc measures are inevitable." 



The amendment was agreed to. 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved further 

 to amend the resolution by striking out the 

 word " nine " in the second line and inserting 



