CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



165 



disapprove of it, but lio said it was ono of nu- 

 merous plans which might bo adopted." 



Mr. Sunnier, of Massachusetts, said: "Will 

 tin- Senator allow me to interrupt him there? 

 I will stato that it BO happened that I had an 

 . ie\v with the. Into 1'resident Lincoln ini- 

 tho publication of that paper, 

 and it was the subject of very minute and pro- 

 tracted conversation, in the course of which, 

 after discussing it in detail, he expressed to mo 

 his regret that he had not accepted the bill." 



Mr. Sherman continued : u Mr. President, I 

 think every patriotic citizen of the United 

 - will express his regret, not so much 

 that the President did not approve that bill, 

 berauso I will not condemn the President for 

 declining to sign it, but that Congress in con- 

 nection with the President did not agree upon 

 pome plan of reconstruction by which these 

 States might have been guided, so that when 

 the rebellion was put down they might see in 

 the form of law some guide to lead them in the 

 difficult road to restoration. Who does not 

 now see that any law upon the subject would 

 have been better than the absence of all law ? 



" Now, I will ask Senators this plain ques- 

 tion, whether we have a right now, having 

 failed to do our constitutional duty, to arraign 

 Andrew Johnson for following out a plan which 

 in his judgment he deemed the best, and espe- 

 cially when that plan was the plan adopted by 

 Mr. Lincoln, and which at least had the ap- 

 parent ratification of the people of the United 

 States in the election of Lincoln and Johnson. 

 ^ " After this effort made by Congress to pro- 

 vide a plan of reconstruction, there was no 

 effort made subsequently, no bill was intro- 

 duced on the subject at the last session of Con- 

 gress, no further effort was made to harmonize 

 the conflicting views of the President and Con- 

 gress. One whole session intervened after this 

 veto, as I may call it, of President Lincoln, and 

 no effort was made by Congress to reconcile 

 this conflict of views ; and when President 

 Johnson came suddenly, by the hand of an as- 

 sassin, into the presidential chair, what did he 

 have before him to guide his steps ? The forces 

 of the rebellion had been subdued ; all physi- 

 cal resistance was soon after subdued ; the ar- 

 mies of Lee and Johnston and all the other 

 armies of the rebels had been overwhelmed, 

 and the South lay at our power. Who doubts, 

 then, that if there had been a law upon the 

 statute-book by which the people of the South- 

 ern States could have been guided in their 

 effort to come back into the Union, they would 

 have cheerfully followed it, although the con- 

 ditions had been hard ? 



" In the absence of law, I ask you whether 

 President Lincoln and President Johnson did 

 not do substantially right when they adopted a 

 plan of their own and endeavored to carry it 

 luto execution ? Although we may now find 

 fault with the terms and conditions that were 

 imposed by them upon the Southern States, yet 

 we must remember that the source of all p<.-wer 



in this country, the peoplo of the United States, 

 in the election of these two men substantially 

 sanctioned the plan of Mr. Lincoln. Why, r, 

 at the very time that Andrew Johnson was 

 nominated for tho Vice-Presidency he was in 

 Tennessee as military governor, executing the 

 very plan that he subsequently attempted to 

 carry out, and ho was elected Vice-President 

 of the United States when he was hi the prac- 

 tical execution of that plan. 



" What was tho condition of these States ? 

 I shall not waste much time upon this point, 

 because mere theoretical ideas never appear to 

 mo to have much force when we are legislating 

 on practical matters. They have been declareu 

 to be States in insurrection, but States still. 

 The very resolution we have before us repeats 

 three times that they are States now. Ihey 

 are referred to as States not entitled to repre- 

 sentation. They are stated to be 



The eleven States which Lave been declared to be 

 in insurrection. 



" And again : 



No Senator or Representative shall be admitted 

 into either branch of Congress from any of said 

 States until Congress shall nave declared such State 

 entitled to such representation. 



" I could show very many acts of Congress 

 in which they are referred to as States, but 

 States in insurrection. And there is no differ- 

 ence between Congress and the President as to 

 the present condition of these States. The 

 executive branch of the Government in all its 

 departments now treats them as States in re- 

 bellion or in insurrection. Tennessee is the 

 only ono of these States that has been pro- 

 claimed by the President to be out of insurrec- 

 tion. He is now exercising power in all these 

 States as States in insurrection. He is suspend- 

 ing newspapers, exercising arbitrary power, sus- 

 pending the writ of Tialeas corpus, treating them 

 yet as States in insurrection ; and in this view, 

 as I have stated, Congress concurs. 



" Now, what is tho legal result of a State 

 being in insurrection ? It jvas sufficiently de- 

 clared in the proposition I have already read, 

 offered by the Senator from Missouri. They 

 have no right while they are in insurrection to 

 elect electors to the electoral college ; they 

 have no right to elect Senators and Represent- 

 atives. In other words, they lose all those 

 powers, rights, and privileges conferred upon 

 them by the Constitution of the United States. 

 Having taken up arms against the United States, 

 they by that act lose their constitutional pow- 

 ers within the United States to govern and con- 

 trol our councils. They cannot engage in the 

 election of a President, or in tho election of 

 Senators or members of Congress; but they 

 are still States, and have been so regarded by 

 every branch and every department of this 

 Government They are States in insurrection, 

 whose rights under tho Constitution are sus- 

 pended until they cease to bo in insurrection. 

 When that period arrives is a question, in my 

 judgment, which must be determined by Cou- 



