CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



125 



Resolved, That the message of the President of the 

 United States, with the reports of the heads of de- 

 partments, without the accompanying documents, be 

 printed, and that three thousand additional copies bo 

 printed for the use of the Senate. 



Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, said: "I 

 move to strike out the words relating to the 

 President's message, so that if there are extra 

 copies printed they may be the reports of the 

 departments, to which, so far as I know, there 

 is no objection. There is really a reason, in- 

 dependent of economy, why we should not 

 circulate extra copies of the President's mes- 

 sage. It has already been characterized as a 

 libel ; unquestionably it is a libel ; it is an in- 

 cendiary document, calculated to stimulate the 

 rebellion once more and to provoke civil war. 

 It is a direct appeal to the worst passions and 

 the worst prejudices of those rebels who, be- 

 ing subdued on the battle-field, still resist 

 through the aid of the President of the United 

 States. It is the evidence of a direct coalition 

 between the President and the former rebels. 

 If Jefferson Davis were President of the Uni- 

 ted States, he could not send to this chamber a 

 message different in character. I have often 

 said that Andrew Johnson was the successor 

 of Jefferson Davis, and this message is a com- 

 plete confirmation of all that I have hereto- 

 fore said. I hope the Senate will not put its 

 hands in the public Treasury in order to circu- 

 late over the country a document which is so 

 offensive to Congress, and which, just in propor- 

 tion to its influence, is calculated to arouse the 

 worst sentiments throughout the rebel States." 



Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, said: "I go 

 quite as far as any one in condemnation of the 

 tone, temper, and doctrines of the message, 

 but I think we are not justified in departing 

 from the ordinary practice of this body. The 

 message is an assault of the President of the 

 United States upon the Congress of the Uni- 

 ted States for attempting by legislation to take 

 the governments of the rebel States out of the 

 control of traitors into whose keeping he had 

 placed these governments. The writer of this 

 message seems to have forgotten altogether 

 the action of the President in 1865, and as the 

 Senator from Vermont (Mr. Edmunds) sug- 

 gests to me, he seems almost to have forgotten 

 that we ever had any rebellion at all. The 

 message remembers to forget that President 

 Johnson in the summer and autumn of 1865 

 assumed and exercised constitutional powers 

 for the exercise of which he now condemns 

 the legislative branch of the Government. If 

 the President's reconstruction policy was 

 within the provisions of the Constitution, 

 surely the reconstruction policy of Congress 

 is within the provisions of the Constitution. 

 If the President without the authority of law 

 could fix the terms and conditions for the re- 

 construction of the rebel States, surely Con- 

 gress, the law-making power of the Govern- 

 ment, could determine the terms and condi- 

 tions of reconstruction." 



Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, followed, saying : 

 " Mr. President, if it were possible to suppress 

 the message entirely, to keep it out of sight, 

 to prevent its being read by the American 

 people, I should not be surprised at the mo- 

 tion which has been made. Standing here 

 now as the advocate of a system of measures 

 condemned by the people, confessedly in a 

 minority, as those Senators now are in a mi- 

 nority of the people of the United States, as 

 shown by their latest verdict, rebuked, repudi- 

 ated by the people my friend (Mr. Conness) 

 smiles ; I shall soon come to his case I am 

 not surprised in the least that there should be 

 a desire to suppress arguments and information 

 of the character contained in this message. If 

 the question were only whether it should be 

 printed, I should be willing to leave it where 

 the Senator from Massachusetts who last spoke 

 has left it, for the Senate to decide. I think 

 that entirely immaterial. The public have 

 read it ; it has been spread before the people 

 of the United States, and I should be satisfied 

 to leave it there if the other Senator from 

 Massachusetts and the Senator from Michigan 

 had not denounced the document in language 

 which, to my mind, I will not say is improper 

 in this body that is not for me to say but 

 denounced it in a manner which I think it does 

 not deserve. 



" Now, what have they said ? The Senator 

 from Michigan (Mr. Howard) begins by saying 

 it is a libel, and I think he said an insult to 

 the Congress of the United States. The Sena- 

 tor from Massachusetts said he had often said, 

 had been in the habit of saying, that the Presi- 

 dent of the United States was a traitor equally 

 guilty with Jefferson Davis." 



Mr. Sumner : " That is not what I said. I 

 said the successor of Jefferson Davis." 



Mr. Dixon: "The successor of Jefferson 

 Davis how? In his principles, of course". 

 The Senator does not claim that he is the suc- 

 cessor in office. He says the President is the 

 successor of Jefferson Davis and equally guilty, 

 and still he complains that the President has 

 been guilty of a libel. It struck me at the 

 time, that, if there was any competition of ve- 

 hement language between the President and 

 that Senator it would be very easy to decide 

 who in vituperation had the advantage. He 

 who denounces the President as a traitor and 

 the successor of Jefferson Davis is not the man 

 to complain of any severity of language on the 

 part of the President of the United States. 



" Now, sir, what is this message ? Is it de- 

 serving of the severe attacks which have been 

 made upon it by these two distinguished Sena- 

 tors ? Is it a libel ? Is it violent in language ? 

 Does it show, as the Senator from Massachu- 

 setts says, bad temper? In the first place, 

 what is the duty of the President ? The Con- 

 stitution says that he shall from time to time 

 give to the Congress information of the state 

 of the Union, and recommend to their con- 

 sideration such measures as he shall judge 



