162 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



" Now, if that be tlie object of this bill, I can 

 well understand it. And yet I do not see why- 

 it is necessary, in order to do that, to violate 

 the Constitution of the United States, as this 

 bill does violate it, as I have shown in the 

 minority report which I have just presented. 

 In this purpose of settling the question of the 

 presidency of the United States and to settle 

 the conflict which is now going on in the South- 

 ern States, for the control of the national con- 

 vention, it is proposed to invest the General of 

 the Army or his friends with such supreme 

 power over the Southern States of this Union 

 in order that they can control the nomination 

 in the national convention by electing dele- 

 gates to that convention of their own prefer- 

 ence and creed. This seems to me to be the 

 great object of the bill. 



" The opponents of the nomination of the 

 General-in-Chief of the Army for the presi- 

 dency are doubtless willing to concur in the 

 passage of this bill, reasoning in their own 

 minds that, by giving him the dictatorship of 

 the country, by making him supreme over the 

 rights of property and of life, of civil and 

 municipal law, by clothing him with such high 

 prerogatives and power, like those given to 

 Roman generals of old, he will be certain in 

 the exercise of them to commit suicide and 

 destroy himself. Thus both the friends and 

 the opponents of the nomination of the Gen- 

 eral-in-Chief have united in presenting this 

 bill here, though with purposes entirely differ- 

 ent. The latter favor it in order to secure his 

 destruction ; the former in order to enable his 

 friends to control the national convention and 

 thus secure his nomination. 



" But this bill presents a few immediate prac- 

 tical results beyond that of a mere presiden- 

 tial nomination, though in all other respects 

 it overrides the Constitution and laws of the 

 country in every and in any form. And if I 

 am correct in that suspicion, or in that alle- 

 gation, I put it to this House, I put it to the 

 country, whether it becomes our dignity, the 

 dignity and the honor of the House of Repre- 

 sentatives, upon a bill so solemn in its form as 

 this, thus to engage in a presidential election 

 and settle the political difference between the 

 Chief Justice of the United States and the 

 General of the Army of the United States." 



Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, replied : " The ob- 

 ject of this bill is not to deprive the people of 

 those States of protection. The object of it is 

 to hasten the day when the people of those 

 States, under the protection of a law, obeyed 

 by the President and carried into effect by the 

 officers of the Army, to whom it becomes a 

 rule of official conduct, will reorganize gov- 

 ernments republican in form, to the satis- 

 faction of the Congress of the United States, 

 and, in the words of the bill, ' be restored to 

 political power in the Union.' 



"Now, what objection is there to that? 

 There can be but one objection; and that is 

 the argument that the people of those States 



already have republican forms of government. 

 How did they come by them ? Did their former 

 governments survive the rebellion of over four 

 years? There can be no republican govern- 

 ment in a State without an organized body of 

 officers qualified in accordance with the re- 

 quirements of the national Constitution. There 

 was no feuch organization in any one of those 

 States on the day that Lee surrendered to 

 Grant. 



" What sort of governments have they had 

 since then? An organization made by the 

 authority of the President of the United States, 

 who, in my judgment, had no right to deter- 

 mine the question at all. I lay nothing to his 

 charge for having interposed to aid the people 

 who might voluntarily have organized govern- 

 ments. But did they do it ? Have they laid 

 their constitutions of government before this 

 body ? Has the Congress of the United States 

 approved them ? The Congress has the right 

 to determine the fact whether there be repub- 

 lican governments there before the Congress 

 shall enforce the guarantee. Has Congress 

 approved them? Not at all. For four long 

 years the Congress disapproved their illegal 

 and void governments in a mode and manner 

 which any man can understand. 



" Will any gentleman rise in his place here 

 and say that the government of Mississippi, 

 for example, organized under the direction of 

 the President of the United States, with Gov- 

 ernor Sharkey appointed by him to that end, 

 is a republican government springing from the 

 people and resting upon the consent of a ma- 

 jority of the free male citizens of the United 

 States resident within its limits ? Not at all. 



" Sir, I will venture to say that there never 

 was a State government recognized as repub- 

 lican in form, in any period of the Republic, 

 which deprived a majority of the free male 

 citizens of the United States, resident within 

 its limits and charged with no crime, of all 

 voice or power in its administration. If there 

 ever was any thing that approached it, I 

 want to know when and where it was. I 

 say this only in vindication of the action of 

 Congress. All the past traditions of the Re- 

 public are against recognizing as republican in 

 form any of the governments in those ten dis- 

 organized States as they now .stand before the 

 country. 



"The party that maintains the unity of 

 the Republic, the party opposed to State seces- 

 sion, that party has declared, in more solemn 

 form than the people ever declared any thing 

 before in our history, that those States lately in 

 insurrection, and filled with the tempest and 

 conflict of battle, shall not again be admitted 

 to political power in this country, until, in the 

 most explicit and binding form of law, they 

 shall have given a new and irrepealable guar- 

 antee ^ for the future safety of the Republic. 

 That is the issue which underlies this legisla- 

 tion. We say to those States : ' Before you 

 send Representatives to this Hall, you must 



