CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



139 



anything against him, then I am worse off; 

 and that is just the case here. 



"I confess, Mr. Speaker, that I have never 

 before, in my limited experience as a member 

 upon this floor, seen a bill which went further 

 aside from carrying out the object it purported 

 to have in view than the one now under con- 

 sideration reported from a majority of the se- 

 lect Committee on Keconstruction. While it 

 holds out the promise to the ear, it breaks it 

 to the hope. While it retains all the pains 

 and penalties imposed upon the people who 

 were engaged in the rebellion, it takes away 

 from them all rights of action under the law 

 which they may have against even the most 

 flagrant wrong-doers, against the despoilers of 

 their homes, and the plunderers who for pri- 

 vate gain made them beggars. It subjects them 

 to suits on contracts with men who were 

 equally amenable to the charge of giving aid 

 and comfort to the rebellion as themselves. 

 While you allow rights of property, as decided 

 by the courts, to be taken away from these 

 men, you still allow them to be proceeded 

 against in every form, and cut off all their de- 

 fence. There are thousands and tens of thou- 

 sands of such persons, men of wealth and po- 

 sition, brought within the various exceptions." 



Mr. Potter, of New York, said : " I do de- 

 sire to call the attention of the House at this 

 time to the extraordinary provisions of this 

 bill in so far as it affects private rights through- 

 out the South. If I understand the bill, this 

 mantle of oblivion, as he styles it, which the 

 gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Butler) 

 brings here to-day, will extinguish every pri- 

 vate right of property throughout the Southern 

 States which may have grown out of the trans- 

 actions of the war. According to the views 

 of gentlemen on the committee, with whom I 

 have spoken on the subject, and to the expla- 

 nations of the bill made by the gentleman from 

 Massachusetts (Mr. Butler) himself, any officer 

 who, during the war, broke into the private 

 house of any citizen, and, in pursuance of orders 

 received, carried off that citizen's property, and 

 then kept it, and who has since been sued by 

 the citizen so injured for the recovery of the 

 property taken, will be entitled, after the pas- 

 sage of this bill, to plead the amnesty created 

 by it as a bar to the recovery by the owner 

 whom he wronged of the property taken. 



" Now, surely, sir, if this bill is to have such 

 an effect as I have stated upon private rights, 

 it must shock every man's sense of justice. 

 Whatever forgiveness we may be willing to 

 exercise in regard of the rebellion, that forgive- 

 ness should not be allowed to impair any man's 

 right of property in what justly belongs to him. 

 And yet the obvious effect of the provisions of 

 this law is not only to impair but to utterly 

 destroy most important rights of property. 

 This bill declares that ' each and every person, 

 and all and singular the bodies politic and cor- 

 porate and municipal, and each and every of 

 them, shall be discharged ' not only in respect 



of all treason, but in respect of all ' trespasses, 

 entries, and wrongs,' and of all sums of money 

 due or owing, of every name and kind what- 

 ever, and in respect of ' all other causes, quar- 

 rels, and things ' * in any way or manner what- 

 ever arising or springing out of or coming from 

 any act done or omission made in, about, or 

 concerning the war of the rebellion,' from 

 the year 1861 to the year 1866." 



Mr. Morgan, of Ohio, said: "I regret, Mr. 

 Speaker, that the chairman of the select Com- 

 mittee on Reconstruction (Mr. Butler) who 

 has reported this measure, which he styles an 

 amnesty bill, has not learned the true meaning 

 of the word as lately taught by the people of 

 Missouri and West Virginia at the ballot-box. 

 I do not refer to those elections in a spirit of 

 partisan triumph, but to cause gentlemen to 

 realize the great change which has taken place 

 in public sentiment during the past few years. 

 Sir, the people, always patriotic even when in 

 error, are tired and weary of discord, and long 

 for the return of peace, good-will, and pros- 

 perity. They look with alarm at the constant 

 recourse to the bayonet, on any and every pre- 

 text, to control elections and enforce the col- 

 lection of unequal and oppressive taxes. They 

 are tired of 'military necessity' in time of 

 peace, and ask that the Constitution and the 

 laws may be reestablished and respected. 



"The angry passions which existed at the 

 close of the war have subsided, and the people, 

 irrespective of party, desire to see proclaimed 

 amnesty in fact, the restoration of political 

 rights to our countrymen, and to enter upon a 

 new career of good-will among all, prosperity 

 and happiness for the whole people, with one 

 flag, one country, and one destiny. 



"There is very little in this bill which 

 should commend it to this House, or which 

 will commend it to the country. Under the 

 fourteenth amendment, political disabilities 

 can only be removed by a vote of two-thirds 

 of each House. No such provision is in this 

 bill. On the contrary, it provides in the first 

 section 'that no damage, loss, harm, wrong, 

 or injury, shall hereafter come, or any right 

 or claim accrue, to any persons against any 

 other person not hereinafter excepted, of, 

 from, or because of any act done by him, or 

 omitted to be done, in aid of, or in the sup- 

 pression of, or because of the late rebellion.' 

 The worst of traitors the Northern man who, 

 for the sake of blood-stained gain, secretly 

 furnished the Confederates with munitions of 

 war, while prating loyalty at home is not 

 only granted 'full and general grace, amnesty, 

 and oblivion of all wrongful acts and doings 

 in the war of the late rebellion,' but by being 

 pardoned he would be enabled to collect and 

 receive payment upon the supplies made by 

 him to aid in the overthrow of the Union. 



"In disregard of the wishes of the people, 

 the bill ingeniously provides against the re- 

 moval of political disabilities; the very thing 

 our constituents demand, a demand made sig- 



