CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



141 



is safe. That evidence has not yet beeii pre- 

 sented to this House. We have no sufficient 

 evidence that the classes of men whom this 

 bill proposes to relieve are safe depositaries 

 of political power. It is a duty we owe to the 

 loyal people of the country to see to it that 

 their rights are not imperilled. We should at 

 least pause before we admit the 'wooden 

 horse' within our halls, and know beyond 

 doubt that with it will come friends, not ene- 

 mies, of the republic." 



Mr. Wood, of New York, said : " I desire to 

 say of the bill here, as I said of it in the com- 

 mittee, that it is in no sense an amnesty bill. 

 Every section of the bill after the first section 

 really and in fact deals with other questions, 

 relieves nobody, removes the disabilities of 

 none imposed by the fourteenth amendment. 

 But, on the contrary, in the list of exceptions 

 to the benefits under the bill there is created 

 a new class of persons who are virtually dis- 

 franchised and removed from any hope of ever 

 hereafter having their political disabilities re- 

 moved as long as this bill, if it becomes a law, 

 shall remain on the statute-book. 



" Instead of an amnesty bill, it is a property- 

 grabbing bill. Instead of giving general par- 

 don for the oblivion and removal and annihi- 

 lation of all political offences committed in the 

 South during the rebellion ; instead of being a 

 measure of grace, it is a bill to defeat justice ; 

 it is a bill to deny a man's right to recover his 

 property; it is a bill to prevent any persons 

 from making application to the courts for the 

 purpose of securing their property rights, 

 wrongfully, improperly, and illegally taken 

 away from them. It is a measure, the effect 

 of which, if passed I will not say the design 

 of which by those who present it, but the 

 effect of which, if passed, will be to do injus- 

 tice, to deprive litigants of their proper redress, 

 and to grant a boon and a relief to the people, 

 of all others in the United States, who are the 

 least entitled to it." 



Mr. Cox, of New York, said : ".For one, I 

 am thankful that this measure, however ex- 

 ceptional and multifarious, is reported. The 

 nation should thank, as I do, the Massachusetts 

 member for its introduction. It will enable 

 the House to act. We are to have done, I hope, 

 with the retailing of personal amnesty. This 

 is a relief, for the principle of partial reprieve 

 which such partial legislation favors is even 

 more objectionable than the present measure. 

 We have now an opportunity to perfect a gen- 

 eral measure under the impulses and sentiment 

 of the recent election. 



"I hope the author of this bill, if it be 

 amended to make it simply an act of amnesty 

 from disqualifications for office, will not re- 

 pine, but carry the rejected parts of his bill to 

 another committee for a fuller consideration. 

 I promise him a candid discussion from this 

 part of the House. If the bill, as amended by 

 the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Farnsworth), 

 is not comprehensive enough to suit the gentle- 



' man from Massachusetts (Mr. Butler), if we 

 fail to do all which he thinks necessary for ob- 

 livion of our civil war and its litigious con- 

 sequences, let us console ourselves with the 

 thought that the remainder can be done in a 

 better form and spirit after public discussion, 

 and by a majority vote only. If our arrows 

 fall short of their aim, or be aimed, like those 

 of the friendly Jonathan, to fall beside the 

 mark, let them be found, when gathered up, to 

 be feathered from the dove of peace, and not 

 from that bird of prey which figures in our 

 rhetoric. Thus will we best progress toward 

 a just and perfect amnesty. 



"I do not doubt, Mr. Speaker, that if the 

 spirit of Sherman's agreement with Johnston, 

 or Grants with Lee, had been observed, there 

 would to-day, after so long a time, have been 

 no need of this measure. The third section 

 of the fourteenth amendment of the Constitu- 

 tion, forbidding the rebel leaders to hold Fed- 

 eral and State offices, would never have been 

 passed, nor would we now be required to ob- 

 tain two-thirds of each House to remove such 

 disabilities. There would have been no need 

 of an amnesty like that of the fourth section 

 of this bill for the Eepublican reconstruc- 

 tionists. Had General Grant's recommenda- 

 tion for the immediate representation of a 

 contented and obedient South known as the 

 'whitewashing' report been acted on in its 

 unpartisan and patriotic spirit, the discontents, 

 wrongs, and troubles of the South which yet 

 continue, would never have existed. The South, 

 or portions of it, now a heathen waste, like 

 the islands of the coast, would have been as 

 they once were, garden-spots of beauty and 

 plantations of utility." 



Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, said : " The House 

 will take notice that, in addition to the bill 

 reported from the Committee on Reconstruc- 

 tion by the honorable gentleman from Mas- 

 sachusetts (Mr. Butler), there are pending four 

 amendments, to wit, the substitute offered by 

 the honorable gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. 

 Beck), the amendment thereto offered by the 

 honorable gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Farns- 

 worth), and the substitute for the first section 

 of the bill which I had the honor to present, 

 and in addition to that the motion of the 

 honorable gentleman from California (Mr. Sar- 

 gent) to strike out all the original bill but the 

 first section. 



"I take notice of the last proposition first; 

 and, in pronouncing the judgment which I pro- 

 nounce to-day, I act upon the accepted rule 

 of statesmen in this age and in every age not 

 what you would do, but what you can do, 

 provided that what you can do is fitting and 

 just in itself. I shall be constrained, without 

 wasting words upon it, to vote against the 

 proposition of the gentleman from Illinois. 

 The country is not yet prepared to take that 

 step; nor do the public interests require the 

 present removal of the disabilities of all who, 

 being officers of the United States in 1860 or 



