CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



165 



that the result of the doings of a special com- 

 mittee to be constituted in reference to the 

 papers now upon the table is already a fore- 

 gone conclusion. "Why, sir, is it not too pal- 

 pable for anybody's doubt or contradiction? 

 We had the whole subject here at the last ses- 

 sion. Within a year the most distinguished 

 men of the majority here, including the Sen- 

 ator from Indiana (Mr. Morton), who has of- 

 fered this resolution, exhausted themselves and 

 the subject, I will not say for the purpose, but 

 with the result, of fanning into new life, as far 

 as they could, the embers of a great civil war, 

 the embers of sectional conflict and hate. And, 

 sir, was there ever any thing that failed so 

 signally as did that labored endeavor, whether 

 you consider this body and the result here, or 

 the result before the people at the recent elec- 

 tions ? The mass of the charges, if I remember 

 correctly, upon which the Senator from In- 

 diana descanted then with so much vehemence, 

 with so much power, I regret to say, consid- 

 ering the evils of his course, were stale charges, 

 charges that had been gone over and over again 

 until holes were worn through them. Cer- 

 tainly they were charges a great many of which 

 were as old as 1S67. Are there any new 

 charges here to-day? If there are, why has 

 not the country heard of them ? What figure 

 have they made in the press ? Whence have 

 they been dug up ? 



" Sir, I shall regret a controversy here ; I 

 shall regret any proceeding which will tend 

 to open anew the flood-gates of hatred, even 

 although that opening may serve to stay the 

 doom of a perishing party. Here and now I 

 say it, there is no party in this country, and 

 there never was, which is worth so much to 

 the country as to compensate in the smallest 

 degree for the renewal of sectional and fratri- 

 cidal animosities like those of the last ten years. 

 I am attached to the political party to which 

 I belong because of its excellent principles, of 

 its great services in the past, and its great ca- 

 pacities for usefulness in the future. But if 

 even that party could not be maintained except 

 by arraying one part of the country against 

 the other, except by slandering and maligning 

 a part of the Union in order to fan into being 

 again the flames of civil hatred, wellnigh ex- 

 tinguished by time and the better sense of the 

 people, I would say, let it perish, let it go 

 down ; the best thing for it is speedy burial. 



" I do not believe either in the accusations 

 or in the policy that prompts them. I can 

 well understand that there are in the South 

 disorderly and violent men. They are the 

 natural fruits of the war and of your own mis- 

 government. They are but a handful, easily 

 dealt with by any government dealing with 

 them in the right spirit. But what I do not 

 believe is, that the mass of the Southern people 

 are the barbarians they have been represented 

 to be, over and over on this floor, by prominent 

 Senators of the majority. It would be a great 

 deal better for the dignity of this body, for the 



peace of this country, for the good standing of 

 the American people before the enlightened 

 judgment of Christendom, to say at once what 

 is the object of all this exaggerated outcry of 

 outrages in the South ; of all this hollow parade 

 of investigations far better to come directly 

 to the point like men, and let it be understood 

 that no one of the States lately in insurrection 

 will be permitted to come back here until she 

 sends to the Senate and to the House of Rep- 

 resentatives men whose party politics shall be 

 acceptable to the accidental party majority in 

 each. 



" Let 'that be understood ; then will there 

 be no need any more for the periodical per- 

 formances here, for the demonstrations of pas- 

 sion or the torrent of studied vituperation 

 poured out against the people of the South. If 

 I thought the tenth part of such vituperation 

 could be true, I should mourn over the land 

 that had nursed such children as inevitably 

 lost. What a gain that change would be for 

 the proprieties of this body and for the general 

 credit of the American people ! 



" I do not doubt that in parts of the South 

 there are troubles. Considering the terrible 

 ordeal, first of the war and then of your mis- 

 government, it would be wonderful if there 

 were not. But why exaggerate them ; why 

 turn them into capital for a party ? " 



Mr. Warner, of Alabama, said : " I think the 

 Senator and the Senate will understand that I 

 occupy a standpoint in regard to the Southern 

 people that entitles me to speak as to the con- 

 dition of affairs there. I have offered to the 

 Southern people, in my person, from the end of 

 the war, from the time that I took off the uni- 

 form of a Federal soldier, the olive-branch of 

 peace. I have said to them, again and again, in- 

 dividually, upon the rostrum in Alabama, and 

 here, upon my responsibility as a Senator, that I 

 was willing and anxious to forgive the past ; 

 that I fought as a Federal soldier only for the 

 union of my country and for its peace and wel- 

 fare, and liberty in the future. I say that to-day. 

 I cherish no animosities for the past. I am as 

 ready to-day, as I have been since the war, to 

 rise above all the passions of the past, and, in 

 a spirit of Christian statesmanship, to do that 

 which shall seem to me best for the welfare of 

 my country now and in the future." 



Mr. Wilson, of Massachusetts, said : " Sir, it 

 never entered my mind that an earnest, con- 

 stitutional, legal effort here in Congress to in- 

 vestigate these murders, these outrages that 

 are perpetrated by a class of lawless men in 

 portions of the country, and to find a remedy 

 if we could, would be met by any opposition 

 here, or that it had any thing of political sig- 

 nificance about it. I have no desire to drag in 

 this question or any other question here to 

 save what the Senator is pleased to call 'a 

 perishing party.' I have heard a great deal 

 during the last ten years about ' a perishing 

 party,' but it has so happened (and I would 

 remind the Senator from California that it 



