166 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES, 



may happen again) that this expression, 

 'perishing party,' has been rather on the lip 

 here in the Senate than in the ballot-boxes of 

 the country. I have no anxiety about this 

 'perishing party;' I have not the slightest 

 anxiety about the result of the next presiden- 

 tial election; and I have little more doubt 

 about that result any more than I had in 1860, 

 or 1864, or 1868. 



"But, sir, I desire to say to the Senator 

 fVom California that I think he went quite too 

 far in imputing dishonorable motives to us. 

 The record of the last dozen years does not 

 justify such imputations. From the time of 

 the invasion of Kansas, in 1855, to this hour, 

 we have been sustained by the official record, 

 and more than vindicated. The official records 

 will prove and have proved that on every 

 occasion where we have denounced these out- 

 rages they were larger than they were repre- 

 sented here. They are now, and many Senators 

 know it. We have seen our friends mutilated; 

 we have stood by their dead bodies ; we have 

 stood by their graves. 



"Mr. President, I expected, when the war 

 closed, with the great cause of all our woes, 

 slavery, overthrown, that there would be some 

 outrages in the South. But, sir, these out- 

 rages have vastly exceeded any thing that I 

 expected. Hundreds of men, I may say thou- 

 sands of men, have lost their lives. Crimes 

 have been committed by organized, armed, 

 lawless bauds in portions of the South. 



" Mr. President, I desire to put an end to all 

 this ; to put it down by a sound, rational pub- 

 lic opinion throughout the nation. I would 

 rally the good men and the order-loving men 

 of the South against these outrages. I would 

 try to execute the laws. I would have the 

 people everywhere feel that the sympathy and 

 the support of the Federal Government are 

 behind the Constitution and behind the laws. 

 This strength, going out from the capital into 

 the lawless regions of the country, will awe 

 and put down lawless men and strengthen the 

 weak and the timid, and give courage to the 

 men who would have law and order. It seems 

 to me we all ought to strive to do this work 

 of humanity. 



" When these things are accomplished, as I 

 trust they soon will be, perhaps we shall have 

 a ' perishing party ; ' perhaps the party now in 

 power will perish because it has not a great 

 deal to do. A party must have some policy, 

 something to do in this world, to live, unless' 

 it be one of those old conservative concerns 

 that never has any thing to do but to oppose 

 whatever is done. Such an organization may 

 gain strength because it can stand still and do 

 nothing. I suppose there have been such 

 bodies of people. 



" I say to the Senator from California that I 

 think his remarks utterly unjustifiable; that 

 his imputation is sustained by no facts in our 

 previous history." 



Mr. Bayard, of Delaware, said : " Sir, this 



Administration commenced with words that 

 were fair. 'Let us have peace,' was the in- 

 coming cry of the Administration ; and on the 

 sentiment embodied in those words they car- 

 ried with them much of the popular feeling of 

 this country. That sentiment gave to that 

 party, probably more than any thing else in 

 the canvass, the success which they achieved. 

 Since the incoming of the Administration, 

 however, we have seen but little action in ac- 

 cordance with that sentiment on the part of 

 those to whom the Government of this country 

 has been intrusted. There was in the Presi- 

 dent's message during the present session of 

 Congress a most ominous silence on the sub- 

 ject of that part of our country where peace 

 was supposed to be most needed. 



"The air has been filled with rumors that 

 some such scheme was on foot of patching up 

 this wretched system of reconstruction as 

 should in effect again place the entire Southern 

 people under martial law, wielded by the 

 present Administration and its followers. How 

 is it that after the lapse of more than five 

 years, with unlimited power of legislation, 

 with unlimited power to fill all the offices in 

 the Southern States, new committees, new in- 

 vestigations, new laws and measures must be 

 resorted to in order to produce- good govern- 

 ment throughout the Southern States? What 

 a confession of incapacity and error is here 

 made! 



" As I have said, I anticipate as a foregone 

 conclusion the passage of this resolution. I 

 anticipate the appointment of this committee. 

 I anticipate the collection of evidence, almost 

 cut and dried to order, for the purpose of 

 justifying almost any such measures as we 

 have seen in the past, or which may be even 

 exceeded in the future. And yet that does not 

 prevent me from giving warning to my fellow- 

 countrymen all over this country of what I 

 believe to be the truth of the dangerous at- 

 tempts now being made. 



"The object of this resolution, this special 

 committee, in my solemn belief, is nothing in 

 the world but to obtain some pretext by which 

 you shall place the Southern people again 

 under martial law. There is not to-day in any 

 Southern State a single Federal officer who has 

 not been nominated by the President of your 

 choice and confirmed by this Senate. There 

 is not a district judge who is to preside at 

 trials ; there is not a district attorney who is 

 to prosecute for oifences against the laws of 

 the United States ; there is not a marshal who 

 has the sole discretion in selecting and sum- 

 moning the jurors who are to try such cases, 

 who is not a thick-and-thin partisan of your 

 Administration. And yet in the face of all 

 that you come here, disregarding the ordinary 

 processes of the laws and surely they are 

 numerous enough, surely they are severe 

 enough and appeal to force." 



The motion of Mr. Morton was agreed to. 

 The committee consisted of Mr. Scott, of 



