164 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



of the laboring people, and pretending to be 

 the born rulers of this great Republic. They 

 looked down, not only upon their slaves, but 

 also upon the people of the North, with the 

 haughty contempt of self-asserting superiority. 

 When their pretensions to rule us all were 

 first successfully disputed, they resolved to 

 destroy this Republic, and to build up on the 

 corner-stone of slavery an empire of their own 

 in which they could hold absolute sway. They 

 made the attempt with the most pverween- 

 ingly confident expectation of certain victory. 

 Then came the civil war, and, after four years 

 of struggle, their whole power and pride lay 

 shivered to atoms at our feet, their sons dead 

 by tens of thousands on the battle-fields of this 

 country, their fields and their homes devas- 

 tated, their fortunes destroyed ; and more than 

 that, the whole social system in which they 

 had their very being, with all their hopes and 

 pride, utterly wiped out ; slavery forever abol- 

 ished, and the slaves themselves created a 

 political power before which they had to bow 

 their heads, and they, broken, ruined, helpless 

 and hopeless in the dust before those upon 

 whom they had so haughtily looked down 

 as their vassals and inferiors. Sir,- can it be 

 said that the rebellion has gone entirely un- 

 punished ? 



" You may object that the loyal people, too, 

 were subjected to terrible sufferings ; that their 

 sons, too, were slaughtered by tens of thou- 

 sands ; that the mourning of countless widows 

 and orphans is still darkening our land ; that 

 we are groaning under terrible burdens which 

 the rebellion has loaded upon us, and that 

 therefore part of the punishment has fallen 

 upon the innocent. And it is certainly true. 



" But look at the difference. We issued from 

 this great conflict as conquerors; upon the 

 graves of our slain we could lay the wreath 

 of victory; our widows and orphans, while 

 mourning the loss of their dearest, still remem- 

 ber with proud exultation that the blood of 

 their husbands and fathers was not spilled in 

 vain ; that it flowed for the greatest and holiest 

 and at the same time the most victorious of 

 causes; and when our people labor in the 

 sweat of their brow to pay the debt which the 

 rebellion has loaded upon us, they do it with 

 the proud consciousness that the heavy price 

 they have paid is infinitely overbalanced by 

 the value of the results they have gained : 

 slavery abolished ; the great American Repub- 

 lic purified of her foulest stain ; the American 

 people no longer a people of masters and 

 slaves, but a people of equal citizens; the 

 most dangerous element of disturbance and 

 disintegration wiped out from among us; this 

 country put upon the course of harmonious 

 development, greater, more beautiful, mightier 

 than ever in its self-conscious power. And 

 thus, whatever losses, whatever sacrifices, 

 whatever sufferings we m.iy have endured, 

 they appear before us in a blaze of glory. 



"But how do the Southern people stand 



there ? All they have sacrificed, all they have 

 lost, all the blood they have spilled, all the 

 desolation of their homes, all the distress that 

 stares them in the face, all the wreck and ruin 

 they see around them, all for nothing, all for 

 a wicked folly, all for a disastrous infatuation; 

 the very graves of their slain nothing but mon- 

 uments of a shadowy delusion ; all their former 

 hopes vanished forever; and the very magnilo- 

 quence which some of their leaders are still 

 indulging in nothing but a mocking illustration 

 of their utter discomfiture ! Ah, sir, if ever 

 human efforts broke down in irretrievable dis- 

 aster, if ever human pride was humiliated to 

 the dust, if ever human hopes were turned into 

 despair, there you behold them. 



" You may say that they deserved it all. 

 Yes, but surely, sir, you cannot say that the 

 rebellion has gone entirely unpunished. Nor 

 will the Senator from Indiana, with all his 

 declamation (and I am sorry. not now to see 

 him before me), make any sane man believe 

 that, had no political disabilities ever been im- 

 posed, the history of the rebellion, as long as 

 the memory of men retains the recollection of 

 the great story, will ever encourage a future 

 generation to rebel again, or that, if even this 

 great example of disaster should fail to extin- 

 guish the spirit of rebellion, his little scare- 

 crow of exclusion from office will be more than 

 a thing to be laughed at by little boys." 



Mr. Robertson, of South Carolina, said: "I 

 withdraw my motion to postpone this bill, in 

 order to make another motion. Before doing 

 that, I will say that my object in making this 

 motion is to ascertain the views of Senators 

 as to which bill they prefer. I now move to 

 lay on the table the pending bill, for the pur- 

 pose of taking up the last bill passed by the 

 House, No. 1050, which has only two excep- 

 tions in it." 



The Vice-President : "House bill No. 380 

 being now before the Senate, with the amend- 

 ment of the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. 

 Surnner) pending, the Senator from South 

 Carolina (Mr. Robertson) moves that the bill 

 and amendment lie on the table, giving notice 

 that if that motion shall prevail he intends to 

 move to take up another amnesty bill from the 

 House of Representatives, which he states has 

 fewer exceptions in it. The question is on 

 laying on the table the pending bill." 



The yeas and nays were ordered ; and, being 

 taken, resulted as follows : 



YEAS Messrs. Blair, Davis of West Virginia, 

 Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, Hill, 

 Hitchcock, Johnston, Kelly, Logan, Norwood, Eob- 

 ertson, Schurz, Scott, Stevenson, Stockton, Thur- 

 man, Tipton, Trumbull, and Vickers 20. 



NAYS Messrs. Ames, Anthony, Boreman, Brown- 

 low, Caldwell, Cameron, Carpenter, Chandler, Clay- 

 ton, Cole, Corbett, Cragin, Edmunds, Ferry of 

 Michigan, Flanagan, Frelinghuysen, Gilbert, Hamil- 

 ton or Texas, Hamlin, Harlan, Morrill of Vermont, 

 Morton, Nye, Osborn, Pomeroy, Pool, Sherman, 

 Spencer, Sumner, West, Wilson, Windom, and 

 Wright 33. 



ABSENT Messrs. Alcorn, Bayard, Buckingham, 



