188 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



" In perfect good faith, without one single 

 word of objection from any member on this 

 floor, we agreed to the application of this five- 

 minutes rule to this bill; but never did any 

 one suppose that that rule, which heretofore 

 has been properly and strictly construed, was 

 to be so interpreted, that the whole body of 

 the statute law of the United States was open 

 to be repealed, amended, or modified, by way 

 of amendment to this appropriation bill, and 

 that debate on it was to be limited to five min- 

 utes. Why, sir, every law, the law to enforce 

 the fourteenth amendment, the law to enforce 

 the fifteenth amendment, civil rights, every 

 thing may be altered, changed, amended, or re- 

 pealed, under this ruling that has been made, 

 and every Senator limited to five minutes. I 

 do pray that the Senate will reconsider what 

 it has done before it establishes such a rule of 

 despotism, utterly destructive of free debate in 

 the American Senate." 



Mr. Sumner, of Massachusetts, said: "Mr. 

 President, I thank the Senator from Ohio 

 for the word he has just uttered. He said 

 that, under the ruling of the Chair, the bill 

 for civil rights would be in order. I so under- 

 stood him." 



Mr. Thurman: "Certainly." 



Mr. Sumner : "He now says ' certainly,' and 

 I agree with him. The act which it is pro- 

 posed to amend is entitled ' An act to enforce 

 the rights of citizens of the United States to 

 vote in the several States of this Union, and for 

 other purposes,' and one ef its sections, section 

 eighteen, is as follows : " 



That the act to protect all persons in the United 

 States in their civil rights, and furnish the means of 

 their vindication, passed April 9, 1866, is hereby re- 

 enacted, and sections sixteen and seventeen thereof 

 shall be in force, according to the provisions of said 

 act. 



" Now, sir, I have nothing to say of the 

 ruling of the Chair, or the question of order 

 which the Senator has so ably debated. I ac- 

 cept the ruling of the Chair; I follow it ; I ap- 

 ply it logically, and I adopt the illustration 

 afforded by the distinguished Senator from 

 Ohio, when he said that it covered the civil 

 rights bill. I thank him for teaching us that 

 word. It does cover the civil rights bill, and 

 I now insist that the civil rights bill shall at 

 last find hospitality in this Chamber. Long 

 enough has it been played with and paltered 

 with. Now, at last, I insist upon a vote. I 

 move, sir, at the end of the pending amend- 

 ment to insert as follows : " 



Also, that the act above mentioned be further sup- 

 plemented and amended by adding the following 

 provisions. 



"Then follows what is known familiarly as 

 the civil rights bill, being a bill well known 

 in this Chamber, carefully drawn by myself, 

 much amended, debated, and this has all the 

 last emendations." 



Mr. Thurman : " And none of the emascula- 

 tions?" 



Mr. Sumner : " None of the emasculations ; 

 it is the pure article." 



The Presiding Officer (Mr. Pomeroy in the 

 chair) : " It is the duty of the Chair to remind 

 Senators that the motion now pending is to 

 indefinitely postpone the bill." 



Mr. Casserly said : " Sir, I listened with 

 amazement and with sorrow to the decision 

 of the Chair. There is not a justice's court in 

 the_ country where such a decision upon a 

 similar law with this would be made; or if 

 made, where it would not be torn into shreds 

 in fifteen minutes by any lawyer that was ever 

 qualified to argue about ten dollars. Why, 

 sir, it proceeds upon a theory that is essential- 

 ly false and unfounded in itself, namely, that 

 because an appropriation in a bill refers to a 

 law which has created a subject for that ap- 

 propriation to act upon, therefore you can in- 

 troduce any sort of amendment to reach that 

 bill. That is the proposition. 



" "Why, sir, what is the object of an appro- 

 priation bill ? It is not to make a new law ; 

 it is as to the expenditure of money. An ap- 

 propriation bill must have, before it can be 

 drawn even, subjects of expenditure already 

 created by law. In other words, there must 

 be laws on the statute-book providing for such 

 and such things, which require expenditure to 

 carry them out, in the first place. Then you 

 make your appropriation bill for the purpose 

 of appropriating the amounts of money neces- 

 sary to satisfy those expenditures. The de- 

 cision made here to-night amounts to this, 

 neither more nor less, that because there may- 

 be one to twenty or two hundred appropri- 

 ations in your bill that relate to the law cre- 

 ating the subject of that expenditure, therefore 

 you have the right upon that view of the case, 

 which is a necessary view, there can be no 

 appropriation bill without it, to amend these 

 laws creating that subject of expenditure in- 

 definitely. The appropriation bill becomes, 

 therefore, the omnibus of the whole legisla- 

 tion of the session. Under this rule, intended 

 to restrict an appropriation bill to its just and 

 proper function of applying the means for 

 carrying out subjects of expenditure created 

 by other laws, you may amend every law in 

 regard to the subject of expenditures, in re- 

 gard to which an appropriation is stated in the 

 bill. 



" And now, sir, at the end of the session, 

 within two legislative days of the adjourn- 

 ment, or less than two, all the controversies 

 over your Ku-klux bill and your bill for regu- 

 lating the elections by your bayonets in this 

 year of grace 1872, when the head of your 

 Government and the head of your armies is a 

 candidate for reelection those measures, and 

 others no worse and no better, are brought in 

 here to be fought over and thrust through 

 Congress at this session over the back of an 

 appropriation bill. What a spectacle for a 

 great majority party in Congress to present to 

 the country and to the world ! And to do that 



