214 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



my protest against its enactment. Sir, I take 

 occasion to say that I am proud to be asso- 

 ciated with gentlemen on this floor who are 

 raising their voices in protest against a meas- 

 ure so iniquitous and monstrous. While we 

 are in a minority here, we have struggled to 

 oppose this legislation which is striking down 

 the very liberties of the people of this country ; 

 we have interposed by our votes and by our 

 voice in behalf of the rights of the people and 

 in defence of that liberty secured to us by our 

 fathers. 



"Now, Mr. President, what is proposed by 

 this bill ? The bill now under consideration 

 proposes to continue the enactment of April, 

 1871. What are the provisions of that law ? 

 It undertakes in substance to declare that cer- 

 tain crimes enumerated therein shall be 

 deemed rebellion. 'Rebellion' has a fixed 

 and definite meaning, and was understood at 

 the time of the adoption of the Federal Con- 

 stitution to be armed resistance to rightful au- 

 thority. It is something different from the 

 mere existence of ordinary crimes; and yet 

 the language of the act of April, 1871, is that 

 certain aces, therein enumerated, shall be 

 deemed rebellion, not that they are rebellion, 

 not that they have ever been considered re- 

 bellion by any civilized country in the world, 

 but for the purposes of that enactment those 

 crimes are to be deemed rebellion. That is 

 the provision of your law. 



"In order to justify the power with which 

 you mean to clothe the President, you declare 

 that the acts which you enumerate in certain 

 sections of the law shall be deemed rebellion, 

 and then confer upon the President absolute 

 power to suppress that rebellion which you 

 yourselves create. You call that rebellion 

 which never has been regarded as rebellion 

 under any law in any civilized country; and, to 

 suppress the rebellion which you have thus 

 proclaimed by your statute, you clothe the 

 President of the United States not only with 

 the power of employing the Army and the 

 Navy, but you clothe him with a frightful 

 power of declaring martial law and suspend- 

 ing the writ of habeas corpus, and denying to 

 the people of this country the rights which 

 were secured to them by their fathers in the 

 adoption of the Constitution. 



"Sir, the right to the writ of habeas corpus 

 is a right which is the heritage of freemen. It 

 came to us not by the adoption of the Federal 

 Constitution. It descended to us as our in- 

 heritance from our forefathers; and for two 

 hundred years that writ has been sacred in 

 England. In the days of Charles II. even his 

 prime-minister, Clarendon, dared not advise 

 Charles to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, 

 but, in order to evade it, he sent British sub- 

 jects out of the reach of the benefit of that 

 writ, and he was impeached by the British 

 Parliament because he attempted to deprive 

 the citizens of England of the benefit of habeas 

 corpus. And yet, in the American Senate to- 



day, you propose to clothe the President of the 

 United States with the fearful power of de- 

 priving the citizens of this free country of the 

 benefit of the writ of habeas corpus. You con- 

 fer upon him immunity to do that which led 

 to the impeachment of Clarendon, and which 

 if attempted by Charles would have cost him 

 his head. And why do you propose to confer 

 upon the President this power ? 



"The excuse is made that crimes are com- 

 mitted in certain Southern States. I am not 

 here to deny that crime may exist in the 

 Southern States ; but, let me ask, whose fault 

 it is that it does exist ? I say it here, and I 

 say it in the presence of the majority of the 

 Senate, that a large measure of the crimes 

 which may exist in the Southern States exist 

 there because of the legislation of the majority 

 of Congress. That people after the termina- 

 tion of the war, though despoiled of their 

 property, though mourning their dead, were 

 comparatively peaceful and happy. But you 

 stepped in with your legislation. In order 

 that you might control the politics of the coun- 

 try, you stirred up strife between the white 

 men and the negroes ; and you ought to take 

 to yourselves the unwholesome and unpleasant 

 recollection that at least a portion, and a large 

 portion, of whatever crimes may exist there is 

 justly attributable to the legislation which you 

 yourselves have enacted. 



"But suppose crime does exist there, have 

 you not Federal courts in every State in this 

 Union, and are not those courts clothed with 

 ample power to suppress it? You have the 

 judges, you have the marshals, you have all 

 the machinery for extirpating crime in every 

 State in this Union, and, if you do not do it 

 through the medium of the Federal courts, it 

 is your fault ; it is not the fault of the Demo- 

 cratic party." 



The Presiding Officer: " The question is on 

 ordering the bill to be engrossed and read the 

 third time." 



The bill was ordered to be engrossed for a 

 third reading, and was read the third time. 



The yeas and nays were ordered. 



The Chief Clerk proceeded to call the roll 

 on the passage of the bill, and the result was 

 announced as follows : 



YEAS Messrs. Ames, Anthony, Boreman, Cald- 

 well, Carpenter, Chandler, Clayton, Cole, Conkling, 

 Corbett, Edmunds, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, 

 Frelinghuyscn, Hamlin, Logan, Morrill of Maine, 

 Merrill of Vermont, Nye, Osborn, Patterson, Pome- 

 roy, Poole, Pratt, Kobertson, Sawyer, Scott, and 

 Spencer 28. 



NAYS Messrs. Alcornj Bayard, Blair, Casserly, 

 Cooper, Davis of West Virginia, Hamilton of Mary- 

 land, Johnston, Kelley, Hansom, Saulsbury, Sprague, 

 Stevenson, Thurman, and Vickers 15. 



ABSENT Messrs. Brownlow, Buckingham, Cam- 

 eron, Cragin, Davis of Kentucky j Fenton, Ferry of 

 Connecticut, Gilbert, Goldthwaite. Hamilton of 

 Texas, Harlan, Hill, Hitchcock, Howe, Kellogg, 

 Lewis, Morton, Norwood, Eamsey, Kice, Schurz, 

 Sherman, Stewart, Stockton, Sumner, Tipton, Trum- 

 bull, West, Wilson, Windom, and Wright 31. 



So the bill was passed. 



