CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



161 



upon the judgment of the people of the North 

 as to the form, or the manner, or the extent 

 in which they shall make that public recogni- 

 tion of the services of the leader of their 

 armies. For that reason I shall not allow my 

 judgment to be put in opposition to theirs; 

 nor can I, upon ari investigation of the sub- 

 ject, find any ground of constitutional objec- 

 tion or of public policy that would justify me 

 in doing so. The whole extent of the question 

 is, Shall a public acknowledgment by the Con- 

 gress of the United States be made of military 

 services which by the general verdict of the 

 American people have been recognized as pre- 

 eminent? Upon that question there can be no 

 great difference of opinion. I shall vote for 

 the bill, sir, and vote for it with pleasure." 



Mr. Jonas, of Louisiana : " Mr. President, 

 I have been sick and absent from my seat for 

 several days, and had no intention of taking 

 part in this debate. As it seems, however, 

 that we will be called upon in a few moments 

 to vote, I desire briefly to give the reasons why 

 I can not vote for this bill, or for the amend- 

 ment offered by the Senator from Delaware. 



" While Senators from the South have been 

 airing their Confederate reminiscences, and ac- 

 knowledging their patriotic adhesion to this 

 Government, which again and again they have 

 adhered to, and to which they have again and 

 again vowed allegiance, while they are making 

 their new protestations, they seem to have for- 

 gotten the fact that sixteen years have passed 

 since the war ended. They seem to have for- 

 gotten that there are no longer any sectional 

 distinctions or divisions in this country. They 

 seem, some of them, to have forgotten that 

 they sit on this floor not as Southern Senators, 

 or ex-Confederates, but as American Senators 

 representing States in the Union. 



" I was astonished a few moments ago to 

 see my esteemed friend from Florida (Mr. Call) 

 arise and to hear him, in the character of an 

 ex-Confederate, say that he sat here for the 

 purpose of doing that which the Senators of 

 the North and the people of the North desire 

 to have done. I acknowledge no such obliga- 

 tions and I acknowledge no such distinctions. 

 This is an American Senate, and I represent in 

 part one State of this Union, as the Senators 

 from Northern States represent their States 

 and their constituents, and I will be guided in 

 the votes which I cast by my idea of my duty 

 to my whole people instead of what I think it 

 becomes me to do as an ex-sinner and ex-Con- 

 federate in order to atone for that sin which I 

 committed twenty years ago by offering here 

 in my place to execute the edict of the North- 

 ern members of this body, or what is supposed 

 to be the will and pleasure of the Northern 

 people. I do not think that this is the proper 

 way in which this measure should be consid- 

 ered. 



" I am not opposed to this bill simply be- 

 cause of its unusual character. I am not op- 

 posed to the bill simply because it proposes to 

 VOL. xxii. 11 A 



put a civilian on the retired list of the army. 

 I am still less opposed to it because I would 

 in the slightest degree detract from the great 

 fame, the great renown, which has been con- 

 ferred upon General Grant not only by the 

 people of this country but by the people of the 

 world, who have proclaimed him to be one of 

 the greatest and most successful military com- 

 manders of modern days. 



"I was an humble soldier in the Confederate 

 army ; but I have never revamped my recol- 

 lections of secession, rebellion, and war, and 

 brought them upon this floor. I have never 

 alluded in words of criticism to anything which 

 occurred during the war. I have said nothing 

 and have nothing to say in condemnation of 

 any military act committed during the war. 

 I have stood ready here to give all honors, and 

 all praise, and all glories to the heroes of the 

 war. I have stood here ready to yield to no 

 man in my devotion to the interests of the 

 soldiers who fought against me. I have been 

 willing to vote for their pensions ; I have been 

 willing to vote for their promotions ; I have 

 been willing to accede to all honors and to all 

 glories which a grateful people, rightly in my 

 opinion, have been disposed to shower upon 

 them. 



" But the proposed beneficiary of this bill, 

 at a time when the people had placed him at 

 the head of the army, when they had created 

 the highest military office in the land for him 

 to fill, when they had placed him in a position 

 full of honor and full of emolument, which he 

 could have occupied to his last days with the 

 approbation and unanimous approval of the 

 whole people of the country, North and South, 

 thought fit to abdicate that position, and to 

 enter upon the career of a civilian and a poli- 

 tician. Elected by his people to the highest 

 office in the Government, honored equally with 

 the Father of his Country, and equally with 

 any of the best and greatest in our country's 

 history, he retired from that position only 

 because the people were faithful to their tradi- 

 tions, and considered that his measure of civic 

 honor had been filled. I have not heard that 

 he has lost fortune. If so, I stand here ready 

 to assist in voting him a pension, in voting him 

 money, in voting him anything which will aid 

 in paying the debt which the nation owes him 

 as a successful commander of her army, and 

 probably as such her savior in her hour of 

 peril. When, however, he comes here as a 

 civilian, and when we are asked to place him 

 upon the retired list of the army as a reward, 

 not for his military services, because we re- 

 warded them to our uttermost at the time he 

 was a soldier, but to reward him as a civilian, 

 I stand here as the representative of a people 

 who have the right to challenge his acts as a 

 civilian, and to ask in what he has earned their 

 gratitude and in what he is entitled to their 

 praise or further honor. 



" Mr. President, I can not vote for General 

 Grant, because as President in 1873, and in 



