I agree with the Senator from Maryland [Mr. JOHNSON], so far as I was
able to follow his remarks. It seems to me it would be better, if the
term of the President were six years rather than four. I regretted
that the report of the Committee did not embody such a change. I am
therefore thankful to the Senator from Vermont, who by his motion gives
us an opportunity to vote on that proposition.
But allow me to go a little further, and there I should like the
attention of my friend opposite [Mr. JOHNSON]. If the term of the
President is to be six years, should we not abolish the office of
Vice-President? Are you willing to take the chance of a Vice-President
becoming President a few weeks after the beginning of the six years’
term, and then serving out that full term? We all know, in fact,
that the Vice-President is nominated often as a sort of balance
to the President. It is too much with a view to certain political
considerations, and possibly to aid the election of the President,
rather than to secure the services of one in all respects competent to
be President. Suppose, therefore, we have a President only, and leave
to Congress the provision for a temporary filling of the office, as now
on the disability of the President and Vice-President.
I throw out these views without making any motion. I submit that we do
not meet all the difficulties of the present hour, unless we go still
further and provide against abnormal troubles from the nomination
of a Vice-President selected less with reference to fitness than to
transient political considerations. As my friend says, he is thrown in
for a make-weight, and then, in the providence of God, the make-weight
becomes Chief Magistrate. It seems to me important, that, if possible,
we should provide against the recurrence of such difficulties.
But suppose the proposition of the Committee to stand as reported,
I am brought then to the question raised by the Senator from Maine
[Mr. FESSENDEN], whether it should be applicable to a Vice-President
in the providence of God called to be President. On that point I am
obliged to go with the Committee. It seems to me that the evil we wish
to guard against in the case of the President naturally arises in the
case of a Vice-President who becomes President. I say this on the
reason of the case, and then I say it on our melancholy experience.
The three cases in our history which distinctly teach the necessity
of the Amendment before us are of three Vice-Presidents who in the
providence of God became Presidents. But for these three cases, nobody
would have thought of change. It is to meet the difficulties found to
arise from a Vice-President becoming President, and then hearkening
to the whisperings and temptations which unhappily visit a person in
his situation, that we have been led to contemplate the necessity of
change. I hope, therefore, if the proposition of the Senator from
Vermont [Mr. POLAND] is not taken as a substitute, that the words of
the Committee will be preserved.
I am disposed to go still further. I would have an additional
Amendment,--one that has not appeared in this discussion, though not
unknown in this Chamber, for distinguished Senators who once occupied
these seats have more than once advocated it,--I mean an Amendment
providing for the election of President directly by the people, without
the intervention of Electoral Colleges. Such an Amendment would give
every individual voter, wherever he might be, a positive weight in the
election. It would give minorities in distant States an opportunity
of being heard in determining who shall be Chief Magistrate. Now they
are of no consequence. Such an Amendment would be of peculiar value.
It would be in harmony, too, with those ideas, belonging to the hour,
of the unity of the Republic. I know nothing that would contribute
more to bring all the people, to mass all the people, into one united
whole, than to make the President directly eligible by their votes. But
no such proposition is before us, nor is there any such proposition
as I have alluded to with regard to the office of Vice-President. I
hope, however, that these subjects will not be allowed to pass out of
mind, and that some time or other we shall be able to act on them in a
practical way.
After debate, the question was dropped without any vote.
RECONSTRUCTION AT LAST WITH COLORED SUFFRAGE AND PROTECTION AGAINST
REBEL INFLUENCE.
SPEECHES IN THE SENATE, ON THE BILL TO PROVIDE FOR THE MORE EFFICIENT
GOVERNMENT OF THE REBEL STATES, FEBRUARY 14, 19, AND 20, 1867.
The subject of Reconstruction was uppermost during the present
session, sometimes in Constitutional Amendments and sometimes
in measures of legislation.
* * * * *
February 13th, the Senate received from the House of
Representatives a bill “to provide for the more efficient
government of the Insurrectionary States,” which, after various
changes, was finally passed under the title of “An Act to
provide for the more efficient government of the Rebel States,”
being the most important measure of legislation in the history
of Reconstruction. As this bill came from the House it was a
military bill, creating five military districts in the South,
without any requirement with regard to suffrage, and with no
exclusion of Rebels. Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, and Mr. Blaine, of
Maine, announced in the House amendments requiring in the new
constitutions “that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed
by all male citizens of the United States twenty-one years
old and upward, without regard to race, color, or previous
condition of servitude, except such as may be disfranchised for
participating in the late Rebellion or for felony at Common
Law.” But they had not been able to obtain a direct vote; nor
was there any exclusion of Rebels in their propositions. Mr.
Stevens, of Pennsylvania, said:--
“The amendment of the gentleman from Maine [Mr. BLAINE]
lets in a vast number of Rebels and shuts out nobody. All
I ask is, that, when the House comes to vote upon that
amendment, it shall understand that the adoption of it
would be an entire surrender of those States into the hands
of the Rebels.”
About this time the House passed what was known as the
Louisiana Bill, being a bill providing for the reconstruction
of that State, with all necessary machinery, not unlike the
bill introduced on the first day of the preceding session,
“to enforce the guaranty of a republican form of government
in certain States whose governments have been usurped or
overthrown.”[83] The two bills together would have made a
complete system of Protection, and the second, when extended to
all the States, a complete system of Reconstruction.
* * * * *