MR. PRESIDENT,--The Senator from Oregon has made no criticism on the
resolutions, but nevertheless he objects to proceeding with them now;
he desires reference, he would have the aid of a committee, before he
proceeds with their consideration. If I can have the attention of the
Senator, it seems to me that this will be as good as a committee. The
resolutions are on the table; they are plain; they are unequivocal;
they are perfectly intelligible; and they make a declaration of
principle and of purpose which at this moment is of peculiar importance.
Congress has undertaken to provide for the military government of
the Rebel States, and has made certain requirements with regard to
Reconstruction, and there it stops. It has presented no complete
system, and it has provided no machinery. From this failure our
friends at the South are at this moment in the greatest anxiety.
They are suffering. Former Rebels, or persons representing the
Rebellion, are moving under our bill to take a leading part. Already
the Legislature of Virginia, packed by Rebels, full of the old Rebel
virus, has undertaken to call a convention under our recent Act.
Let that convention be called, and what is the condition of those
friends to whom you owe protection? Unless I am misinformed by valued
correspondents, the position of our friends will be very painful. I
have this morning a letter from Mr. Botts,--I mention his name because
he is well known to all of us, and I presume he would have no objection
to being quoted on this floor,--in which he entreats us to provide
some protection for him and other Unionists against efforts already
commenced by Rebels or persons under Rebel influence.
I am anxious for practical legislation to that end; but, to
pave the way for such legislation, I would have Congress, at the
earliest possible moment, make a declaration in general terms of its
purposes. The Senator says these resolutions do not propose practical
legislation. I beg the Senator’s pardon: they do not propose what we
call legislation, but they announce to these Rebel States what we
propose to do; they foreshadow the future; they give notice; they
tell the Rebels that they are not to take part in Reconstruction;
and they tell our friends and the friends of the Union that we mean
to be wakeful with regard to their interests. Such will be their
effect. They are in the nature of a declaration. At the beginning of
the war there was a declaration, which has been often quoted in both
Houses, with regard to the purposes of the war. Very often in times
past declarations of policy were made in one House or the other,
and sometimes by concurrent resolutions of the two Chambers. If the
occasion requires, the declaration ought to be made. In common times
and under ordinary circumstances there would be no occasion for such a
declaration, but at this moment there seems peculiar occasion; you must
give notice; and the failure of our bill to meet the present exigency
throws this responsibility upon us.
The next question is as to the character of the notice. It begins in
its title by declaring that certain further guaranties are required in
the Reconstruction of the Rebel States. Can any Senator doubt that such
guaranties are required? I submit that on that head there can be no
question. I am persuaded that my excellent friend from Oregon will not
question that general statement.
Mr. Sumner then took up the several points of the resolutions
in order and explained them. Coming to that declaring the
necessity of a homestead for the freedman, he proceeded:--
I believe that all familiar with the processes of Reconstruction have
felt that our work would be incomplete, unless in some way we secured
to the freedman a piece of land. Only within a few days, gentlemen
fresh from travel through these States have assured me, that, as they
saw the condition of things there, nothing pressed upon their minds
more than the necessity of such a provision. The more you reflect upon
it, and the more you listen to evidence, the stronger will be your
conclusion as to this necessity.
Do you ask as to the power of Congress? Again I say, you find it
precisely where you found the power to confer universal suffrage. To
give a homestead will be no more than to give a vote. You have done the
one, and now you must do the other. We are told that to him that hath
shall be given; and as you have already given the ballot, you must go
further, and give not only education, but the homestead. Nor can you
hesitate for want of power. The time for hesitation has passed.
MR. FESSENDEN [of Maine]. I should like to ask my friend a
question, with his permission.
MR. SUMNER. Certainly.
MR. FESSENDEN. The Senator put the granting of the ballot
on the ground that without it the Government would not be
republican in form, as I understood his argument.
MR. SUMNER. Yes.
MR. FESSENDEN. Now I should like to know if he puts the
possession by every man of a piece of land on the same ground.
MR. SUMNER. I do not.
MR. FESSENDEN. The Senator assimilated the two, and said, that,
having done the one, we must do the other. I supposed, perhaps,
the same process of reasoning applied to both.
MR. SUMNER. No; the homestead stands on the necessity of the
case, to complete the work of the ballot.
MR. GRIMES [of Iowa]. Have we not done that under the Homestead
Law?
MR. SUMNER. The freedmen are not excluded from the Homestead
Law; but I would provide them with a piece of land where they
are.
MR. FESSENDEN. That is more than we do for white men.
MR. SUMNER. White men have never been in slavery; there is no
emancipation and no enfranchisement of white men to be consummated.
I put it to my friend, I ask his best judgment, can he see a way to
complete and crown this great and glorious work without securing land?
My friend before me [Mr. GRIMES] asks, “How are we to get the land?”
There are several ways. By a process of confiscation we should have had
enough; and I have no doubt that the country would have been better,
had the great landed estates of the South been divided and subdivided
among the loyal colored population. That is the judgment of many
Unionists at the South. I say nothing on that point; but clearly there
are lands through the South belonging to the United States, or that
have fallen to the United States through the failure to pay taxes. It
has always seemed to me that in the exercise of the pardoning power it
would have been easy for the President to require that the person who
was to receive a pardon should allot a certain portion of his lands to
his freedmen. That might have been annexed as a condition. A President
properly inspired, and disposed to organize a true Reconstruction,
could not have hesitated in such a requirement. That would have been
a very simple process. I am aware that Congress cannot affect the
pardoning power; but still I doubt not there is something that can
be done by Congress. Where Congress has done so much, I am unwilling
to believe it cannot do all that the emergency requires. Let us not
shrink from the difficulties. With regard to the homestead there
may be difficulties, but not on that account should we hesitate. We
must assure peace and security to these people, and, to that end,
consider candidly, gently, carefully, the proper requirements, and then
fearlessly provide for them.
There is still another, which I have not named in these resolutions,
though I have employed it in the careful and somewhat extended
Reconstruction Bill which I have laid on the table of the Senate, and
which some time I may try to call up for discussion,--and that is, the
substitution of the vote by ballot for the vote _viva voce_. Letters
from Virginia, and also from other parts of the South, all plead for
this change. They say, that, so long as the vote _viva voce_ continues,
it will be difficult for the true Union men to organize; they will be
under check and control from the Rebels. I have a letter, received only
this morning, from a Unionist, from which I will read a brief passage.
…
Now does my excellent friend from Oregon, who wishes to bury this
effort in a committee, doubt the concluding resolution? Can he hesitate
to say that every one of these requirements is in the nature of a
guaranty, without which we shall not obtain that complete security
for the future which our country has a right to expect? There they
are. That the illegal governments must be vacated. Who can doubt
that? That provisional governments must be constituted as temporary
substitutes for the illegal governments. Who can doubt that? That the
new governments must be founded on an unalterable basis of loyalty,
and to that end no Rebels must be allowed to exert influence or agency
in the formation of the new governments. Who can doubt that? Then,
again, education: who can doubt? Certainly not my friend from Oregon:
he will not doubt the importance of education as a corner-stone of
Reconstruction. It is a golden moment. We have the power. Let us not
fail to exercise it. Exercising it now, we can shape the destinies of
that people for the future. There remains the homestead. I see the
practical difficulties; but I do not despair. Let us apply ourselves
to them, and I do not doubt that we can secure substantially to every
head of a family among the freedmen a piece of land, and we may then go
further, and, in the way of machinery, provide a vote by ballot instead
of a vote _viva voce_.
Now I insist that all these are in the nature of guaranties of future
peace, and we should not hesitate in doing all within our power to
secure them. I hope, therefore, that Senators will act on these
resolutions without reference to a committee. I see no occasion for a
reference. There is one objection, at least, on the face: it will cause
delay. Let these resolutions be adopted and go to the country, and you
will find that the gratitude of the American people, and of all Union
men at the South, will come up to Congress for your act.
Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, deprecated the adoption of the
resolutions. The bill recently passed “purported to be final.…
It provided certain terms, harsh and severe in the extreme,
upon which the States formerly in rebellion should be restored
to the Union.” He then remarked: “These resolutions come from
the right quarter. Whatever may be my opinion of his [Mr.
SUMNER’S] political views, I will say for that Senator, that
for the last two years he has been prophetic; what he has
announced, what he has declared, what he has said must be law,
has become law upon many subjects.… Let us know what is coming;
let us see the worst.… While I was very glad to find--if I
understood them correctly--that the Senator from Maine [Mr.
FESSENDEN] and some other Senators about me did not coincide
with the views of the Senator from Massachusetts, I could not
forget that two years ago I heard a Senator on this floor say
that upon another subject there was not a single Senator here
who agreed with the Senator from Massachusetts; and yet upon
that very subject I believe every Senator on the majority side
of the Senate now, if not at heart concurring with him, acts
and votes with him.”
Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, opposed the resolutions. It seemed to
him “not exactly fair or just or ingenuous to the Southern
people to add new terms, or require of them additional
guaranties, as conditions to the admission of representation.”
Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland, voted for the recent bill
because he thought he saw in opinions of Mr. Sumner, “and a few
others who concur with him, that, if the measure then before
the Senate was not adopted, harsher, much harsher, measures
would in the end be exacted of the South.”
Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, thought the resolutions
“unfair to Congress and unfair to the country.”