qualifications which are not common to other sections or other races of the world. I believe the white man can govern it without the aid of the negro; and I do not believe that it is necessary for the white man that the negro should vote. If he ever does vote, it will be simply as a boon to him. I think we can carry on the Government without him. I think we have had abundant proof of that.

"Inasmuch as this was not a part of the verdict of the war; inasmuch as I do not believe it to be necessary for the preservation of the Union, but will endanger our national existence, I am for the Union without negro suffrage, but I am not in favor of turning the negro over to oppression in the South. I am in favor of legislation under the constitutional amendment that shall secure to him a chance to live, a chance to hold property, a chance to be heard in the courts, a chance to enjoy his civil rights, a chance to rise in the scale of humanity, a chance to be a man. I am in favor of this because we are pledged to do it. We have given him freedom, and that implies that he shall have all the civil rights necessary to the enjoyment of that freedom. The Senator from Illinois has introduced two bills, well and carefully prepared, which if passed by Congress will give full and ample protection under the constitutional amendment to the negro in his civil liberty, and guarantee to him civil rights, to which we are pledged."

Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, followed, in opposition to the bill. He said that the bill proposed to make the Freedmen's Bureau permanent, and to extend it over the States of the North as well as the South. It asked for an appropriation of nearly twelve millions of dollars to carry on the operations. It provides for an army of officers who are to be organized under the War Department. It proposes to confirm the rights of the colored people to lands under General Sherman's order, for three years, and authorizes the officers to buy homes for the poor colored freed

men.

He further said: "The language is very comprehensive. We propose, first, to legislate against the effects of 'local law, ordinance, police, or other regulation;' then against 'custom,' and lastly, against 'prejudice,' and to provide that if any of the civil rights or immunities belonging to white persons' are denied to any person because of color, then that person shall be taken under the military protection of the Government. I do not know whether that will be understood to extend to Indiana or not. That will be a very nice point for the bureau to decide, I presume, after the enactment of the law. The section limits its operation to any State or district in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has been interrupted by the rebellion.'

"It is claimed that under the second section, Congress may do any thing necessary, in its judgment, not only to secure the freedom of the negro, but to secure to him all civil rights that are secured to white people. I deny that construction, and it will be a very dangerous con

struction to adopt. The first section abolishes slavery. The second section provides that Congress may enforce the abolition of slavery 'by appropriate legislation.' What is slavery? It is not a relation between the slave and the State; it is not a public relation; it is a relation between two persons whereby the conduct of the one is placed under the will of the other. It is purely and entirely a domestic relation, and is so classed by all law writers; the law regulates that relation as it regulates other domestic relations. This constitutional amendment broke asunder this private relation between the master and his slave, and the slave then, so far as the right of the master was concerned, became free; but did the slave, under that amendment, acquire any other right than to be free from the control of his master? The law of the State which authorized this relation is abrogated and annulled by this provision of the Federal Constitution, but no new rights are conferred upon the freedman.

"Then, sir, to make a contract is a civil right which has ordinarily been regulated by the States. The form of that contract and the ceremonies that shall attend it are not to be regulated by Congress, but by the States. Suppose that it becomes the judgment of the State that a contract between a colored man and a white man shall be evidenced by other solemnities and instruments than are required between two white men, shall not the State be allowed to make such a provision? Is it a civil right to give evidence in courts? Is it a civil right to sit upon a jury? If it be a civil right to sit upon a jury, this bill will require that if any negro is refused the privilege of sitting upon a jury, he shall be taken under the military protection of the Government. Is the right to marry according to a man's choice a civil right? Marriage is a civil contract, and to marry according to one's choice is a civil right. Suppose a State shall deny the right of amalgamation, the right of a negro man to intermarry with a white woman, then that negro may be taken under the military protection of the Government; and what does that mean? Under the seventh section, in such a case as that, when you have taken the negro under the military protection of the Government, perhaps sent a squad of men after him, what is then to be done when he is thus protected? What is meant by taking him under the protection of the Government? Does it mean that this military power shall enforce his civil right, without respect to the prohibition of the local law? In other words, if the law of Indiana, as it does, prohibits under heavy penalty the marriage of a negro with a white woman, may it be said a civil right is denied him which is enjoyed by all white men, to marry according to their choice, and if it is denied, the military protection of the colored gentleman is assumed, and what is the result of it all? I suppose they are then to be married in the camp of the protecting officer with out regard to the State laws."

Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, in reply, said that it was not intended to make the bureau a permanent institution, but to aid and protect those helpless people until they could take care of themselves. The bureau was a part of the military establishment not only during the conflict, but until peace could be firmly established. The authority of the bureau was designed to be exercised under the war powers of the Government. It was proposed to extend the bureau beyond the insurrectionary States in order to protect the freedmen in the other States. He further said:

"My object in bringing forward these bills was to bring to the attention of Congress something that was practical, something upon which I hoped we all could agree. I have said nothing in these bills which are pending, and which have been recommended by the Committee on the Judiciary-and I speak of both of them because they have both been alluded to in this discussion-about the political rights of the negro. On that subject it is known that there are differences of opinion, but I trust there are no differences of opinion among the friends of the constitutional amendment, among those who are for real freedom to the black man, as to his being entitled to equality in civil rights. If that is not going as far as some gentlemen would desire, I say to them it is a step in the right direction. Let us go that far, and going that far, we have the cooperation of the executive department."

Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, followed, saying: "I have not had an opportunity to examine the bill exactly in all its details. If it was only to operate for the relief of the refugees, of course I suppose there could be no valid objection to it; but the operation of the original bill and this supplement is much wider, and really intends to introduce an imperium in imperio. It carries with it not only the power to relieve the refugee, but also a police power which in my State would be exceedingly objectionable; and that the mere fact should be recognized for one instant that it was to operate there, or might by any possibility operate there, would be exceedingly mischievous, and I am unwilling upon this floor, and feel it utterly inconsistent with my duty to my State, to allow any such thing to pass here. Where the necessity for this institution exists, let it be confined there, but let it not be extended beyond. If there are any portions of the States which have not been in rebellion where this jurisdiction is necessary, they should be accurately defined, because this is an extraordinary jurisdiction, and one which trenches upon those peculiar and acknowledged State rights which are estimated very highly by all of us everywhere-one which ought not to be extended beyond the limits of that necessity which begets its exist

ence."

Mr. Guthrie, of Kentucky, said: "Mr. President, I should like to know the peculiar reasons why this bill is to be extended to the State of

Kentucky. She has never been in rebellion. Though she has been overrun by rebel armies, and her fields laid waste, she has always had her full quota in the Union armies, and the blood of her sons has marked the fields whereon they have fought. Kentucky does not want and does not ask this relief. The freedmen in Kentucky are a part of our population; and where the old and lame and halt and blind and infants require care and attention they obtain it from the counties. Our whole organization for the support of the poor, through the agencies of the magistrates in the several counties, is complete."

Mr. Saulsbury, of Delaware, opposed the passage of the bill, saying: "Now, sir, I wish to show to the Senate and to the country what are the dangerous powers intrusted to this Freedman's Bureau, and to those who shall have the management of it. You will recollect, Mr. President, that the original bill provided for the appointment of one commissioner with a salary of $3,000, with the privilege of having under him clerks at a certain salary. This bill provides that there may be districts formed not exceeding twelve out of the whole number of States in the Union, and that 'there shall be an assistant commissioner for each district with like salary.' That, as I stated the other day, would amount to the sum of $36,000. It provides, also, that these twelve districts may be subdivided by the President of the United States so as to make the sub-districts within the whole limits of the United States one for each county or parish in the United States.

"The number of counties in the United States is eighteen hundred and seventy-eight, I believe, as corrected by my friend, the Senator from Kentucky, exclusive of the two new States recently admitted. There being, then, that number of counties in the United States, and this bill giving to the President of the United States the power to appoint an agent for every one of those counties at a salary of $1,500 each, there would be an expenditure of $2,817,000. Then there are seventy-two clerks of assistant commissioners which this bill provides for, at $1,200 each, and they would amount to $86,400. Then thirty-seven hundred and fifty eight clerks of agents (for the bill gives the power to appoint these assistant commissioners, these agents, and clerks for them), would amount to $4,507,600, making the cost under this bill to the people of the United States for officers alone $7,442,000.

"What a magnificent bill this would be for a presidential election! With all these agencies appointed by the Executive of the United States interested in his reelection, or in the success of the candidate of the party of which he might be a member, what a powerful political engine it would be to operate upon such an election!

"But, sir, this is not all the expense that will be incurred by this bill. Another section requires that there shall be three million acres of land assigned in certain States in the South for

these freedmen; and, mark you, the negro is a great favorite in the legislation of Congress, and the bill provides that it shall be good land.' No land is to be provided for the poor white men of this country, not even poor land; but when it comes to the negro race three million acres must be set apart, and it must be ' good land' at that. I know that the bill provides that this land shall be rented to the negro: but those of you who have observed the thriftiness and skill with which the negro population manage their agricultural operations, will find that when Sambo comes to pay his rent his rent will be pretty much like the rent of the individual who, when his landlord called upon him for his one-third of the produce of the farm, said, 'sir, I did not produce a third.' He will raise nothing to pay the rent. I estimate the rental value of those three million acres of your land at five dollars per acre, and the free negroes of the country are to be entitled to $15,000,000 more in the way of rental of lands; for no one can suppose that their benevolent and faithful friends of the Republican party will ever collect any rents from them, least of all that any such rents will ever be received into the Treasury of the United States.

"The bill provides that these three million acres shall be in allotments of forty acres each, and each freedman is to have a farm of good land of forty acres; and you do not propose to put the negro upon his little farm of forty acres without a house to live in, because your bill provides in another section that they shall be provided with shelter. Then, after having given him forty acres of good land to live upon, what will it cost to build a very moderate dwelling-house, with necessary out-houses, for this favorite of the legislation of Congress? Not less than $300, because the negro race now think, at least, that they are equal to the white race, and they have a right to believe, considering the legislation of Congress and the laudation which we hear every day of them, that they are a little better. The erection of these buildings will require an additional expenditure of $22,500,000. Sir, the time was when it was said that a white man, provided he behaved himself, was as good as a negro; but, looking at the legislation of Congress and the tone of the public press of the Northern States, I think we shall have to come to the conclusion that even if the white man does behave himself, he is not quite as good as the negro, for you find no bills introduced in Congress to furnish homes and houses to the white men of this country, whether poor or rich.

"But, sir, this is not the only expense. You say in this bill that these negroes shall be furnished with provisions, medicines, etc. When you look around upon your own galleries and see the free negroes who are living out of the bounty of the Freedmen's Bureau sitting here every day witnessing your deliberations, do you suppose that the freedmen contemplated by this bill are going to work when others who

are living out of the Freedmen's Bureau are witnessing every day the proceedings of Congress? Certainly not. I estimate, then, that to these four million freedmen you would have to give the small sum of fifty dollars each; and that would be a very small sum. This would require a further expenditure of $200,000,000. "Your bill does not stop there; but this enfranchised race must be schooled; and your bill provides that there shall be school-houses, ay, and asylums too, erected for them. I suppose that of the freedmen of the United States there will be nearly a million, including the children and those who are grown, who need schooling, and whom it will be necessary to educate; and mark you, the extent of the supplies is left discretionary with the commissioner; he may expend this money at his discretion. Well, sir, how many pupils will there be, and how many school-houses will be required? I suppose, first, there will be a million pupils, young and old, of this whole race; and I suppose it would cost twenty dollars each to school them. That would take $20,000,000. I suppose it would take thirty thousand schoolhouses, and your bill authorizes the building of these houses, and that each school will cost $300. Here is an additional item of expense amounting in the aggregate to the sum of $9,000,000.

Then, after the negro has his house built for him and his forty acres of land allotted to him, he has not the means, you tell us, of providing for himself; his farm must be stocked, and your bill, under the clause for 'furnishing the necessary provisions,' gives the power to stock it. What will that cost? I suppose it will cost $300 to each of the seventy-five thousand farms, which will amount to the further trifling sum of $22,500,000.

"Thus, sir, we see that the amount of expenditure authorized under the provisions of this bill, or the loss to the Government under it, may be no less than $295,000,000, and cannot reasonably be supposed to be less than $250,000,000."

Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, followed in support of the bill, saying: "Mr. President, I was about to say that this bill, as it stands, is intended to meet a necessary or an inevitable result of the war-a war initiated by the South, carried on by them—a contest long, bitter, and exhausting. In the course of that war it became necessary to take measures to emancipate the slaves. Those measures were taken; they had their effect; and, as a consequence, the Constitution has now been changed so that slavery no longer exists in this country. large body of men, women, and children, millions in number, who had received no education, who had been laboring from generation to generation for their white owners and masters, able to own nothing, to accomplish nothing, are thrown, without protection, without aid, upon the charities of the world, in communities hostile to them, in communities which

A

had been in the habit of looking upon them not only with derision but with all the feelings of contempt which it is possible one human being can indulge toward another, so far as their status was concerned and so far as they were concerned, and in communities, too, angered, outraged, if you please, by the fact that all these men had been freed from their domination. That was a necessity arising out of the contest. They were so freed, and found themselves and were found in that condition; and why? For the reason that we were compelled to avail ourselves of their services, in one particular, and in another for the reason that we were compelled to deprive their masters of the material aid which they furnished toward carrying on the contest against us; and thus we find them when arms have disappeared. "Now, will any man tell me that under such circumstances, a great people having availed themselves of that very fact, having used these former slaves, having deprived the enemy of all the aid which he received from them, will now throw them upon the world without the slightest protection, without the slightest aid, without any comfort, exposed to persecution and proseration in every possible shape; and why? Because there is no provision in the Constitution whereby Congress is authorized to feed and clothe anybody. We have a written Constitution. In spite of all that the honorable Senator from Delaware has chosen to say, I think we have a respect for it. I think in all cases we have endeavored to adhere to it. There may have been some cases during the war where its provisions were violated, and perhaps necessarily violated. That comes as a matter inevitable in the course of all governments in the many contingencies to which they are exposed, and under circumstances for which no previous provision could be made; but I would have gentlemen to reflect upon one thing, that as a art of the Constitution, written or unwritten, of all governments, stand the laws of nations essarily, inevitably, from the relations which all communities bear to each other, and from the contingencies to which they are exposed. That being the case, and that unwritten law of pations being actually a part of our written law, we accept, as we must accept, all the consequences which follow from it.

"We have been plunged into a war almost, if not quite, the greatest of modern times, inTolving vast results. Will gentlemen undertake to tell me that under such circumstances the necessary results of that war, if it brings about a state of things not found in our written Constitution, are to be avoided, shunned, not nofired in any possible way; that our affairs as Connected with it are not to be closed up under the same law which governed us and govern all nations while the war continued? If so, what a miserable, weak, powerless people we are! We can carry on a great war, but the moment the clash of arms has ceased to strike our ears we become utterly powerless to proVOL. VI.-14

vide for any of its necessary and inevitable results, because it is not written in the Constitution what we should do in a case which could not be foreseen, and which the founders of this Government purposely avoided foreseeing or speaking about! They provided on general principles for the emergency, but did not talk of it as a thing that could possibly occur. The Greeks would not mention in their laws the crime of parricide, because they would not suppose it was a crime that could ever be perpetrated.

"We find ourselves in that condition, we, the Congress of the United States who have been carrying on this war-because after all, as part of the Government, we have carried it on-the gentlemen who sit opposite me, and who do not agree with me in my political views and sentiments, and with whom I do not agree, giving their aid to the same thing, I trust with a good heart and good spirit, I trust honestly and meaning all they appeared to do; and when they find us or find themselves and the Government in this condition necessarily as an inevitable and unavoidable result of the contest which they themselves have waged, the moment we begin to provide for what came out of it they tell us, 'You are working against the Constitution; you cannot find any thing there by which you can feed or clothe a man, woman, or child.' That is the substance of what the honorable Senator from Delaware has told us to-day, and he finds particular offence in the fact that occasionally you see a skin a little darker than his own in the gallery. That is unconstitutional too, I suppose.

"Sir, I accept no such doctrines. Whether you call it the war power or some other power, the power must necessarily exist, from the nature of the case, somewhere, and if anywhere, in us, to provide for what was one of the results of the contest in which we have been engaged. All the world would cry shame upon us if we did not. I know the gentlemen on the other side of the House, and personally I respect them; we are on the best terms in the world that men can be on who do not think alike; and I would trust the honorable Senator from Delaware himself if the case was put upon him to decide, and he had to bear the responsibility of it before the world. He would not dare, no, he would not wish, to avoid it. Every sentiment of his heart, and every manly emotion of his nature would revolt at any such idea. It only shows the difference between what a man would do himself and what for party purposes he can advise others to do.

"I have thus stated the foundation of the bill. And what have we already done? At the last session of Congress we did what, although I was not a member of Congress at the time, met with my perfect approbation; we put it upon the War Department to take care of these people who had been a part of the war, and an essential part of the war. We recognized it as connected with the military operations of the

country, as it properly was. I did not approve at the time of the attempt to put it in any shape upon the Treasury Department; it did not belong there. It was connected with our military operations, and could best be carried on as a part of them. Those operations having ceased in the field, we were not by that means delivered from what remained to be done in order to carry out to the full all that was incumbent upon us to do to accomplish the purpose. We could not divest ourselves if we would of the responsibility that was upon us in reference to that matter, and we would not if we could; and again I will do the honorable Senators on the other side the justice to say that if the responsibility was on them they would not attempt any such thing for their own good name and for the good name and credit of their country.

"With regard, therefore, to all these details of objection to the bill-and I rose principally to say this-I see nothing which should trouble anybody arising from the considerations which have been advanced to us with reference to the constitutionality of the bill itself. We must meet it, and we must meet it under some power. There is no positive prohibition. It is a thing to be done. We have the power to appropriate money, and though we do not find a specific power to appropriate money for this particular purpose, it is yet an object of Government, a thing that the Government and country must provide for, and there is no other way of doing it. If we may appropriate money for this purpose, I ask the Senator to tell me what the distinction is between money and land; for, much as the objection originally struck_me, I have been obliged to inquire why if I found the power to do the one I did not find the power to do the other. We may give away the public lands, but it does not follow from that power that we cannot purchase land. We may take the title and the power of Government over lands that are purchased for the mere purpose of carrying into execution certain specified powers. That has been decided. But because we may have specific permission in the Constitution to do that, it is a non sequitur that we have no power beyond it. To be sure, the lawyer's argument may be that from the fact of certain powers being specifically granted others are excluded; but we cannot argue thus in this case when we come to apply it to a state of facts that could not be contemplated before they arose."

On January 24th, Mr. Davis of, Kentucky, stated his objections, as follows: "I oppose the passage of this measure

"1. Because a majority of the Senate exclude Senators from eleven States from their seats for the purpose of securing the passage of this and other measures:

"2. The measure is unconstitutional, because it proposes to invest the Freedmen's Bureau with judicial powers; because it authorizes the President to assign army officers to the exercise

of those judicial powers; because it breaks down the partition of the powers of the Govern ment made by the Constitution, and blends and concentrates in the same hands executive and judicial powers; and because it deprives the citizen of his right to trial by jury in civil cases.

"3. It ought not to pass because it is a scheme devised to practise injustice and oppression upon the white people of the late slaveholding States for the benefit of the free negroes, to engender strife and conflict between the two races, and to prostitute the powers of the Government for the impoverishment and degrada tion of the white race and the enrichment and exaltation of the negro race.

"4. It will produce a profligate, wasteful, and unnecessary expenditure of the public money.

"5. It is one of the bold, reckless, and unconstitutional systems of measures devised by the radical party to enable it to hold on to power and office."

These objections were sustained by lengthy remarks, after which the bill was passed by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foot, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Indiana, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Nye, Poland, PomTrumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Williams, Wilson, and eroy, Ramrey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Yates-37.

NAYS-Messrs. Buckalew, Davis, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Wright-10.

ABSENT-Messrs. Cowan, Nesmith, and Willey-3.

In the House, a new bill as a substitute to the Senate bill, was passed by the following vote:

YEAS-Messrs. Alley, Allison, Ames, Anderson, Delos R. Ashley, James M. Ashley, Baker, Baldwin, Banks, Barker, Baxter, Beaman, Benjamin, Bidwell, Bingham, Blaine, Blow, Boutwell, Brandagee, Bremwell, Broomall, Bundy, Reader W. Clark, Sidney Davis,' Dawes, Defrees, Delano, Deming, Dixon Clarke, Cobb, Conkling, Cook, Cullom, Darling, Donnelly, Driggs, Dumont, Eckley, Eggleston, Eliot. Farnsworth, Farquhar, Ferry, Garfield, Grinnell. Griswold, Hale, Abner C. Harding, Hart, Hayes, Henderson, Higby, Hill, Holmes, Hooper, Hotchkiss, Hubbard, John H. Hubbard, James R. Hubbell Asahel W. Hubbard, Chester D. Hubbard, Demas James Humphrey, Ingersoll, Jenckes, Julian, Kas son, Kelley, Kelso, Ketcham, Kuykendall, Laflin Latham, George V. Lawrence, William Lawrence Loan, Longyear, Lynch, Marston, Marvin, McClurg Morrill, Morris, Moulton, Myers, Newell, O'Neill McIndoe, McKee, McRuer, Mercur, Miller, Moorhead Orth, Paine, Patterson, Perham, Phelps, Pike, Plants Pomeroy, Price, William H. Randall, Raymond Alexander H. Rice, John H. Rice, Rollins, Sawyer Schenck, Scofield, Schellabarger, Smith, Spalding Starr, Stevens, Stillwell, Thayer, Francis Thomas John L. Thomas, Trowbridge, Upson, Van Aernára Burt Van Horn, Robert T. Van Horn, Ward, War ner, Elihu B. Washburne, William B. Washburn Wilson, Stephen F. Wilson, Windom, and Wood Welker, Wentworth, Whaley, Williams, James F

bridge-136.

NAYS-Messrs. Boyer, Brooks, Chanler, Dawson