Volume 14 — TIME AND RECONSTRUCTION.

Remarks in the Senate, on a Resolution to hasten Reconstruction, May 2, 1866.

Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, gave notice of his intention to offer, as a substitute for the bills and resolution reported by the Joint Committee on Reconstruction, the following:—

“That the interests of peace and the interests of the Union require the admission of every State to its share in public legislation, whenever it presents itself, not only in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, but in the persons of representatives whose loyalty cannot be questioned under any constitutional or legal test.”

In the debate on printing this resolution, Mr. Sumner said:—

I was about to say that the proposition involved in the resolution of the Senator from Connecticut is so important that it may be considered as always in order to discuss it. I do not know that we ought to pass a day without in some way considering it. I certainly do not deprecate this debate; but while so saying, I am very positive on another point. I should deprecate any effort now to precipitate decision on the question; and I most sincerely hope that the Senator from Maine [Mr. Fessenden], the Chairman of the Committee on Reconstruction, who has this matter in charge, will bear that in mind. I do not believe that Congress at this moment is in a condition to give the country the best measure on this important subject. I am afraid that excellent Committee has listened too much to voices from without, insisting that there must be a political issue presented to the country. I have always thought such call premature. There is no occasion now for an issue. There are no elections in any States. The election in Connecticut is over; the election in New Hampshire is over. There are to be no elections before next autumn. What occasion, then, for an issue? I see none, unless Congress, after most careful and mature consideration of the whole subject, is able to present a plan on which we can all honestly unite and as one phalanx move forward to victory.

I shall not be drawn into premature discussion of the scheme presented by the report of the Committee on Reconstruction. I speak now to the question of time only. I am sure that report could not have been made in the last week of March. I am equally sure, that, if it had been postponed until the last week of May, they would have made a better one than they made in the last week of April. I hope, therefore, that the decision of this question will be postponed as long as possible, in order that all just influences may come to Congress from the country, and that Congress itself may be inspired by the fullest and amplest consideration of the whole question.

There is the evidence before this Committee,—we have not yet seen it together. That evidence ought to be together; it ought to be before the whole country; and we should have returning to us from the country the just influence which its circulation is calculated to produce. I am sure, that, wherever that evidence is read, the people will say, Congress is justified in insisting upon security for the future. For that purpose I presume the evidence was taken; and I hope Congress will not act until the natural and legitimate influences from the evidence are felt in their counsels.

Allow me to say, by way of comment on the proposition of the Senator from Connecticut, that it seems to me my excellent friend, in bringing it forward, forgot two things.

Mr. Dixon. Probably more than that.

Mr. Sumner. But two things he forgot were so great, so essential, that to forget them was to forget everything. In the first place, he forgot that we had been in a war; and, in the second place, he forgot that four million human beings had been changed from a condition of slavery to freedom. Those two ruling facts my excellent friend forgot, evidently, when he drew his proposition. Plainly, he forgot that we had been in a war, because he fails to make any provision for that security which common sense and common prudence, the Law of Nations and every instinct of the human heart, require should be made. He provides no guaranty. Sir, the essential thing, at this moment, is a guaranty. The Senator abandons that. If, like the Senator, I could forget this terrible war, with all the blood and treasure it has cost, I, too, could be indifferent to security for the future; but as that war is always in my mind, the Senator will pardon me, if I insist upon guaranties.

I have said that my excellent friend forgets that four million human beings have been changed in their condition. Four million slaves have been declared freemen. By whom, and by what power? By the National Government. And let me say, that, as the National Government gave that freedom, the National Government must secure it. The National Government cannot leave the men it has made free to the guardianship or custody or tender mercies of any other government. It is bound to take them into its own keeping, to surround them with its own protecting power, and invest them with all the rights and conditions which, in the exercise of its best judgment, seem necessary to that end. All that the Senator has forgotten. It is not in his mind. If I could bring myself to such obliviousness, if I could bathe so completely in the waters of Lethe as my excellent friend from Connecticut seems to have done daily in these recent times, I might, perhaps, join in the support of his proposition.