Читать книгу History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States - William Horatio Barnes - Страница 47

"Sir, the war powers of the Government do not cease with the dispersion of the rebel armies; they are to be continued and exercised until the civil authority of the Government can be established firmly and upon a sure foundation, not again to be disturbed or interfered with. And such, sir, is the understanding of the Government. None of the departments of the Government understand that its military authority has ceased to operate over the rebellious States. It is but a short time since the President of the United States issued a proclamation restoring the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the loyal States; but did he restore it in the rebellious States? Certainly not. What authority has he to suspend the privilege of that writ anywhere, except in pursuance of the constitutional provision allowing the writ to be suspended 'when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it?' Then the President understands that the public safety in the insurrectionary States still requires its suspension.

"The Attorney-General, when asked, a few days ago, why Jefferson Davis was not put upon trial, told you that, 'though active hostilities have ceased, a state of war still exists over the territory in rebellion,' so that it could not be properly done. General Grant, in an order issued within a few days—which I commend to the especial consideration of the Senator from Indiana, for it contains many of the provisions of the bill under consideration—an order issued with the approbation of the Executive, for such an order, I apprehend, could not have been issued without his approbation—directs 'military division and department commanders, whose commands embrace or are composed of any of the late rebellious States, and who have not already done so, will at once issue and enforce orders protecting from prosecution or suits in the State, or municipal courts of such State, all officers and soldiers of the armies of the United States, and all persons thereto attached, or in anywise thereto belonging; subject to military authority, charged with offenses for acts done in their military capacity, or pursuant to orders from proper military authority; and to protect from suit or prosecution all loyal citizens or persons charged with offenses done against the rebel forces, directly or indirectly, during the existence of the rebellion; and all persons, their agents and employés, charged with the occupancy of abandoned lands or plantations, or the possession or custody of any kind of property whatever, who occupied, used, possessed, or controlled the same, pursuant to the order of the President, or any of the civil or military departments of the Government, and to protect them from any penalties or damages that may have been or may be pronounced or adjudged in said courts in any of such cases; and also protecting colored persons from prosecutions, in any of said States, charged with offenses for which white persons are not prosecuted or punished in the same manner and degree.'"

Mr. Saulsbury having asked whether the Senator believed that General Grant or the President had any constitutional authority to make such an order as that, Mr. Trumbull replied: "I am very glad the Senator from Delaware has asked the question. I answer, he had most ample and complete authority. I indorse the order and every word of it. It would be monstrous if the officers and soldiers of the army and loyal citizens were to be subjected to suits and prosecutions for acts done in saving the republic, and that, too, at the hands of the very men who sought its destruction. Why, had not the Lieutenant-General authority to issue the order? Have not the civil tribunals in all the region of country to which order applies been expelled by armed rebels and traitors? Has not the power of the Government been overthrown there? Is it yet reëstablished? Some steps have been taken toward reëstablishing it under the authority of the military, and in no other way. If any of the State governments recently set up in the rebellious States were to undertake to embarrass military operations, I have no doubt they would at once be set aside by order of the Lieutenant-General, in pursuance of directions from the Executive. These governments which have been set up act by permission of the military. They are made use of, to some extent, to preserve peace and order and enforce civil rights between parties; and, so far as they act in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States and the orders of the military commanders, they are permitted to exercise authority; but until those States shall be restored in all their constitutional relations to the Union, they ought not to be permitted to exercise authority in any other way.

"I desire the Senator from Indiana to understand that it is under this war power that the authority of the Freedmen's Bureau is to be exercised. I do not claim that its officers can try persons for offenses without juries in States where the civil tribunals have not been interrupted by the rebellion. The Senator from Indiana argues against this bill as if it was applicable to that State. Some of its provisions are, but most of them are not, unless the State of Indiana has been in rebellion against the Government; and I know too many of the brave men who have gone from that State to maintain the integrity of the Union and put down the rebellion to cast any such imputation upon her. She is a loyal and a patriotic State; her civil government has never been usurped or overthrown by traitors, and the provisions of the seventh and eighth sections of the bill to which the Senator alludes can not, by their very terms, have any application to the State of Indiana. Let me read the concluding sentence of the eighth section:

"'The jurisdiction conferred by this section on the officers and agents of this bureau to cease and determine whenever, the discrimination on account of which it is conferred ceases, and in no event to be exercised in any State in which the ordinary course of judicial proceedings has not been interrupted by the rebellion, nor in any such State after said State shall have been fully restored in all its constitutional relations to the United States, and the courts of the State and of the United States within, the same are not disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice.'

"Will the Senator from Indiana admit for a moment that the courts in his State are now disturbed or stopped in the peaceable course of justice? If they were ever so disturbed, they are not now. Will the Senator admit that the State of Indiana does not have and exercise all its constitutional rights as one of the States of this Union? The judicial authority conferred by this bill applies to no State, not even to South Carolina, after it shall have been restored in all its constitutional rights.

"There is no provision in the bill for the exercise of judicial authority except in the eighth section. Rights are declared in the seventh, but the mode of protecting them is provided in the eighth section, and the eighth section then declares explicitly that the jurisdiction that is conferred shall be exercised only in States which do not possess full constitutional rights as parts of the Union. Indiana has at all times had all the constitutional rights pertaining to any State, has them now, and therefore the officers and agents of this bureau can take no jurisdiction of any case in the State of Indiana. It will be another question, which I will answer, and may as well answer now, perhaps, as to what is meant by 'military protection.'

"The second section declares that 'the President of the United States, through the War Department and the commissioner, shall extend military jurisdiction and protection over all employés, agents, and officers of this bureau.' He wants to know the effect of that in Indiana. This bureau is a part of the military establishment. The effect of that in Indiana is precisely the same as in every other State, and under it the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau will occupy the same position as do the officers and soldiers of the United States Army. What is that? While they are subject to the Rules and Articles of War, if they chance to be in Indiana and violate her laws, they are held amenable the same as any other person. The officer or soldier in the State of Indiana who commits a murder or other offense upon a citizen of Indiana, is liable to be indicted, tried, and punished, just as if he were a civilian. When the sheriff goes with the process to arrest the soldier or officer who has committed the offense, the military authorities surrender him up to be tried and punished according to the laws of the State. It has always been done, unless in time of war when the courts were interrupted. The jurisdiction and 'protection' that is extended over these officers and agents is for the purpose of making them subject to the Rules and Articles of War. It is necessary for this reason: in the rebellious States civil authority is not yet fully restored. There would be no other way of punishing them, of holding them to accountability, of governing and controlling them, in many portions of the country; and it is because of the condition of the rebellious States, and their still being under military authority, that it is necessary to put these officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau under the control of the military power.

"The Senator says the original law only embraced within its provisions the refugees in the rebellious States; and now this bill is extended to all the States, and he wants to know the reason. I will tell him. When the original bill was passed, slavery existed in Tennessee, Kentucky, Delaware, and in various other States. Since that time, by the constitutional amendment, it has been every-where abolished."

Mr. Saulsbury, aroused by the mention of his own State, interrupted the speaker: "I say, as one of the representatives of Delaware on this floor, that she had the proud and noble character of being the first to enter the Federal Union under a Constitution formed by equals. She has been the very last to obey a mandate, legislative or executive, for abolishing slavery. She has been the last slaveholding State, thank God, in America, and I am one of the last slaveholders in America."

Mr. Trumbull continued: "Well, Mr. President, I do not see particularly what the declaration of the Senator from Delaware has to do with the question I am discussing. His State may have been the last to become free, but I presume that the State of Delaware, old as she is, being the first to adopt the Constitution, and noble as she is, will submit to the Constitution of the United States, which declares that there shall be no slavery within its jurisdiction." [Applause in the galleries.]

"It is necessary, Mr. President, to extend the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the rebel States in order to take in the State of Delaware, [laughter,] the loyal State of Delaware, I am happy to say, which did not engage in this wicked rebellion; and it is necessary to protect the freedmen in that State as well as elsewhere; and that is the reason for extending the Freedmen's Bureau beyond the limits of the rebellious States.

"Now, the Senator from Indiana says it extends all over the United States. Well, by its terms it does, though practically it can have little if any operation outside of the late slaveholding States. If freedmen should congregate in large numbers at Cairo, Illinois, or at Evansville, Indiana, and become a charge upon the people of those States, the Freedmen's Bureau would have a right to extend its jurisdiction over them, provide for their wants, secure for them employment, and place them in situations where they could provide for themselves; and would the State of Illinois or the State of Indiana object to that? The provisions of the bill which would interfere with the laws of Indiana can have no operation there.

"Again, the Senator objects very much to the expense of this bureau. Why, sir, as I have once or twice before said, it is a part of the military establishment. I believe nearly all its officers at the present time are military officers, and by the provisions of the pending bill they are to receive no additional compensation when performing duties in the Freedmen's Bureau. The bill declares that the 'bureau may, in the discretion of the President, be placed under a commissioner and assistant commissioners, to be detailed from the army, in which event each officer so assigned to duty shall serve without increase of pay or allowances.'

"I shall necessarily, Mr. President, in following the Senator from Indiana, speak somewhat in a desultory manner; but I prefer to do so because I would rather meet the objections made directly than by any general speech. I will, therefore, take up his next objection, which is to the fifth section of the bill. That section proposes to confirm for three years the possessory titles granted by General Sherman. The Senator from Indiana admits that General Sherman had authority, when at the head of the army at Savannah, and these people were flocking around him and dependent upon him for support, to put them upon the abandoned lands; but he says that authority to put them there and maintain them there ceased with peace. Well, sir, a sufficient answer to that would be that peace has not yet come; the effects of war are not yet ended; the people of the States of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, where these lands are situated, are yet subject to military control. But I deny that if peace had come the authority of the Government to protect these people in their possessions would cease the moment it was declared. What are the facts? The owners of these plantations had abandoned them and entered the rebel army. They were contending against the army which General Sherman then commanded. Numerous colored people had flocked around General Sherman's army. It was necessary that he should supply them to save them from starvation. His commissariat was short. Here was this abandoned country, owned by men arrayed in arms against the Government. He, it is admitted, had authority to put these followers of his army upon these lands, and authorize them to go to work and gain a subsistence if they could. They went on the lands to the number of forty or fifty thousand, commenced work, have made improvements; and now will the Senator from Indiana tell me that upon any principle of justice, humanity, or law, if peace had come when these laborers had a crop half gathered, the Government of the United States, having rightfully placed them in possession, and pledged its faith to protect them there for an uncertain period, could immediately have turned them off and put in possession those traitor owners who had abandoned their homes to fight against the Government?

"The Government having placed these people rightfully upon these lands, and they having expended their labor upon them, they had a right to be protected in their possessions, for some length of time after peace, on the principle of equity. That is all we propose to do by this bill. The committee thought it would not be more than a reasonable protection to allow them to remain for three years, they having been put upon these lands destitute, without any implements of husbandry, without cattle, horses, or any thing else with which to cultivate the land, and having, up to the present time, been able to raise very little at the expense of great labor. Perhaps the Senator thinks they ought not to remain so long. I will not dispute whether they shall go off at the end of one year or two years. The committee propose two years more. The order was dated in January, 1865, and we propose three years from that time, which will expire in January, 1868, or about two years from this time.

"On account of that provision of the bill, the Senator asks me the question whether the Government of the United States has the right, in a time of peace, to take property from one man and give it to another. I say no. Of course the Government of the United States has no authority, in a time of peace, by a legislative act, to say that the farm of the Senator from Indiana shall be given to the Senator from Ohio; I contend for no such principle. But following that up, the Senator wants to know by what authority you buy land or provide school-houses for these refugees. Have we not been providing school-houses for years? Is there a session of Congress when acts are not passed giving away public lands for the benefit of schools? But that does not come out of the Treasury, the Senator from Indiana will probably answer. But how did you get the land to give away? Did you not buy it of the Indians? Are you not appropriating, every session of Congress, money by the million to extinguish the Indian title—money collected off his constituents and mine by taxation? We buy the land and then we give the land away for schools. Will the Senator tell me how that differs from giving the money? Does it make any difference whether we buy the land from the Indians and give it for the benefit of schools, or whether we buy it from some rebel and give—no, sir, use—it for the benefit of schools, with a view ultimately of selling it for at least its cost? I believe I would rather buy from the Indian; but still, if the traitor is to be permitted to have a title, we will buy it from him if we can purchase cheaper.

"Sir, it is a matter of economy to do this. The cheapest way by which you can save this race from starvation and destruction is to educate them. They will then soon become self-sustaining. The report of the Freedmen's Bureau shows that to-day more than seventy thousand black children are being taught in the schools which have been established in the South. We shall not long have to support any of these blacks out of the public Treasury if we educate and furnish them land upon which they can make a living for themselves. This is a very different thing from taking the land of A and giving it to B by an act of Congress.

"But the Senator is most alarmed at those sections of this bill which confer judicial authority upon the officers and agents of the Freedmen's Bureau. He says if this authority can be exercised there is an end to all the reserved rights of the States, and this Government may do any thing. Not at all, sir. The authority, as I have already shown, to be exercised under the seventh and eighth sections, is a military authority, to be exerted only in regions of country where the civil tribunals are overthrown, and not there after they are restored. It is the same authority that we have been exercising all the time in the rebellious States; it is the same authority by virtue of which General Grant issued the order which I have just read. Here is a perfect and complete answer to the objection that is made to the seventh and eighth sections.

"But, says the Senator from Indiana, we have laws in Indiana prohibiting black people from marrying whites, and are you going to disregard these laws? Are our laws enacted for the purpose of preventing amalgamation to be disregarded, and is a man to be punished because he undertakes to enforce them? I beg the Senator from Indiana to read the bill. One of its objects is to secure the same civil rights and subject to the same punishments persons of all races and colors. How does this interfere with the law of Indiana preventing marriages between whites and blacks? Are not both races treated alike by the law of Indiana? Does not the law make it just as much a crime for a white man to marry a black woman as for a black woman to marry a white man, and vice versa? I presume there is no discrimination in this respect, and therefore your law forbidding marriages between whites and blacks operates alike on both races. This bill does not interfere with it. If the negro is denied the right to marry a white person, the white person is equally denied the right to marry the negro. I see no discrimination against either in this respect that does not apply to both. Make the penalty the same on all classes of people for the same offense, and then no one can complain.

"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 coöperation of the Executive Department; for the President has told us 'Good faith requires the security of the freedmen in their liberty and their property, their right to labor, and their right to claim the just return of their labor.'

"Such, sir, is the language of the President of the United States in his annual message; and who in this chamber that is in favor of the freedom of the slave is not in favor of giving him equal and exact justice before the law? Sir, we can go along hand in hand together to the consummation of this great object of securing to every human being within the jurisdiction of the republic equal rights before the law, and I preferred to seek for points of agreement between all the departments of Government, rather than to hunt for points of divergence. I have not said any thing in my remarks about reconstruction. I have not attempted to discuss the question whether these States are in the Union or out of the Union, and so much has been said upon that subject that I am almost ready to exclaim with one of old, 'I know not whether they are in the body or out of the body; God knoweth.' It is enough for me to know that the State organizations in several States of the Union have been usurped and overthrown, and that up to the present time no State organization has been inaugurated in either of them which the various departments of Government, or any department of the Government, has recognized as placing the States in full possession of all the constitutional rights pertaining to States in full communion with the Union.

"The Executive has not recognized any one, for he still continues to exercise military jurisdiction and to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in all of them. Congress has not recognized any of them, as we all know; and until Congress and the Executive do recognize them, let us make use of the Freedmen's Bureau, already established, to protect the colored race in their rights; and when these States shall be admitted, and the authority of the Freedmen's Bureau as a court shall cease and determine, as it must when civil authority is fully restored, let us provide, then, by other laws, for protecting all people in their equal civil rights before the law. If we can pass such measures, they receive executive sanction, and it shall be understood that it is the policy of the Government that the rights of the colored men are to be protected by the States if they will, but by the Federal Government if they will not; that at all hazards, and under all circumstances, there shall be impartiality among all classes in civil rights throughout the land. If we can do this, much of the apprehension and anxiety now existing in the loyal States will be allayed, and a great obstacle to an early restoration of the insurgent States to their constitutional relations in the Union will be removed.

"If the people in the rebellious States can be made to understand that it is the fixed and determined policy of the Government that the colored people shall be protected in their civil rights, they themselves will adopt the necessary measures to protect them; and that will dispense with the Freedmen's Bureau and all other Federal legislation for their protection. The design of these bills is not, as the Senator from Indiana would have us believe, to consolidate all power in the Federal Government, or to interfere with the domestic regulations of any of the States, except so far as to carry out a constitutional provision which is the supreme law of the land. If the States will not do it, then it is incumbent on Congress to do it. But if the States will do it, then the Freedmen's Bureau will be removed, and the authority proposed to be given by the other bill will have no operation.

"Sir, I trust there may be no occasion long to exercise the authority conferred by this bill. I hope that the people of the rebellious States themselves will conform to the existing condition of things. I do not expect them to change all their opinions and prejudices. I do not expect them to rejoice that they have been discomfited. But they acknowledge that the war is over; they agree that they can no longer contend in arms against the Government; they say they are willing to submit to its authority; they say in their State conventions that slavery shall no more exist among them. With the abolition of slavery should go all the badges of servitude which have been enacted for its maintenance and support. Let them all be abolished. Let the people of the rebellious States now be as zealous and as active in the passage of laws and the inauguration of measures to elevate, develop, and improve the negro as they have hitherto been to enslave and degrade him. Let them do justice and deal fairly with loyal Union men in their midst, and henceforth be themselves loyal, and this Congress will not have adjourned till the States whose inhabitants have been engaged in the rebellion will be restored, to their former position in the Union, and we shall all be moving on in harmony together."

On the day following the discussion above given, Mr. Cowan moved to amend the first section of the bill so that its operation would be limited to such States "as have lately been in rebellion." In supporting his amendment, Mr. Cowan remarked: "I have no idea of having this system extended over Pennsylvania. I think that as to the freedmen who make their appearance there, she will be able to take care of them and provide as well for them as any bureau which can be created here. I wish to confine the operation of this institution to the States which have been lately in rebellion."

To this Mr. Trumbull replied: "The Senator from Pennsylvania will see that the effect of that would be to exclude from the operation of the bureau the State of Kentucky and the State of Delaware, where the slaves have been emancipated by the constitutional amendment. The operation of the bureau will undoubtedly be chiefly confined to the States where slavery existed; but it is a fact which may not be known to the Senator from Pennsylvania, that during this war large numbers of slaves have fled to the Northern States bordering on the slaveholding territory.

"It is not supposed that the bill will have any effect in the State of Pennsylvania or in the State of Illinois, unless it might, perhaps, be at Cairo, where there has been a large number of these refugees congregated, without any means of support; they followed the army there at different times.

"The provision of the bill in regard to holding courts, and some other provisions, are confined entirely to the rebellious States, and will have no operation in any State which was not in insurrection against this Government. I make this explanation to the Senator from Pennsylvania, and I think he will see the necessity of the bureau going into Kentucky and some of the other States, as much as into any of the Southern rebellious States."

Mr. Guthrie was opposed to the extension of the bill to his State. He said: "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."

[Illustration: Hon. Henry Wilson.]

On the other hand, Mr. Creswell, of Maryland, saw a necessity for the operation of the bill in his State. He said: "I have received, within the last two or three weeks, letters from gentlemen of the highest respectability in my State, asserting that combinations of returned rebel soldiers have been formed for the express purpose of persecuting, beating most cruelly, and in some cases actually murdering the returned colored soldiers of the republic. In certain sections of my State, the civil law affords no remedy at all. It is impossible there to enforce against these people so violating the law the penalties which the law has prescribed for these offenses. It is, therefore, necessary, in my opinion, that this bill shall extend over the State of Maryland."

Mr. Cowan, in the course of a speech on the bill, said: "Thank God! we are now rid of slavery; that is now gone." He also said: "Let the friends of the negro, and I am one, be satisfied to treat him as he is treated in Pennsylvania; as he is treated in Ohio; as he is treated every-where where people have maintained their sanity upon the question."

Mr. Wilson said: "The Senator from Pennsylvania tells us that he is the friend of the negro. What, sir, he the friend of the negro! Why, sir, there has hardly been a proposition before the Senate of the United States for the last five years, looking to the emancipation of the negro and the protection of his rights, that the Senator from Pennsylvania has not sturdily opposed. He has hardly ever uttered a word upon this floor the tendency of which was not to degrade and to belittle a weak and struggling race. He comes here to-day and thanks God that they are free, when his vote and his voice for five years, with hardly an exception, have been against making them free. He thanks God, sir, that your work and mine, our work which has saved a country and emancipated a race, is secured; while from the word 'go,' to this time, he has made himself the champion of 'how not to do it.' If there be a man on the floor of the American Senate who has tortured the Constitution of the country to find powers to arrest the voice of this nation which was endeavoring to make a race free, the Senator from Pennsylvania is the man; and now he comes here and thanks God that a work which he has done his best to arrest, and which we have carried, is accomplished. I tell him to-day that we shall carry these other measures, whether he thanks God for them or not, whether he opposes them or not." [Laughter and applause in the galleries.]

After an extended discussion, the Senate refused, by a vote of thirty-three against eleven, to adopt the amendment proposed by Mr. Cowan.

The bill was further discussed during three successive days, Messrs. Saulsbury, Hendricks, Johnson, McDougall, and Davis speaking against the measure, and Messrs. Fessenden, Creswell, and Trumbull in favor of it. Mr. Garrett Davis addressed the Senate more than once on the subject, and on the last day of the discussion made a very long speech, which was answered by Mr. Trumbull. The Senator from Illinois, at the conclusion of his speech, remarked:

"What I have now said embraces, I believe, all the points of the long gentleman's speech except the sound and fury, and that I will not undertake to reply to."

"You mean the short gentleman's long speech," interposed some Senator.

"Did I say short?" asked Mr. Trumbull. "If so, it was a great mistake to speak of any thing connected with the Senator from Kentucky as short." [Laughter.]

"It is long enough to reach you," responded Mr. Davis.

The vote was soon after taken on the passage of the bill, with the following result:

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, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner,

Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Williams, Wilson, and Yates—37.

NAYS—Messrs. Buckalew, Davis, Guthrie, Hendricks, Johnson,

McDougall, Riddle, Saulsbury, Stockton, and Wright—10.

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

The bill having passed, the question came up as to its title, which it was proposed to leave as reported by the committee: "A bill to enlarge the powers of the Freedmen's Bureau."

Mr. Davis moved to amend the title by substituting for it, "A bill to appropriate a portion of the public land in some of the Southern States and to authorize the United States Government to purchase lands to supply farms and build houses upon them for the freed negroes; to promote strife and conflict between the white and black races; and to invest the Freedmen's Bureau with unconstitutional powers to aid and assist the blacks, and to introduce military power to prevent the commissioner and other officers of said bureau from being restrained or held responsible in civil courts for their illegal acts in rendering such aid and assistance to the blacks, and for other purposes."

The President pro tempore pronounced the amendment "not in order, inconsistent with the character of the bill, derogatory to the Senate, a reproach to its members."

Mr. McDougall declared the proposed amendment "an insult to the action of the Senate."

The unfortunate proposition was quietly abandoned by its author, and passed over without further notice by the Senate. By unanimous consent, the title of the bill remained as first reported.