gress, and not by the President, for the reason I have already stated; but it is clear that the first duty of Congress, under these circumstances, is to provide a mode and manner by which the condition of the States may be tested, and they may come back, one by one, each upon its own merits, upon complying with such conditions as the public safety de

mands.

"I propose now to recall, very briefly, the steps adopted by President Johnson in his plan of reconstruction. I do this for the purpose of presenting to the Senate, in a condensed view, the precise plan of reconstruction adopted by him, so that we may see at a single glance the present condition of these eleven States. When Mr. Johnson came into power he found the rebellion substantially subdued. What did he do? His first act was to retain in his confidence and in his councils every member of the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln, and, so far as we know, every measure adopted by Andrew Johnson has had the approval and sanction of that Cabinet. If there is any doubt upon any measure it is upon the recent veto message; but up to and including that message, so far as we know-and in matters of this kind we cannot rely upon street rumors-Andrew Johnson's plan has met the approval of the Cabinet of Abraham Lincoln. He has executed every law passed by Congress upon every subject whatever, and especially has he executed the Freedmen's Bureau bill. He placed at the head of that bureau General Howard, one of the most fit and worthy men in the United States, to conduct the delicate affairs of that bureau, and General Howard has never asked him for any single act of authority, any single power, that was not freely granted by President Johnson. The Freedmen's Bureau is also under the control of Edwin M. Stanton. Every act passed by Congress in any way bearing on this rebellion the President has fairly and promptly executed. If there is any that he has failed to execute I should thank any Senator to name it to me, for I do not now recall it. Not only that, but he adopted the policy of President Lincoln in hæc verba, as I shall show hereafter in examining his proclamations, and he extended and made more severe, as you may say, the policy adopted by Mr. Lincoln. Not only that, but in carrying out his plans of reconstruction, he adopted all the main features of the only bill passed by Congress-the Wade and Davis bill. I have the bill before me, but I have not time to go into its details. My colleague, who remembers the features of that bill, will know that the general plan adopted by President Johnson is the only plan that was ever adopted by Congress. Let us look into President Johnson's plan a little more and see what it was. His first proclamation was in reference to Virginia. In this proclamation, dated Executive Chamber, May 9, 1865, he provided:

First, That all acts and proceedings of the political, military, and civil organizations which have been

in a state of insurrection and rebellion within the State of Virginia against the authority and laws of the United States, and of which Jefferson Davis, John Letcher, and William Smith were late the respective chiefs, are declared null and void.

"With a single stroke he swept away the whole superstructure of the rebellion. Then he provides for the execution of all the powers of the national Government within the rebel territory, extending there our tax laws. Perhaps Presi about these proclamations when he disputed dent Johnson ought to have thought a little the power of Congress to tax the people of the Southern States. He was the first to extend States, and appoint assessors and collectors of internal revenue and collectors of customs in the various ports. Then he provides:

over those States the tax laws of the United

Ninth, That to carry into effect the guaranty of the Federal Constitution of a republican form of government and afford the advantage and security of domestic laws, as well as to complete the reestablishment of the authority of the laws of the United States, and the full and complete restoration of peace within the limits aforesaid, Francis H. Pierpont, Governor of the State of Virginia, will be aided by the Federal Government, so far as may be necessary, in the lawful measures which he may take for the extension and administration of the State government throughout the geographical limits of said State.

"That was the first element of his plan of reconstruction. The next was the amnesty proclamation, issued on the 29th of May following. In this proclamation he recites the previous proclamation of President Lincoln, and then goes on:

To the end, therefore, that the authority of the Government of the United States may be restored, lished, 1, Andrew Johnson, President of the United and that peace, order, and freedom may be estabStates, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have directly or indirectly par ticipated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration cept in cases where legal proceedings, under the laws of all rights of property, except as to slaves, and exof the United States providing for the confiscation of property of persons engaged in rebellion, have been instituted, "&c.

"And then in the oath of amnesty he provides that any person claiming the benefit of the amnesty should swear that he will abide by and faithfully support all laws and proclamations which have been made during the existing rebellion with reference to the emancipation of slaves.' Then he goes on and excepts from the operation of this amnesty some fourteen classes of persons, more than quadrupling the exceptions of the previous proclamation of Mr. Lincoln; so that if there was any departure in this connection from the policy adopted by Mr. Lincoln, it was a departure against the rebels, and especially against those wealthy rebels who gave life and soul and power to the rebellion.

"These were the agencies and organs under which the plan of reconstruction was to go on. Now I ask you, what conditions were imposed on these people? First, the adoption of the constitutional amendment. He was not will- .

ing to leave the matter to their amnesty oath or to the proclamation of President Lincoln, but he demanded of them the incorporation in their State constitutions of a prohibition of slavery, and the adoption by their Legislatures of the constitutional amendment, so as to secure beyond peradventure the abolition of slavery forever and ever throughout the United States. This he required in every order issued to the South, and demanded it as a first and preliminary condition to any effort toward reconstruction. Next, he demanded a repudiation of the rebel debt, and a guaranty put into the constitutions of the respective States that they never would, under any circumstances, pay any portion of the rebel debt. Next, he secured the enforcement of the test oath, so that every officer in the Southern States, under the act of Congress, was compelled to take that oath; or if he could not find officers there to do it, he sent officers from the Northern States to do it, so that this law, the most objectionable of any to the Southern people, was enforced in all instances at the South. It is true he appointed some provisional governors who could not take the test oath; but why? Because it was held that these provisional governors were not officers under the law. They were not officers whose commission was provided for by law; they were simply executive agents for the time being to carry into execution the plan of reconstruction; and he felt that if he could use any of these people in the Southern States for the purpose of performing this temporary duty, he had a right to do it. It was not prohibited by any law. The test oath only applied to officers of the United States who were provided for by law.

"Next, he enforced in every case full and ample protection to the freedmen of the Southern States. As I said before, no case was ever brought to his knowledge, so far as I can gather, in which he did not do full and substantial jus

tice.

Now, what are the objections to this policy? The first objection, that I have heard made most commonly, and which I have made myself, is, that the President was too liberal in exercising the pardoning power. But when we remember the fact that there were more than five times as many included in his exceptions as were included in the exceptions to the proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, and that the number of pardons in comparison with the whole number of persons excepted is substantially insignificant, and that we cannot know all the cireamstances which surrounded every particular case of pardon, it is hardly fair for us to arraign the President of the United States. We can limit his power to pardon in these cases. The President of the United States has no power to pardon under the Constitution of the United States in eases like this. That power is derived from the amnesty law which we passed at an early period of the war. The constitutional power to pardon given to him by that instru

ment extends only to cases where there had been a legal accusation by indictment or affidavit, or to cases where a man had been tried and convicted of a crime. That is the kind of pardon contemplated by the Constitution, but the authority which we gave him by law to extend pardon and amnesty to the rebels is as broad as the insurrection itself. We conferred upon the President of the United States the unlimited power of amnesty, and he has exercised that power only to a very moderate degree.

"But the principal objection that has been made to his policy is that he did not extend his invitation to all the loyal men of the Southern States, including the colored as well as the white people. If I were now required to state the leading objection made to the policy of the President in this particular, I should use the language of an eminent statesman, and say that when the President found before him an open field, with no law of Congress to impede him, with the power to dictate a policy in the South, to impose conditions on it, he ought to have addressed his proclamation to every loyal man above the age of twenty-one years. That would be the plan of the Senator from Massachusetts." Mr. Sumner: "Every loyal man?"

Mr. Sherman: "I mean every loyal man of sound mind. Now, let us look at that question. In every one of the eleven seceded States, before the rebellion, the negro was excluded from the right of voting by their laws. It is true the Senator from Massachusetts would say these are all swept away. Admit that, but in a majority of the Northern States to this hour there is a denial of the right of suffrage to the colored population. In Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York that right is limited, and these three States contain one-third of the people of the United States. In a large majority of the States, including the most populous, negro suffrage is prohibited. And yet you ask President Johnson, by a simple mandatory proclamation or military order, to confer the franchise on a class of people who are not only prohibited from voting in the eleven Southern States, but in a majority of the Northern States, and, indeed, I think in all the States except six.

"Further, it cannot be denied that the prejudice of the army of the United States, who were called upon to enforce this proclamation within these States, was against negro suffrage. Whether that prejudice is wise or unwise, blinded or aided by the light of reason, I shall not say. I never myself could see any reason why, because a man was black, he should not vote; and yet, in making laws, as the President was then doing, for the government of the community, you must regard the prejudices not only of the people among whom the laws are to be executed, but the prejudices of the army, and the people who are to execute those laws, and no man can doubt but what at that time there was a strong and powerful prejudice in the army and among all classes of

citizens against extending the right of suffrage to negroes, especially down in the far South, where the great body of the slaves were in abject ignorance.

"But that is not all, Mr. President. The President of the United States was of the opinion that he had no power to extend the elective franchise to them, and, therefore, in judging of his plan of reconstruction, we must give him at least a reasonable credit for honesty of purpose.

"We complain here that the President has not exercised his power to extend to freedmen the right of suffrage when Congress never has done it. We have absolute authority over this District, and until this session the proposition was not seriously mooted to extend the suffrage to the colored population. Here, better than anywhere else in the Union, they are fitted and entitled to suffrage, and yet we never, in our legislative power for this District, where we have absolute power, complied with that condition which has been asked of the President of the United States. It is complained that he did not extend the franchise to four millions in the Southern States, who are admitted to be ignorant, having been slaves for life, who are not prepared for liberty in its broadest and fullest sense, who have yet to be educated for. the enjoyment of all the rights of freemen, when we ourselves never have been willing to this moment to confer the elective franchise upon the intelligent colored population of this District.

"So I think we have never conferred the right to vote upon negroes in the Territories. My colleague will know whether we have or not. We never have. Here we have Territories where we have the power to mould the incipient form and ideas, and where our power is absolute, and yet Congress has never prescribed as a condition to their organization as Territories and to their admission as States the right of negroes to vote.

"And this is not all. In the only plan Congress has ever proposed for the reconstruction of the Southern States, the Wade and Davis bill to which I have referred so often, Congress did not and would not make negro suffrage a part of their plan. The effort was made to do so, and it was abandoned. By that bill the suffrage was conferred only upon WHITE male loyal citizens. And in the plan adopted by the President he adopted in this respect the very same conditions for suffrage prescribed by Congress.

"Now, have we, as candid and honorable men, the right to complain of the President because he declined to extend suffrage to this most ignorant freed population, when we have refused or neglected to extend it to them or to the negroes of this District, and to the colored men who may go into the Territories? No, sir; whatever may be our opinion of the theory or right of every man to vote-and I do not dispute or contest with honorable Senators

upon that point-I say with the President that to ask of him to extend to four millions of these people the right of suffrage when we have not the courage to extend it to those within our control, when our States, represented by us here on this floor have refused to do it, is to make of him an unreasonable demand, in which the people of the United States will not sustain Congress."

Mr. Dixon, of Connecticut, said: “Mr. President, what now are the two great systems of policy with regard to reconstruction and reunion on which the minds of the people of this country are to-day divided? One of these systems, known, by way of distinction, as that of the President, is indicated in the words which I have cited from his veto message. It contemplates a careful, cautious, discriminating admis sion of a loyal representation from loyal States and districts in the appropriate House of Congress, by the separate action of each, every case to be considered by itself and decided on its own merits. It recognizes the right of every loyal State and district to be represented by loyal men in Congress. It draws the true line of distinction between traitors and true men. It furnishes to the States lately in rebellion the strongest possible inducement to loyalty and fidelity to the Government. It makes treason odions,' by showing that while the traitor and the rebel are excluded from Congress, the loyal and the faithful are cordially received. It recognizes and rewards loyalty wherever it is found, and distinguishes, as it ought, between a Horace Maynard and a Jefferson Davis.

"What is the other policy? It contemplates the entire exclusion of representation in either House of Congress from any State lately in re bellion, irrespective of its present loyalty or the character of its people, until the adoption of certain measures not definitely stated, whose advocates agree neither as to the measures proposed nor in the reasons given for their sup port-this exclusion to continue for an indefinite and unlimited period of time, declared by some to be for five years, by some thirty years, and by some in a certain contingency forever; the entire region comprised within the thirteen seceding States, including Tennessee, to be held meanwhile as conquered territory, and to be governed as subject provinces by the central power, and the people thereof to be ruled as vassals, liable and subject necessarily at all times to taxation, while thus wholly deprived of rep resentation and of every right of self-government.

"And now, to render certain this policy-or at least in view of it--it is proposed by the res olution now under consideration to enact, so far as such a resolution can enact, that neither House of Congress shall admit a member from any one of the States lately in rebellion, whatever may be his own past or present character and conduct, and however true and loyal may be the people by whom he is elected, until consent, by an act of Congress, passed by both

Houses and signed by the President, in the face of the express provision of the Constitution, that 'each House shall be the judge of the elections, qualifications, and returns of its own members.'

"These, Mr. President, are the two systems of policy now presented for the consideration of this country. One or the other must be adopted by the Government. All minor issues, and all intermediate views and opinions, must gravitate toward and be absorbed by one or the other of these great commanding systems of policy; and all questions of local interest or of minor details in the work of reconstruction become therefore unimportant, and may be left out of consideration.

"I have stated what I believe to be the true issue in the briefest possible form of words. Here, in my judgment, is the whole of this vast question which is to agitate the public mind of this country, and the decision of which is to shape and control its governmental policy for a long period of years. All points of mere detail in regard to it will be lost sight of and forgotten in view of the vast and overwhelming idea of the permanent and fraternal reunion of the people of every one of those States under & common flag and a common representative Government. It is impossible, in the nature of things, that the public mind should be occupied by any other political question. Until this is decided, finally and forever, no personal or party consideration can divert the eager attention of the people from the exclusive investigation of this question. Nor can any thoughtful mind doubt as to the final decision. Before the war the love of the Union was the passion of the loyal national heart, and now that the war is over its passion will be reunion. For a brief period the dissevered sections of our country may be held apart by the main force of party and of faction, but every day the mutual attraction of the separated parts is growing stronger and more irresistible. If there are any who attempt to hold them asunder, their fate will be that of Milo:

"The Roman, when he rent the oak,
Dreamed not of the rebound.'

"They may be crushed, but the Union will be restored under a Constitution amended and parified, by which slavery is forever abolished, and freedom, with all its incidents, forever guaranteed.

"Believing the first-named policy to be, as has been conclusively proven by the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle), that of President Lincoln, and that in adopting it President Johnson has but followed in the ath of his predecessor; and believing also that this policy is but a continuation of the great struggle in defence of the noble cause of the Union, for which President Lincoln and all is martyred brethren died, I declare my confident trust that the people will support and uphold Andrew Johnson in its advocacy and

defence, as in the darkest days of the war they supported and upheld Abraham Lincoln."

Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, followed, saying: "The question is, what is the present condition of the States in which the rebellion prevailed? I suppose all will agree that the rebellion or the insurrection, or (if my friend will have it so) the war, as contradistinguished from rebellion and insurrection, has terminated. There is no hostile force now to be found in any one of the States in which the rebellion or the insurrection or the civil war existed. There is no opposition found anywhere in those States, by act, to the authority of the Government of the Union. The paramount obligation due to that authority is practically conceded everywhere, and a willingness to abide by that paramount authority is manifested everywhere, so far as my information extends. However it may be in relation to individuals or classes of individuals to be found in those States, there does not exist now in any one of them any purpose or any wish to resist the authority of the General Government. On the contrary, so far from wishing to resist that authority, their ardent desire is to have it exercised over them, and to be protected by all the securities which the Constitution throws around individuals or States in the exercise of that authority.

"If the fact be as I have stated, and I repeat that I know of no evidence in contradiction of it, then it would seem strange that any department of this Government, while extending to them the authority of the Government, enforcing as against them the allegiance due by them to the Government, legislating in relation to them by virtue of authority, legislating in every form of legislation which Congress has a right to adopt, taxing them under the taxing power, both by the imposition of duties upon imports in their several ports and by the imposition of taxes by your internal revenue law, should be unwilling to give them the same security, the same guaranty that the Constitution secures to you and to all of us and our respective States in the execution of the same authority upon us and our States.

"With these preliminary remarks, I deem it necessary for the purpose I have in view very briefly to call the attention of the Senate to the character of the Government under which we live. My friend from Maine, and to a greater extent the member from Massachusetts (Mr. Sumner), have discussed the question which I am about to examine as if we were living under but one Government, owing but one allegiance, a Government not only paramount within any prescribed limits, but paramount everywhere without limitation, capable of doing every thing that any Government, national in point of character, can do within its domains. Is that true, Mr. President?

"When the thirteen colonies determined to resist what they considered the tyrannical usurpations of England and declared themselves free and independent, and succeeded in achieving

that independence, each for itself became as absolutely a nation as it is possible for any people to be. They professed to have no superior; they claimed perfect and absolute nationality as separate and distinct people, competent to do in peace or in war what any people, under any form of government, was competent to do in that condition. Finding it necessary, however, to have some form of general government, they adopted for that purpose the Articles of Confederation, and in those articles not only did not devolve upon that Government any powers inconsistent with their absolute sovereignty, but cautiously guarded against a possibility of an inference of that kind, by saying that all the powers not expressly granted to the Government created by the Articles of Confederation were still to be considered as remaining in the several States; and they did more. The form of government, if government it could be called, which those articles created, was in one sense no government at all. It constituted but a compact; it amounted but to a league; and all the powers, whatever they were, conferred upon it were powers to be exerted not upon the individual citizen anywhere directly, but upon the individual through the State governments. The capital vice of such a government, as experience soon demonstrated, was that it was unable to perform the functions for which governments are created; and the men of that day becoming convinced of that fact, recommended to the American people the Constitution under which we now live, which, for the execution of its own powers, looks to no State interference, to no State assistance, but to the direct responsibility of each individual citizen to the Government, within the limit of the powers conferred upon the Government.

"But it did not pass by the States altogether. It not only did not design to impair in any manner, except to the extent of the powers expressly delegated or existing by implication from those expressly delegated, the sovereignty of the States, but in order to place the continuing existence of that sovereignty beyond all doubt, and exempt it from the hazard of a possible implication that there might be found in some clause in the Constitution a feature which in the future might be construed to impair the sovereignty of the States, they, by an amendment soon after adopted, declared that all the powers not conferred were reserved to the States or the people. And in the clause relied upon by the honorable member from Massachusetts, which gives to Congress the authority to pass all laws that may be necessary and proper, that power is limited to such laws only as may be found necessary and proper to carry out the express or implied powers.

"Now, Mr. President, is the Government created by that Constitution a national Government? Not if the men of the day when it was adopted knew what its character was. It was partly national and partly Federal. Its adoption, the very act of its adoption, the

very manner provided for its adoption, demonstrate that in the judgment of the men of that day it was not a national Government. Its approval or rejection was submitted to the people of the several States respectively. The effect of the concurrence of the people of each of the States, in a number necessary according to the provisions of the Constitution to give it actual being, is another matter; but as far as relates to the act of adopting the Constitution, the people of the States considered and judged separately. It was not adopted by a majority of the people of the United States. It might have been adopted by the required number of States, and yet not have met the approval of a majority of the people of the United States. The Senate will find, upon refreshing their memories on the subject, that the character of the Government is stated with his accustomed perspicuity by Mr. Madison, the author of the thirtyninth number of the Federalist. I forbear to read many of the passages which relate to the particular question, and will content myself with reading the paragraph at the close of the number:

The proposed Constitution, therefore, even when tested by the rules laid down by its antagonists, is, in strictness, neither a national nor a Federal Constitution, but a composition of both. In its foundation, it is Federal, not national; in the sources from which the ordinary powers of the Government are drawn it is partly Federal and partly national; in the operation of these powers it is national, not Federal; in the extent of them, again, it is Federal, not national; and finally, in the authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly Federal nor wholly

national.

"That is obvious from this consideration: that the machinery of the Government, that without which it cannot continue at all, involves the existence of States. This body cannot be convened, and without it there can be no Congress, except by the votes of States. That is very clear. The provision is express that Senators are to be chosen by the States through their Legislatures; and no provision is made for any other mode under any possible state of circumstances by which they can be chosen. States, therefore, are absolutely necessary to the very existence of the Government. You can no more administer the Government without States than you would be able to adminis ter the Government without people; and therefore, he who seeks to blot out of existence a State, strikes a blow at the very life of the Government. It may live, although one be stricken out of existence; it may live though eleven be stricken out of existence: but the blow at the Government, although not absolutely fatal, according to the hypothesis of fact which I have supposed, is no less a fatal blow. If the men by whom that Constitution was framed had been asked if they contemplated as possible a contingency when any of the existing States should cease to exist, they would have said no, because the continuing, wholesome existence of the Government depends upon the continu