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ployed as clerks in the military or naval service of the rebels who, perhaps, ought not to be excluded. They were most of them in a state of starvation; they were obliged to take some employment in order to live; and I think it would be better to leave the matter to the Government. The cadets are appointed by the members of Congress, I believe, except some fifteen or twenty who are appointed by the President at large. I think it would be better to leave it to the Government.

Mr. WILSON. We educated at West Point some young men that turned traitors. Now, I am against educating at West Point any men who have been traitors. I think any person who has served in the rebel army or navy should never enter West Point, or the Naval Academy, never be educated by this Govern

ment.

Mr. SHERMAN. I would ask my friend from Massachusetts why he does not extend his amendment to the Naval Academy. I produced testimony here of the most conclusive character that a young man in the Naval Academy had served willingly in the rebel service, and yet he is now being educated at the Naval School. I think the provision ought to extend both to the Army and the Navy. The joint resolution which I introduced and sent to the Committee on Naval Affairs relative to the case to which I allude I have not heard of since. Mr. GRIMES. I will state to the Senator from Ohio that that testimony which he introduced before the committee, and which he thought was so conclusive, turned out, upon a more thorough investigation, to be somewhat more doubtful than he imagined, and the young man alluded to was appointed upon the recommendation of the very men who wrote the letters to the Senator from Ohio on the subject.

Mr. SHERMAN. The testimony was very conclusive that the young man had been in the rebel service.

Mr. GRIMES. The case has not been acted on yet; and it is due to the young man that I should say, as he is still in the Academy, that he was never in the rebel service proper. He joined in the State of Kentucky a home guard, was never sworn into service, and very shortly after he found out the way in which the guard was to be used he abandoned it entirely and never took service under the rebel flag.

Mr. SHERMAN. He was in Buckner's guard, and the testimony was that he and all his family were against the Government all the time during the war.

whether the Senator from Maryland would not turn such a person out.

if

Mr. JOHNSON. No, I would not. I can imagine a great many boys that I would not turn out, boys in the situation in which I pose a good many of them to have been. they had gone in when they were seventeen or eighteen years of age, with knowledge on their part, it would be a different thing; but I can very readily believe there were boys of twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years of age who went into that service without having any idea at all that they were offending against the Government, and who may be just as true and loyal

now as our own sons.

Mr. CONNESS. I can very readily believe that there were thousands and tens of thousands who went into the rebellion that did not know what they were about. I think the leaders did not know what they were about. If they did they never would have gone in. Mr. JOHNSON. They did know what they were about.

Mr. CONNESS. We differ about that. But while it may be true, as stated by the Senator from Maryland, that there are many boys who participated in the rebellion who ought not to be held to a very strict responsibility for it, or punished for it, I think this country has a great many boys in it who are more worthy than they, and who ought to be promoted in preference. If the fact be as stated that there is a boy in the Naval Academy or at West Point of the class referred to, he should not remain there, in my judgment. We have had enough experience of furnishing talent, organized and educated talent, to the enemies of the country at the expense of the national Treasury. There ought to be an end to it. I hope that those who offered the amendment will change it in that respect.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I suggest to my friend that I do not think you can carry it on this bill so far as to legislate for an individual case; and there is only one, and about that there is great doubt whether it would apply to him or

not.

Mr. CONNESS. If the form were changed it would apply to the case.

Mr. FESSENDEN. But it is not pretended that there is more than one case about which there is any question, and that is very doubtful. I hope this bill may not be incumbered any further.

Mr. CONNESS. I have no strenuousness about it.

Mr. GRIMES. When all the testimony shall Mr. DOOLITTLE. I observe from the read. be presented I think the Senator will be satising of the amendment that there is no distincfied that the ex parte testimony upon which he pronounces judgment here against that young man may possibly be erroneous.

Mr. SHERMAN. It may be. I do not vouch for it.

Mr. CLARK. We need not try that case; but it seems to me very proper that the amend ment should apply to the naval as well as to the military department of the Government.

Mr. GRIMES. I am perfectly willing that it should be applied to the Naval Academy. Mr. JOHNSON. This is the West Point bill.

Mr. CLARK. The naval bill has gone through. There is no other bill to come on which we can put it. I will move that amendment, "Military or Naval Academy."

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Mr. WILSON. I accept that amendment. The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment, as modified, will be read.

The Secretary read it, as follows:

And be it further enacted. That no person who has served in any capacity in the military or naval service of the so-called confederate States during the late rebellion shall hereafter receive an appointment as a cadet at the Military or Naval Academy.

Mr. CONNESS. That would leave such a person in, if now there. It says, "shall hereafter."

Mr. JOHNSON. Do you want to turn them

out?

Mr. CONNESS. Yes, turn out anybody of that kind, certainly. I should like to know.

tion taken between those who voluntarily went in and those who were forced into the rebel service. There ought certainly to be a distinction. Some boys may have been conscripted in against their will, forced in at the point of the bayonet, and who ought not to be held responsible to any such rule as this.

Mr. GRIMES. They were not conscripted at the age alluded to.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Suppose they were forced into the service, are they to be excluded for that reason? It is one thing as to those that went in voluntarily; it is another as to those that were forced in. I think there certainly ought to be a distinction. The amendment ought to say that those who voluntarily engaged in the service should be excluded. move to amend it by inserting that word "coluntarily."

Mr. FESSENDEN. I hope not. If you put in "voluntarily," they will prove, every one of them, that they went in involuntarily. To exclude all is the only way to keep them out.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I ask the Senator from Maine if he desires to keep out those who were forced to go in.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I would rather not run the risk of getting rebels in by putting in the word "voluntarily."

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I think that there is a great difference in engaging in a service, whether one goes in voluntarily, of his own free will, or

whether he is forced in at the point of the bay. onet. In the one case I should feel very dif ferent toward the individual than I would in the other.

Mr. GRIMES. It cannot apply to this case, because nobody was er nscripted in the rebel lines under the age of eighteen, and no conscription has been made within the rebel con federacy within two years. No one can go to the Naval Academy after he is eighteen years of age.

Mr. JOHNSON. I thought they conscripted those of fourteen toward the close.

Mr. GRIMES. I think not. They went in voluntarily, if they went in at the age of four. teen, I think.

Mr. JOHNSON. Of course, many went in voluntarily at fourteen; but my recollection is that the conscription was as low as fourteen toward the close.

Mr. SHERMAN. There is no great hardship in excluding any of these persons; there are plenty left from whom to make a choice.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will take the sense of the Senate on the question I suggested, by moving to insert the word "voluntarily be foreserved;" and I ask for the yeas and nays on that amendment.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. EDMUNDS. As I am to go on the record and am very sensitive on this question, I wish to state the reason why I shall vote "nay." It may be, possibly, that those who have been involuntarily in the rebel service are not as bad as those who went in on their own motion; but the country is full of boys, the sons of heroes who have fought on the right side of this rebellion, who are deserving of these places if anybody in the world is; and without going into the question of the precise degree of consideration that ought to be accorded to involuntary rebels, if I may use such a term, there are enough who are not open to suspicion to fill all these places. That is my reason for voting against the amend

ment.

Mr. HOWARD. I beg to inquire in what way the question is to be settled whether a person was in the rebel service voluntarily or involuntarily, and who is to settle it.

Mr. CLARK, and others. Let us settle it here by a vote.

Mr. HOWARD. I think we had better settle it here, and leave no question of that kind to be adjudicated by anybody else.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It is not very long since I was reading over the report of the recon struction committee, and one of the articles of anfendment to the Constitution which they pro vided was that those men who voluntarily ad hered to the rebellion should not vote until a certain time. How is that to be settled? Mr. HOWARD. By law.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. But it is a fact whether they went in voluntarily or involuntarily; you cannot settle it by a law. It is a question of fact, and upon that question of fact whether they went in voluntarily or involuntarily depends the guilt or the innocence, just as in the commission of any other offense. The idea of holding a person responsible for what he does under compulsion, by force, at the point of the bayonet, driven by a squad of men who perhaps took a young man and forced him into the army at the peril of his life, is a very different thing from what it is when he voluntarily goes in of his own accord.

Now, Mr. President, in relation to these appointments to the Naval Academy, and to the Military Academy, they are appointments, so far as I understand, that are generally appor tioned throughout the country to each con gressional district. The various congressional districts of the country claim the right to have these scholars or cadets sent from the districts, and in order to select the one most proper to be put at the Academy, the right has been given by law to the members of Congress to select them. Now, the right being given by law to the members of Congress to select, suppose

there is a member of Congress from Kentucky, or Tennessce, or Maryland, or Virginia, or any of those States where some of the boys have gone into the rebellion, who has an appointment to make. It becomes a question for this Representative to determine, and determine for himself; he has the right to make the selec tion, and we by law now assume to declare, if this amendment is adopted, that he shall not select any young man who has been in the rebel service, who went in voluntarily, but he may select one if he has been conscripted and forced to go in. I do not see any injustice in it, and I think that we ought to draw the distinction between the voluntary and involuntary rebels, between the rebels who of their own intent made this rebellion, and those who were forced into it when military authority or power was established over them. I would carry that distinction out in very many ways, holding those responsible who moved in it, who voluntarily went into it, not those who were forted into it. Mr. CLARK. We have had in this matter a bitter experience. We had a great many young men educated at the Military Academy and at the Naval School who, in the country's emergency, turned enemies to the country. do not want that that experience ever should be repeated, or that there should be a possibility of its being repeated if there should be again another war. Then," suggests the Senator from California, [Mr. CONNESS,] "we had better be careful." That is what I desire to do; and I desire to say to those gentlemen who may have the appointments from those districts which are located in the rebel or confederate country, You shall not appoint anybody who has ever been in that service," and I would not leave to any such member to say whether the service had been voluntary or involuntary, but I would make the fact that he had been in that service conclusive against him. It is a very different thing to give a vote to a man who has been voluntarily or involuntarily in the service of the confederacy from what it is to put a boy who has been in that servic in the Army or Navy, where he may do you mischief.

66

I do not want, as I said in the beginning, that our experience should be repeated. I think for the present we had better keep our Academies, Naval and Military, pure from any such influence, and if by and by, as years roll around, we find the loyalty of the country returning, so that circumstances will warrant it, then it will be time enough to extend the law; but now we should make the exclusion final.

Mr. JOHNSON. I think my friend from New Hampshire rather exaggerates what has heretofore occurred at the Military Academy. I had occasion some time ago, with the aid of the gentleman who is now at the head of the Academy, to look at the number who had joined the rebellion, among those who had been educated at the Academy, and it was comparatively a very small percentage; and I think it may be safely said now, looking to the experience that those who joined it have had, that no man who will ever be educated there in the future will be found raising his arm against the Government. If there are men who have suffered more, perhaps, than any others during the rebellion, it is those who have forfeited their claim to public confidence by having joined the war as against the Government by whom they were educated. And when my friend from New Hampshire speaks of the experience we have had in the past, I think he misapplies the term as applicable to the question before the Senate. We have had no such experience as to teach us how to act in the particular case now before us. When those who were educated there and who did join the rebellion were sent to the Military Academy we were at peace with each other; no man dreamed at that time that there would be such a war as afterwards unfortunately turned out; and I suppose no boy ever was sent to the Academy who during the period of his education or for years afterward thought of raising his hand against the Government; and those who were most conspicuous in the service of the rebellion were men who had

fought very gallantly and with great skill, and had contributed in a great measure to raise the military reputation of the country in defense of the United States in the war with Mexico. Their fault has been (and it is a fault which I do not think the Senate exactly appreciate) that they were educated in that part of the United States where the doctrine of secession was taught as a constitutional doctrine, really believed in. The effect of that teaching was not confined to the South; a great many men. at the North entertained the same opinion; a great many at the North before the rebellion and during the rebellion avowed the same opinion. At the time the fugitive slave act was pending before Congress, and more strikingly after it had become a law and it was called in question in some of the States, a great many men who have been thoroughly true to the Union except in that particular, were resolved to resist by force the execution of that law, and avowed that determination.

Mr. CLARK. Does the Senator allege that as any excuse for these men who were false to the Government?

Mr. JOHNSON. Not at all. I am excusing them from ignorance. The reason I referred to it was merely for the purpose of palliating in some measure what had been done. No one is further from justifying it than I am. Nobody regretted it or condemned it more than I did; but while regretting it and condemning it, I could not help feeling upon my own judgment the influence of the considerations to which I have alluded, that although they committed a crime, in my judgment, against the United States, and were guilty of the offense of treason, the highest of all crimes provided against in the Constitution, yet they were made to believe, and I have no doubt in hundreds of instances did conscientiously believe, that it was no crime. But they have waked up now-that I have no doubt of-to a conviction that in the past they committed a great blunder. Now, without mentioning names, and no question that any Senator can put to me can induce me to mention the name, because it would be indecorous, and therefore no Senator will ask me, I met a southern gentleman who was a member of the Peace Convention, of which I happened to be one, in the cars here the day before yesterday; he was a southern man, very warm, very decided, very zealous, and, as I thought and told him at the time, if he succeeded in controlling the deliberations of the convention war would certainly be the result, and that their institution of slavery, to which they were so much attached, would necessarily fall. He looked careworn when I saw him the day before yesterday only. I recognized him and he recognized me, and he immediately took his seat by me, and said, quite in a sorrowful tone, and I have no doubt in great sincerity, "You were right, and I was wrong; I admit that I was wrong; God forgive me. I have no doubt he spoke with as much sincerity as a man can feel; and that he was sincere, equally sincere, when he was a member of that convention I have no doubt, not the slightest.

purpose

I only refer to these things for the of showing that there are circumstances which should induce us to grant some little indulgence to our brethren of the South, and especially to the boys of the tender age of some twelve, thirteen, or fourteen, who were led away by the example of those around them, upon whose judgment it was very natural that they should rely.

Mr. CLARK. Mr. President, supposing the facts and considerations to be as stated by the Senator from Maryland, supposing these people did go into secession from false notions of education, nevertheless the fact is so that many men who were educated at the Military Academy engaged in the rebellion. They had the benefit of an education which qualified them all the more to do mischief toward this Government. So in the Naval Academy. Now, does not that experience teach us to be cautious? And would it be wise to appoint young men who have been engaged in the rebellion into these places to be

educated, when, as said by the Senator from Vermont, there are so many young men who have been engaged on the other side, or who are the children of heroes on the other side, who would desire these places? I desire to say nothing in disparagement of any person who repents of the evil he has done, but I cer tainly would not give a man who had committed treason an opportunity to commit it again, and make that treason all the more effectual, by educating him in the service of the United States. Treason committed once is enough for all time to come; there should be no opportunity of renewing it. I think we should not put these boys into these schools.

Mr. HOWE. If the question were whether one of these young men should be sent to the penitentiary for life or should pay the forfeit of his life upon the scaffold, the inquiry whether their service in the rebellion had been voluntary or involuntary I think would be a pertinent one, and it would be proper for us to examine and determine that fact before executing either of those sentences. That is not the question. Undoubtedly, as the Senator from Maryland has said, this rebellion originated in a faulty education. Undoubtedly he is quite correct in saying that that education. was not all obtained in the districts in which the rebellion had its origin; that we participated, were to some extent responsible for that education. Let us get rid of that responsibility hereafter. The only part we ever had in that education was in sitting and hearing the "right" asserted and the threat made year after year and never taking any steps to guard against it. And now we are in danger of perfecting that education by showing the world that we can. not to-day, with all we have seen of the fruits of that education, bring our minds to discrim inate between loyalty and disloyalty, between fidelity to the Government and treason against the Governmet.

Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland thinks that they have got over the effects of that education; that they have now been brought to see that they have committed, not a crimehe does not say that-but a blunder; and in evidence of that he recites a conversation that he had a day or two since with one who participated in that blunder, which I prefer to call a crime. It suggested to me the fact that this morning I received a newspaper which contained a notice of a demonstration made I think in the city of Raleigh in commemoration of the life and services of General Jackson of the rebel army, known as Stonewall Jackson. It also contained quite a lengthy account of a similar demonstration made, if I recollect aright, in the city of Lynchburg, in Virginia, where the whole city formed a procession, the city authorities, all the societies, the fire companies, everything like an organization in the city turned out into the street to do honor to the memory of General Jackson; and who was General Jackson? One of the renowned chiefs in the perpetration of that which the Senator from Maryland characterizes as a blunderMr. JOHNSON. I did not say so. Mr. HOWE. I so understood.

Mr. JOHNSON. The honorable member is generally so fair that I am sure he will do me justice. I did not say it was a blunder alone; I said it was a crime-the offense of treason. That may be called a blunder in one sense, but not a blunder as contradistinguished from the blunder of a crime-a pretty fatal blunder.

Mr. HOWE. I certainly did not mean to misquote the Senator from Maryland; I prefer his own language. Then he was the man who took a leading part in the perpetration of that crime. While they are doing honor in this way to these men whom the Senator from Maryland and myself agree in characterizing as criminals, have we any reason to suppose that they have learned really to regard that conduct even as a blunder? They think it an honor, they think it a credit, they think it a glory, and by all these demonstrations they are trying to teach us that it is a glory; and while

they are so careful to shower these honors upon all those who have died in that cause what are we doing?

Sir, I saw not long since a statement in the papers which I cannot help but credit, that an application was made to one of the officers in this Government, on the part of the cadets in the Military Academy at West Point, for permission to inscribe upon the guns there, which had been captured from the rebels, the names of the fields on which they had been captured, and that permission was refused for a very amiable motive, I have no sort of doubt. The argument was, that as these gentlemen were coming back, we must leave nowhere any mementoes that could taunt them with, what? With the fact that there had been a difference, that there had been a war, that they had been criminals. I recollect of hearing that statement read from the papers one morning at a table where were sitting two crippled soldiers, each one of whom had lost part of a hand; and I recollect very distinctly, and shall recollect a great while, the manner with which one of them said to the other, "Well, my friend, it is time for you and me to go and bury ourselves; if we remain here on the earth these crippled hands of ours will forever be a reproach to these returning brothers that are coming back." We cannot allow the fact that the people of the United States captured a gun from their enemies to be inscribed on the gun for fear those enemies will have their feelings hurt! And when it is suggested here that cadets shall not be educated at this school of ours from districts which have no Representatives in the other House, objection is made to that. We object to it in the face and eyes of the fact that notwithstanding the law requires every one of those cadets to be nominated by the member from the district, these appointments are being made constantly from the districts where there is no Representative to make the nomination. When it is proposed to correct that, we strike it out. We say it is too small a matter for the Senate, and we strike it out.

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vacancies. During the war vacancies from the southern States were filled up by soldiers selected from the ranks.

Mr. TRUMBULL. It is intended, and that is the design of the amendment, to take away from the President the authority to fill up these vacancies. It has been a question of construction, whether there was authority to fill vacancies where there was no Representative to make the recommendation. I think the general understanding of the law is that the President has no authority to fill up these vacancies; but still it has been exercised to some extent, and I believe we should make it certain.

Mr. SHERMAN, Does it go back? Mr. TRUMBULL. No, sir; it is merely for the future. If there is any question about that, I will put in the word "hereafter."

Mr. WILSON. The word "hereafter" is in the preceding amendment.

Mr. TRUMBULL. Very well; then it is not necessary here. I do not intend it to go back. If the Senate concur in it, the object of the amendment is simply this: that the vacancies from the unrepresented districts in the rebellious States shall not be filled by appointment by the President.

Mr. FESSENDEN. That is simply reënacting the proviso we struck out substantially. We struck it out on a vote of the Senate. I stated the reason that actuated the committee in advising the Senate to strike out that proviso. The greater portion of these appointments have already been made, and the vacancies filled up by President Lincoln, and taken from the several free States. Some from the State of Illinois were appointed for Mississippi, or some State down there. There are a few left, which it is for the advantage of the community, if we want to keep our Academy full, should be filled up. I will state one single thing that operated in the minds of the committee. We thought after allowing-if there was any such authority-President Lincoln to fill up the biggest part of them from the free States, it was rather small game to undertake to say that Mr. Johnson, being President, should not fill up the residue of them, if he had the power, from these States themselves. This is saying the same thing over again. I shall not vote for the amendment to the amendment for the reason that that is my opinion about it.

Now, here is a proposition to prohibit the appointment of an individual to receive the advantages of that school who has been in this traitorous service, and it is proposed that we shall discriminate anew; that we shall not adopt that in those broad terms, but that we shall raise another question, whether his service was voluntary or involuntary, a question which we cannot try, which we cannot determine. As I said in the outset, if we were determining the question whether we would hang one of these men, I would stop and cavil on the question whether his crime was the result of choice or the result of force; but when we are determining only as to what class of young men shall be educated at the expense of the United States and for the military service of the United States, I think we shall run no risk of doing wrong to anybody if we say we will take those pupils from the class who have heretofore been loyal and true to the Govern-ative from the district. However, the law is not

ment.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 8, nays 33; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Guthrie, Hendricks, and Johnson-8.

NAYS-Messrs. Chandler, Clark, Conness, Cragin, Creswell, Edmunds, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Nye, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Wade, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates-33.

ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Nesmith, Riddle, Saulsbury, and Wright-8.

So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I offer the following as an amendment to the amendment, to come in at the end of it:

Nor shall any vacancy in the Military Academy, from any congressional district, be filled while said district remains unrepresented in the Congress of the United States.

Mr. SHERMAN. I ask the Senator if that will not affect the appointments of soldiers that have been made from our Army to fill up these

Mr. TRUMBULL. The Senator from Maine misunderstands the spirit of the amendment that I have offered. He attributes it-that would be the inference-to a desire to take from Mr. Johnson, because he is President, the power to fill up these vacancies, having allowed the power to be exercised by the Presi dent heretofore. Now, I say in all sincerity that I did not have Mr. Johnson in my mind in reference to it, as to his being President, or anybody else. My understanding of the law has been that these appointments should only be made on the recommendation of the Represent

very clear on that subject. I think it ought to be specific, and that is the object of my amendment. I would have offered it just as quickly

if Mr. Lincoln were President as I do now that Mr. Johnson is President. It is not intended as a reflection upon the present President, and I did not have such a thing in view. Mr. FESSENDEN. That is precisely the

effect of it.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I think Mr. Lincoln did wrong in filling up these vacancies, because in my judgment that was not the intention of the law. I will not say that he violated the law, for the law is not very clear upon the subject. I once looked into it and had some doubts as to whether the President was bound to appoint on the recommendation of a Representative in Congress. That has been the practice, and I think it should be made certain. I do not regard it as such a small matter. If we under

take to fill up the Military Academy on the recommendation of the Representatives from the congressional districts we should abide by it. Mr. FESSENDEN. There either is authority

in the President, or there is not. If there is not, he cannot appoint.

Mr. HOWE. He does appoint.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Very well. Now I say those appointments were made without com plaint on our part, without raising the question of authority at all.

Mr. TRUMBULL. We did raise it before. Mr. FESSENDEN. No, sir, the question was not raised; no complaint whatever was made about it.

Mr. TRUMBULL. It has been discussed in the Senate heretofore.

Mr. FESSENDEN. It was not discussed until after the appointments were made, and after the State of Illinois and the State of Iowa and the State of Maine, for aught I know, had the advantage of sending young men to West Point as representing southern districts; and we submitted to it with a good grace, at any rate. Now, there are a few left; and it is proposed to take away the power, if it exists, just at this time. If it does not exist, the President will not exercise it; at least, it is to be presumed that he will not. We have got a full corps of professors in the Academy, and there are a few places in it vacant. It is important to the country that they should be filled up. Now that peace has returned, it would be a mean thing, in my judgment, to fill up these, in addition, from the northern States, if there are those who are not rebels that can be found in what were lately the confederate States: and we have already inserted a provision that they shall not be taken from anybody who served in the rebel army. I suppose we have power to put this provision on; but I am opposed to it for the reason that it looks, as I said before, as if we were just aiming it at the President with reference to the exercise of this power, if he has it; and if he has not got it, it is not to be presumed that he will exercise it; and therefore I am opposed to the amendment.

Mr. COWAN. It has just struck me that if we were to read in history now, after a lapse of one hundred and twenty-one years, that a member of the English Parliament, after the battle of Culloden, had moved in that Parlia ment that no Highland youth who had engaged in that rebellion should be educated in English colleges, what would we think of it? When Hoche suppressed the rebellion in La Vendée, what would we think if a member of the French Convention had got up and moved that no La Vendean who had taken part in that rebellion should have entrée into the Ecole Polytechnique?

of

Why, Mr. President, I should think the part of wise men would be to get the young men the South educated with our young men in the colleges of the North, in the national schools, What is to be the effect of a contrary policy? Are we to make these young men patriots, defenders of the country, and attached to its institutions by exclusions of this kind? Mr. President, I fear me much for this policy.

I had a conversation to-day with a Senator of this body. At one time in my life, in my youth, I was wise enough, foolish enough, enterprising enough to project an expedition into Texas to aid General Houston in liberating Texas from the yoke of Mexico. I am free to-day to say that at that time, at the age of quarrel was about. I did not stop to inquire twenty years perhaps, I did not know what the what the quarrel was about. I had a notion that our people were fighting with some other people; that this blood of ours was in contest either with Indians or Mexicans or some other race for domination in Texas; and I was with our own people. My friend with whom I had this conversation said to me, "I was a soldier in the Mexican war; I went into it at the age of sixteen; and I am free to say that at that time I did not know what the precise point of quarrel was between this country and Mexico; I did not stop to inquire; my country was at war; and although sixteen years of age I volunteered, and I was present at the battles of Monterey and Buena Vista."

Mr. President, think of it, and Senators think

of it! Would you exclude young men of that age, because they engaged in a contest in which all their neighbors and all their people were more or less involved, from the advantages which are extended to other young men of the country, and embitter and make more hostile to our institutions those young men? I think the true policy would be to endeavor, so far as we can, to get the young men of the South, those who have been misled and carried away into the rebellion, to come to the North, to come to cur schools, and intermingle with our people, now that the great bone of contention has been gnawed to pieces in the struggle, that we may all harmonize together and feel that we have a common interest in defending a common republic.

I am satisfied from all the lessons of history that this policy of proscription, this policy of imposing punishments not fixed and regulated by law, not following upon conviction in a court of justice, is not only bad policy, not only a blunder, but a crime. I have no sympathy for the leaders of the rebellion; I have no sympathy for the bad men who fomented it, and who taught the various sections to hate each other; but for the people, for the youth of the people, I have no condemnation, particularly after what has taken place, and after they have suffered the calamities of war. That I take to be the just penalty, and they stand acquitted when it is paid.

Now, as was said by the Senator from Maine, and better said than I can say it, the idea that this remnant which belongs to the South by the Constitution and the laws, that the chances which remain to her since she has submitted should be taken away is painful; a melancholy example, I fear, of how far the passions of men may lead them to disregard, not only their true interests, but those of the country.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I ask for the yeas and nays upon it.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. POMEROY. This amendment prevents the doing of a thing which I think would be very commendable if it could be done. There are in all the districts of the South some very loyal young men who have been in our Army. This amendment would prevent the President from appointing those young men to the Military Academy. I do not know that they would stand the ghost of a chance to get appointed; but it would prevent their being appointed if they stood a chance. I would like to see some of the young men in the South, who have suffered the loss of all things, who have been truer to our cause than the needle to the pole, because they would not turn even in the presence of the metals, appointed to our Military Academy; but this amendment prevents that.

Mr. TRUMBULL. If the Senator from Kansas will allow me, I will ask him whether he is for changing the law, and taking away from the member of the House the right to recommend the appointment from his district. The object of this amendment is to execute the law as it has been understood, I believe, ever since this Academy was established. These whole forty appointments, if there are so many vacant, if you will not adopt some such measure as this, may, under the practice that is prevailing, every one of them be made from the District of Columbia. Is the Senator for leaving the law in that way? When we have established an institution and undertaken to fill it up by students from each congressional district in the United States, is he now for throwing it open, and telling the President to appoint, if he pleases, from the District of Columbia fifty persons? He will not, by voting this amendment down, give the appointments to these congressional districts. The Presi dent has a certain number, ten, at large, that he can appoint annually. The object of this amendment is to prevent the appointment in vacancies from congressional districts until there is a Representative to recommend somebody from the district.

Mr. GRIMES. How does this amendment change the law as it now stands?

Mr. TRUMBULL. According to my understanding of it, perhaps not at all; but there is a dispute about the law. It is contended by some that the Secretary of War or the President has the right to appoint every single person to West Point irrespective of the recommendations of the Representatives in the congressional districts. This fixes the law.

Mr. WILSON. The speech the Senator from Pennsylvania has just made, and the statement he has made to us in regard to his campaign in Texas, gives to me a key to his line of policy here, and I think I now know him a great deal better than I did. I will say to the Senator that it seems to me a very strange thing that we are discussing in the Senate of the United States to-day whether we shall send men who have fought in the rebel armies to West Point to educate them at the public expense with the sons of men who have given their lives in the defense of the country. What will the young men of this country, whose fathers and brothers and friends have fallen in this war, think of the Congress of the United States if we send men who have fought in the rebel armies, and perhaps shot down their fathers and brothers and friends, to West Point to be educated with them? I am surprised that any Senators here should advocate a pol-appointments are made upon the nominations icy of that character. I am willing that the young men of the South should be educated, and educated in our colleges and schools, anywhere and everywhere, at their own expense. I hope they will be educated, and taught better than they have been taught in the years of the past; but for the Government of the United States to permit the men who have served in the rebel armies to be educated at West Point at the public expense seems to me to be to elevate treason and to put a mark of disbonor upon fidelity to the country. It is a fact everywhere manifest about us that every effort is being made that can be made to make rebellion and treason respectable.

As to the amendment just moved by the Senator from Illinois, I agree with the Senator from Maine that we had better keep it off this bill. I am willing to do anything that is liberal and fair toward the people of the rebel States; but, sir, to take the men from their armies and put them with the young men of this country to be educated at West Point, or at the Naval School, seems to me little less than elevating treason at the expense of loyalty to the country.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on the proposed amendment to the amendment.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I wish to ask the Senator from Illinois if that is not in fact the law, and if it is not a matter of usage simply that

of members of the House?

Mr. TRUMBULL. I think it is partly a matter of usage; but there is some color of law for it. I think there is a statute that rather recognizes this as the law; if not, a regulation.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I have understood that it was a matter of usage simply. I never investigated the law myself.

Mr. GRIMES. Mr. President, two years ago General Sherman, when in command at Vicksburg, directed an inquiry to be made among the various regiments that composed his army for the young men who had most distinguished themselves and were best qualified to make soldiers, and he instituted an examining board who investigated as to their merits, and among the young men thus selected were four very good young men from my own State. They were selected and are now at West Point. Now, as I understand it, the proper, legiti mate, and logical sequence of the adoption of this proposition is that they will be turned out. Mr. TRUMBULL. Not at all.

Mr. GRIMES. I know this proposition does not do that; but the logical sequence would be that they ought to be turned out, and that we should adopt an amendment to-morrow to turn them out, because there was no law by which

they could have been appointed. I am not going to place them in any such category as that.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted-yeas 14, nays 23; as follows:

YEAS-Messrs. Chandler, Clark, Conness, Creswell, Edmunds, Harris, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Nye. Sprague, Sumner, Trumbull, and Wade-14.

NAYS-Messrs. Buckalew, Cowan, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Fessenden, Foster, Grimes, Guthrie, Henderson, Hendricks, Johnson, Lane of Kansas, Morgan, Norton, Pomeroy, Sherman, Stewart, Van Winkle, Willey, Williams, Wilson, and Yates-23. ABSENT-Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Cragin, Lane of Indiana, McDougall, Morrill. Nesmith, Poland, Ramsey, Riddle, Saulsbury, and Wright-12.

So the amendment to the amendment was rejected.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question now is on the amendment of the Senator from Massachusetts.

The amendment was agreed to.

The amendments were ordered to be engrossed and the bill to be read a third time. It was read the third time and passed.

ORDER OF BUSINESS.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I move that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the fortification bill. I merely desire to take it up so as to have it as the order of the day for to

morrow.

Mr. VAN WINKLE. I desire to suggest to the Senator that to-morrow has been assigned by a resolution of the Senate for the consideration of the business of the Committee on Pensions, after one o'clock.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I desire to finish this bill this week, if it be possible, to get it out of the way. It is an appropriation bill.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. It is moved that the Senate proceed to the consideration of the bill (H. R. No. 255) making appropria tions for the construction, preservation, and repairs of certain fortifications and other works of defense for the year ending June 30, 1867.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I do not think the chairman of the Committee on Finance ought to call up the bill that he now proposes to take up, with a view of making it the order for tomorrow, or to have it before the Senate so as to exclude the special order, in the absence of my colleague, the chairman of the Committee on Pensions, because, as I understand, the business of that committee has been made the order for to-morrow at one o'clock. I think he ought to postpone his motion until my colleague is in the Senate. I believe he is not well to-day, and is not here now.

Mr. KIRKWOOD. I think that matter can be arranged perhaps; but I do not know.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I dare say, if my colleague were here, he would not interpose any objection.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Let us take it up, and if the Senator is here in the morning I will leave it to the Senate to decide upon the two bills. I only want this to take precedence of anything else, and it is absolutely necessary now, as the business is laid out, to get through with the appropriation bills.

Mr. HENDRICKS. I do not question that. Mr. FESSENDEN. We shall probably not sit on Saturday, and I should like to have this bill taken up, and then we can arrange the

matter to-morrow.

Mr. HENDRICKS. Do you expect a ses sion on Saturday?

Mr. FESSENDEN. Probably not.

Mr. SHERMAN. The bill to fund the public debt ought to be taken up at some time; and I desire now to have some understanding about it. The appropriation bills are matters of course, and will pass of course--the forti fication bill with the rest. There is no question about that. The funding bill is from the same committee. The very weight of the ap propriation bills will carry them through. Now, I submit it to the Senate, as I cannot agree with the Senator from Maine on the subject, whether we ought not to take up the bill with regard to funding the public debt, so as to enable the Secretary of the Treasury to determine upon the loan which he intends to put upon the market. I say to the Senate it is a matter of vital

importance that that question should be settled one way or the other as speedily as possible. If the Senate shall vote down the proposition, the Secretary will pursue another course. The fortification bill is a matter of no moment. I say that, knowing the condition of public business. There is ample time to consider it. It is a bill that will pass at any time, on its own merits and weight. Now, I submit whether as Monday is set aside for the report of the reconstruction committee, which will probably take a long time, whether we ought not to take up the funding bill, which I regard as the most important now pending, and on which there ought to be some action. I shall, therefore, contrary to the general usage in these matters, vote against the motion of the Senator from Maine, because I think the funding bill, from the same committee, ought to have the preference at this time.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I do not know of anybody but the Senator from Ohio who regards this funding bill as of any consequence to be taken up.

Mr. SHERMAN. I am not to be put off by remarks of that kind. The Senator may have his opinion. I have mine. I have just as good a right to my opinions as he has to his. He knows that the fortification appropriation bill is not of any importance, and it is brought up for the purpose of preventing the vote on the funding bill.

Mr. FESSENDEN. That is not so.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Senators must observe order, and not interrupt each other in debate.

We

Mr. SHERMAN. The Senator has already displayed too much feeling. The other day, when I reported the bill, he said he would prevent it from coming up at all times. are accustomed somewhat to his impatient remarks; but at the same time I have my duty to perform, and I say here now, representing a majority of the Finance Committee, that I have the right to have this question heard, at least, unless he should outvote me. Upon questions of this kind I do not like to have any personal feeling. I desire that the funding bill should be brought to the consideration of the Senate. It is a matter of vital importance, and therefore I intend, representing the majority of the committee, to antagonize that bill against the bill now proposed to be taken up. This fortification bill is a matter of no moment whatever. The Senator knows as well as I do

that it will pass. It cannot operate until the 1st of July next, and can have no effect and no influence whatever until then, while this funding bill, if it is to pass at all, ought to be .passed promptly. That is the condition of the public business, and I therefore shall vote against the motion. If there is a special order to-morrow that overrides both, we have got to submit.

Mr. TRUMBULL. It is manifest that we are accomplishing no business to-night, and I move that the Senate adjourn.

Mr. FESSENDEN. I should like to have the Senator withdraw that motion for a moment until I make an explanation. I must reply to the Senator from Ohio, and then he may renew it if he pleases.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I will withdraw it at a personal request, if the Senator wishes to say anything; but I think we had better adjourn.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The motion to adjourn is withdrawn.

Mr. FESSENDEN. Mr. President, I gave notice early this week that I should call up the appropriation bills during this week-three of them in order to dispose of them; that we were getting to a period of the session when they ought to be taken up and disposed of, those of them that we intended to dispose of at this period; and I did it quite as much for this reason as for any other, that the Senator from Ohio had been at me continually to take up the appropriation bills and get them out of the

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Mr. FESSENDEN. Exactly; and the longer the time was deferred, the more necessary it was to get at them some day or other. While I was detained from my seat in the Senate by illness the Senator from Ohio took up one or two of those bills in order to pass them; he deemed it so important. I gave notice early in the week that I should take up the bills, if I could, this week, because next week is set aside for the consideration of other business.

Now the Senator regards his funding bill as of importance. I do not. The remark that I made the other day was simply this: that he reported it with the consent of the Committee on Finance, not that the majority agreed to it, as he knows very well

Mr. SHERMAN. I do not know any such thing.

Mr. FESSENDEN. If the Senator had listened to the remarks that were made and the reasons that were given by members of the committee why they allowed it to be reported, he would have known it.

Mr. SHERMAN. The Senator is out of order in making such an allusion.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Senators will address the Chair, and not interrupt each other while debate is proceeding.

Mr. FESSENDEN. When the Senator reported the bill I made the remark that I was opposed to it because I had given notice in the committee that I should oppose it, and I deemed it quite as much my duty to say that in order that it should not go to the country that that bill met with the entire concurrence of the Committee on Finance, and I made the remark because I knew the use that would be made of the report if that statement had not accompanied it.

Now, sir, the Senator regards that bill as of great importance. I made the remark that I did not know anybody else that did regard it of so much importance to be taken up immediately. Perhaps he can make out that it is, and perhaps there are others who think so; but still my remark is a correct one, that I do not know anybody else who regards its being taken up immediately as of much consequence.

I do not doubt that the appropriation bill which I have mentioned will pass at some time or other before we adjourn; but it is necessary to have these things in progress. We have the Army bill behind. That has not passed. We have the principal appropriation bill behind, the executive and legislative bill, which has not yet been taken up; and we have the question of reconstruction to dispose of, which will take some considerable time.

My view of the matter, therefore, as having charge, in some degree, of the business of the Senate in connection with these measures that must be passed at some time, was that, at this late period of the session, some of those bills should be swept out of the way. I have been continually met with this funding bill. Well, sir, I do not think myself, and the Senator will pardon me for expressing it again, that it is of so much consequence, because I am opposed to it. I take it that I had a right to say I was opposed to it, and to say that I was not in favor of it, because I was opposed to it in every shape. The remark, I take it, was pardonable. And now I really do not think that the Senator had the right, after I gave notice so long ago as Monday that I wanted to take up these bills, and after he has been urging me continually to take them up and get them out of the way, to interpose the bill to which he seems so much attached. That is my notion with regard to it. I may be wrong, but still I entertain that opinion.

Mr. COWAN. Now, let us adjourn. Mr. SHERMAN. Just one word. I undoubtedly did say to the Senator, expressing my opinion, that he should have taken up the appropriation bills some time ago when all these formal bills, about which there is little debate, could have been acted upon and got out of the way, leaving the important bills until the close of the session, as is usual. Undoubt

edly I did say that, and undoubtedly that was the proper course.

But here is the trouble: the Senator and I differ in regard to an important bill. He has undertaken to say what has occurred in committee. I think that that was improper; cer tainly it was in violation of the rule. I take it that every person who votes in committee votes his sentiments; and therefore, as I was authorized to report this bill, it was reported by the majority of the committee. I do not controvert with the Senator about what occurred there. The members are here present; and they know very well whether or not they gave their assent to the bill. I only wish to say that that bill is considered, not only by myself, but by others, as of the highest importance. The Senator must have seen two or three letters from the Secretary of the Treasury on the subject, asking us to pass that bill. I state to the Senate, now, the fact that the question as to the loan that will be put upon the market is waiting for our action upon that bill. That is a fact that my honorable friend must know as well as myself.

Under these circumstances, to bring up the fortification appropriation bills just at this time, when the Senator has blocked out the business for next week and the week after, crowding out this important bill which he does not happen to agree with, against the report of the committee, of which he is chairman, and therefore the most influential member, and crowding in these little bills that have laid on our table for weeks, did seem to me to justify the remark I made, that it was done for the purpose of crowding off that funding bill.

Mr. FESSENDEN. The Senator must recollect that I gave notice on Monday of this week that I should take up these bills in order to pass them, and his bill was not decided on in committee until Tuesday.

Mr. SHERMAN. I will state fu:ther that the Senator spoke about two bills, the diplo matic and consular bill and the West Point bill. The fortification bill is a matter of no moment, and will take no time. Under these circumstances, I have a right to say, from the evidence before us, that the Senator desires, as a part of his parliamentary opposition to this bill, to interpose other bills to prevent it coming up, because when else can we take it up if we do not take it up now? Under the circumstances, I say, I am justified in saying it. All I desire is to submit this proposition, which I can demonstrate to be not only extremely important but a measure which in my judg ment will save the Government in a short time $20,000,000 a year, to the deliberate judgment of the Senate. If the Senate shall vote the bill down. I shall have no regrets. It is only a question of public economy. It is not a ques tion that affects me in the slightest degree either way. That is the feeling I had, and I felt in interposing now that I was performing an unpleasant duty. I desire to bring that bill (even against the opposition of the Senator from Maine) to the consideration of the Senate, and after it is heard and debated-it will be debated by me very briefly-I am willing to take the judgment of the Senate upon it.

Mr. TRUMBULL. I renew the motion to adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

THURSDAY, May 17, 1866. The House met at twelve o'clock m. Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. C. B. BOYNTON. The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.

HENRY PACKARD.

Mr. BANKS, by unanimous consent, introduced a joint resolution authorizing the settlement of the accounts of Henry Packard, deceased, late assistant paymaster of the Unifirst and ted States Navy; which was read second time, and referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs.

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