Had a pretty full
talk with Mr. Rice, Chairman of the Naval Committee, on the subject of
Reconstruction. He said he did not approve of the report of the Reconstruction
Committee in all respects, and had no doubt it would be amended; that, in his
opinion, as soon as a State adopted the requirement prescribed by Congress, she
should be permitted to send Representatives without waiting the action of other
States. This was Bingham's amendment, and a majority of Congress would adopt
that policy.
I told him our
differences were fundamental; that I did not admit Congress could prescribe
terms or make precedent conditions to any State before it could exercise the
Constitutional right guaranteed to all the States of sending Senators and
Representatives to make laws for the whole country. That this was a right
guaranteed in the most imposing and solemn form, yet for five months Congress
had violated that Constitutional guaranty.
The Southern people
were still Rebels in heart, he said, and would I admit them to be represented
while this was the case? They were violent in their language and conduct, and
would we allow them to take part in the government while that state of things
continued? I told him I knew not how he could prevent it; men would use
language that was offensive; but if he regarded the Constitution he would not
on that account deprive them of their rights, or lay down unwritten tests. The
whole scheme of imposing conditions on the States, denying them representation,
was usurpation and an outrage; Congress, not the Southern people, were in this
matter the criminals. I asked whether he supposed that by excluding the
Southern States and people from the government, denying them rights guaranteed
by the Constitution, taxing them without allowing them representation, would
conciliate, would reconcile, would hasten restoration, make them better friends
six months hence, or six years hence?
SOURCE: Gideon
Welles, Diary of Gideon Welles, Secretary of the Navy Under Lincoln and
Johnson, Vol. 2: April 1, 1864 — December 31, 1866, p. 498-9
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