Diary of Gideon Welles: Thursday, May 3, 1866

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