By a vote of 80 to 65 the bill and its amendments was again laid on the table. Thirty-seven members abstained from voting; fourteen Republicans voted with the Democrats.1 This action was taken on the 22d of February, 1865; the session closed on the 4th of March following without any further attempt to pass the bill. Before the vote was taken Ashley stated his sentiments candidly. He wanted a record made on the question. "I do not expect," said he, "to pass this bill now. At the next session, when a new Congress fresh from the people shall have assembled, with the nation and its Representatives far in advance of the present Congress, I hope to pass even a better bill. Sir, I know that our loyal people will never be guilty of the infamy of inviting the blacks to unite with them in fighting our battles, and after our triumph a triumph which we never could have achieved but for their generous cooperation and aid — deny those loyal blacks political rights while consenting that pardoned but unrepentant white rebels shall again be clothed with the entire political power of these States." 2 The desire to obtain negro suffrage explains the inconsistent course of Representative Ashley throughout these debates.

By a singular method of abridging history Mr. Blaine in his Twenty Years of Congress passes without observation the attempt to revive the "pocketed" bill, though it was during its discussion that there was for the first time unmistakably revealed the existence of a schism in the Republican party.

IX

THE ELECTORAL VOTE OF LOUISIANA

A

PRECEDING chapter has noticed the result of the
Presidential election of 1864. It was thought

proper, however, to reserve for separate treatment the various questions presented by the participation in that contest of Louisiana and Tennessee, two States reorganized under Executive auspices. On the introduction by Mr. Wilson of a joint resolution declaring certain named States not entitled to representation in the Electoral College, the entire subject came before the House soon after the meeting of Congress in December.

The proposed resolution was read twice and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. On the following day, December 20, 1864, it was reported, ordered to be printed and recommitted. Under the operation of the previous question it passed the House on January 30 succeeding. Its preamble, which was favorably considered at the same time, declared that "the inhabitants and local authorities of the States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, and Tennessee rebelled against the Government of the United States, and have continued in a state of armed rebellion for more than three years, and were in a state of armed rebellion on the 8th of November, 1864."

The joint resolution provided that these States were not entitled to representation in the Electoral College for the choice of President and Vice-President for the term of office

beginning March 4, 1865, and that no electoral votes from them, relative to the choice of said officers for that term, should be received or counted.1

In a modified form the measure subsequently passed the Senate, which proposed that there be stricken from the preamble the words " and were in such condition of armed rebellion for more than three years," and that there be inserted in lieu thereof," and were in such condition on the 8th day of November, 1864, that no valid election for electors of President and Vice-President, according to the Constitution and laws thereof, was held therein on said day." In this amendment the House promptly concurred, February 6, 1865.

In the Senate, February 1, Mr. Trumbull asked consideration of the measure inasmuch as the electoral votes were to be counted a week later. When the amendment was under discussion, Senator Ten Eyck, of New Jersey, moved to strike out the word "Louisiana" in the preamble, and added that it was a matter of history that the State had reorganized, or at least attempted to do so, and in the opinion of many, and perhaps most, of her loyal citizens had reorganized as a State. It was matter of history that they had elected State officers and a State Legislature; that they had elected members to a constitutional convention and framed a new constitution for that State; that the Legislature passed a law authorizing the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States in the last Presidential election, and that such electors had met and cast their votes. "Under these circumstances," said Mr. Ten Eyck, "I think there is a striking distinction between the State of Virginia and the State of Louisiana." The object of his amendment, he stated, was to afford opportunity to a loyal people who had suffered all the horrors of the rebellion, who had got the better of it, and put it under foot, of coming back and resuming their place in the 'Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 505.

councils of the nation. He did not then desire to make any further remarks.1

Senator Trumbull then took up the discussion of Ten Eyck's amendment to the amendment. The electoral votes, he said, were to be opened and canvassed a week later, and it was known to all that no rules for action had ever been adopted in that joint convention. He recalled the fact that in 1856 there arose a question over the counting of the electoral vote of Wisconsin. A severe snow storm had prevented the electors from meeting at their State capital on the day fixed by law, and it was not until the day following that they were able to cast their votes for President and Vice-President. The question was not then decided, for Buchanan and Breckenridge were the successful candidates in either event, and were so declared.

He believed a similar question was likely to arise when the electoral votes would be counted on February 8. It was a matter of public notoriety, he continued, that several of the States included in the President's proclamation of 1861, Arkansas, Tennessee and Louisiana, had cast electoral votes. There was a question as to their authority to do so in consequence of the insurrection which prevailed there on the 8th of November, when the election took place, and the House of Representatives had passed the joint resolution declaring that the votes of certain named States should not be counted. motion of the Senator from New Jersey would have the effect of counting the vote of Louisiana. "If we decide to receive the vote from Louisiana," declared Mr. Trumbull, "it will be a decision by the Congress of the United States that the State of Louisiana was in such a condition as to vote for President and Vice-President on the 8th of November last."

The

The alteration proposed by the Committee on the Judiciary, said he, was for the purpose of avoiding any such committal 1 Globe, Part I., 2 Sess. 38th Cong., p. 533.

on the subject as the motion of the Senator from New Jersey brought up. If the preamble "is adopted and the resolution passed, Congress will not have decided whether Louisiana is in the Union or out of the Union, whether she is a State or not a State." It would be time enough, he believed, to decide that question when it was presented to the Senate. No statement of facts, he asserted in reply to Senator Howe, accompanied the joint resolution from the Committee on the Judiciary; it was a House resolution, and no report accompanied it from the House Committee.

A large part of Louisiana, he added, was on the 8th of November preceding in the possession of a hostile force. In a very considerable portion of the State there was no opportunity to vote for President or Vice-President, and it might be a very serious question whether, when half a State or the third of a State was overrun by an enemy, an election held under such circumstances and under the auspices of Federal guns would be an election which would authorize the Congress of the United States, when in joint convention it came to canvass the votes for President and Vice-President, to count ballots cast under such circumstances.

In acting upon the resolution he did not mean to commit the Senate one way or another relative to the organization which had been formed in Louisiana. A decision to strike out Louisiana would be to decide that her electoral vote would be received and that on November 8th there was a State government there. That he did not believe. No evidence, he asserted, had been submitted to show how many votes were

cast.

Pursuant to an act of Congress the President had declared the inhabitants of Louisiana in insurrection against the United States. That proclamation had not been recalled. "Sir," concluded Mr. Trumbull, "until there shall be some action by Congress recognizing the organization which has