The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1868-01-20

TEE REcoNsrsucTIoS DERArE N Cox
eRnss.-Ihe Associated Press dispatches fail
ed to give US thesery important debate in the
House Of REPRESENTATIVES, on Friday, on the
new reconstruction bill which abolishes the
existing State governments at the South and
gives the control of their affairs into the
hands of General Grant. The bill was adyo-
Gated by Messrs. Boutwell, of Massachusetts,
Garfield OF Ohio, Jenckes OF Rhode Island
and Peters of this State. Mr.. Peters made
hts nader speech. In the course Of his re-
marks in support OF the bill he sent up to the
clerks desk and had read letter from gem
tleman in Alabama. whose name he did not
wish to make public but who described him
self as an officer of the Freedmen's Bureau
and member of the Constitutional Con-
yention, picturiug The social condition of
affairs in Alabama, and declaring that the
disposition OF the rebels there was more des-
potc and malignant than at any former pc
riod.
Mr. Boutwell,, after calling attention to the
movement on foot in tie Democratic Lesisia-
ture of Ohio and New Jersey to rescind the
action of those States on the Constitutional
amendment said that the effect Of this re-
dictionary movement would be to allow trepu-
datlon, the assumption of the Southern rebel
debt. and to give a hundred thousand men in
the South the same political power as a hun
dred and fifty-three thousand white men in
the North. That was the entertainment to
which the Northern people We're invited il
they should deny TO the black man Of the
South the right to vote and to be represented
in the government; more than that, they
would be creating an American Ireland, and
booming it to distress, TO disaster, to servitude.
to civil war-and above all, they would be
scattering the four millions of black people
who otherwise would have homes and happy
existence in the South, to compete with the
free laborers of the North gt s.a
Gen. Garfield spoke as follows in relation TO
the progress of reconstruction:
He wanted it distinctly understood, and he
believed he might say 80 for the party to which
he belonged, that the party intended to take
no step backward; they had inaugurated a
policy i'll the 39th Congress, and were now IN
the process of carrying it out. The State of
Tennessee had already been restored; Alaba-
ma had prepared Constitution and would
vote for it on the 4th of February, and he ex-
pected to see before the second week OF Febru-
AIRY that State redeemed and clothed in her
right mind, and sitting by her representatives
in Congress. Seven more Of these States were
now holding Conventions and forming Consti-
buttons of Government in accordance with the
law, and two more had ordered elections to
vote on the question of Conventions. The
work was thus going on, aud If there were NO
adverse action to thwart it, they would see the
Union completely restored before another
twelvemonth. #s JOS LIB
The other side in the debate was taken by
Brooks of New York, Ross of Illinois and Hub
bard of Connecticut. Brooks told his old story
about the Rump Parliament in Cromwells
time. Wood of New York tried to get in a
word but was unsuccessful. The debate finally
closed with some very unseemly personal pas
sages between Messrs. Ross and Washburne of
Illinois. Ross was the aggressor, but one would
think that the "Father of the House" might,
even under great provocation, set his younger
associates better example. The House will
undoubtedly pass the bill to-day 4.rf