Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1871-03-23
.FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS-,
WASHINGTON, March 81.
SENATE.

In the Senate to-day the debate on the gen.
eral amnesty bill was continued ly Messrs.
Trumbull, Sherman and Pool, the latter say
ing he hoped Congress would not adjourn I'M
til it had done something to repress the pre-
vailing crime and disorder in the South. He
believed a remedy was to be had in civil
arms, and that sufficient additional power
should be given to the courts, and he wanted
this done, because he did not wish to see
martial law over the whole South. If Cong
ress adjourned without applying remedy for
the existing condition of things in the South
then in the months that would intervene be-
fore the re-assembling of Congress, the
consequences would be sad indeed and the
strongest measures would be required to re-
store law and order. He believed that many
democrats of the South deplored the existing
law lessness and would be willing to assist in
the execution of mild and salutary laws.
Mr.. Blair attributed apparent great anxiety
manifested on this floor about the tranquility
of the South, to the fact that at the last cleo
ton the radicals had been turned out of pow
er in North Carolina and Alabama, and they
now wanted the same legislation to put them
back again. The was the sum and substance
of the preteXts before Congress. The Sem
ate should be admonished by the House of
Representatives. The people had been
heard through that body and it was useless
for the senate to attempt to pass any KuKlux
legislation, as il would not be concurred in
by the House.
Mr.. Blair proposed if time was to be occupied,
that a bill to repeal the duties on salt and coal
should be passed. We had had coal famine
in the sea board State this winter, and the
monopolists had demanded that the duties be
kept up, and the Senate probably determined
to accede to the demand. Salt monopolists
| l. =. Al II.
cans, because the laws and their caucus
acquisitions to that party prevented their leg
islation on the subject, and we Senators to be
tied up by their caucuses and prevented from
liberating the country from the bands of these
monopolistS.
Mr.. Pool in the few minutes remaining be-
fore taking the vote, replied briefly to what
he called grave charges of the Senator from
Missouri, because he (Pool) has asked for
legislation to repress assassination and muir
der. That Senator intimates that the pur-
pose was to put down the democratic party.
He believed if the democratic party could not
exist except by such means, it ought to be
put down. The Senators remarks would
justify the belief, and his party were melted
| by murder and crime to keep his party in the
South. However they might deny it, this
was what the party friends of Senator Blair
| were at. They were endeavoring to substi-
tute violence tor law and use the assassins
dagger to keep their party in power. He
| (PooD in behalf of the Southern people,
| asked for legislation to prevent the assassin
| from holding power by means of hate and
scourge. His people would be saved not
| only from assassins, but from their aiders
and abetters. These were the same men
whose eyes were so jaundiced that they could
see nothing except through the medium party
He was not among them. He would see the
democratic party and every other humbled
before he would see them maintain them
selves by plumber and assassination. He
stood here to ask that the South be no longer
made foot ball of by assassins, and that
his political associates would do nothing to
preclude the Judiciary Committee from tax
ing the subject into consideration. Two
O'Clock, the time fixed for taking the vote,
here arrived,
After an exciting debate between Messrs
Pool and Blair, Mr. Thurmap's amendment
to provide for legislation upon the South at
the present session was agreed to-3l to Is.
! The result of the vote was then announced