The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-02-10


feated-Ths Proposed Revocation Of tho
Alabama Treaty.
The Senate has at last come to final issue
on the Amnesty bill, and the bill is dead. 1t
was killed by Summers supplementary Civil
Rights bill, which was tackled on to it as an
amendment by the casting vote of Vice
President Colfax. Many of the most prom-
nent republican Senators voted against Sum-
ner's amendment, including Carpenter, of
Wisconsin; Ferry, Of Connecticut Logan and
Trumbull, of Illinois; Morrill,. of Maine;
Robertson and Sawyer, of South Carolina;
Schurz, of Missouri, and Scott, of Pennsyl-
vania. It was tie vote-28 to 29-and
the amendment was, therefore, defeated
had not Mr.. Colfax exercised his prerogatfve
to give the casting vote. and given it for the
amendment, while confessing plainly enough
that he did not approve Of it. Neither do we
think that the people will approve of it, or of
his course in thus aiding in the as
sassination of amnesty-not only aiding
in it, but dealing the fatal blow at it with his
own hand. 1t was not a party measure, and
there was, therefore, the less excuse for Mr..
Colfax's action. After that the fate of the
bill was sealed. If there had not been votes
enough in the Senate to kill it, it could never
have got through the House with the negro
equality amendment tackled on to it; but it
did not even get through the Senate. Enough
republicans voted with the democrats to pre-
vent the bill getting the requisite two-thirds
majority. The vote stood 33 to 10 less than
two-thirds in the affirmative, and the bill was
rejected.
There is now one way left for Congress to
get rid of this difficult question and to remove
the irritation which must result in the South
over the defeat of this measure. We appeal
from Mr.. Sumner, in the Senate, to Mr..
Dawes, in the House-from Massachusetts
drunk to Massachusetts, sober. Let Mr..
Dawes, the leader of the House, introduce
next Monday, and have passed, under a sus-
pension of the rules, short simple bill Of
universal and unconditional amnesty, and have
it again sent to the Senate. That body will be,
| at that time, we are sure, so ashamed of its
subserviency to Sumner and his crotchets that
it will consent to come to square vote on
such bill, backed, as it will be, by the
influence of the administration. The
President is not responsible for the
continuance of political disabilities in
the South, and is too much of soldier and
statesman not to appreciate thoroughly the
danger at such time of keeping alive dis
content among the leading men of the South.
He knows that what Ireland is to England, as
a source of apprehension and danger in case
of war, the Southern States are to this gov
eminent, only in a still greater degree on
account of the military character of the people
of the South. If England dare not 60 to war
with us from the danger she would expose
herself to from Ireland, still less dare we to
60 to war with England, knowing how easily
she could fan the discomfort of the South into
a new rebellion, which, with the aid of
England, might defy all our power to
subdue. This consideration does not
seem to have entered into the minds
of the Senators who most bitterly opposed
amnesty, and who yet, with reckless inconsis-
tency, uttered words of bravado in the Senate
on account of England's proposed revocation
of the Alabama Treaty; for that subject was
up again in the Senate yesterday and evoked
| a discussion which, in spite of all professions
of desire to keep it within the bounds of re-
spect and moderation, frequently trenched
upon the limits Of international courtesy and
was calculated to embitter rather than to
mollify the ill feeling to which the episode has
given rise in both countries
There were no questions of public charac-
ter before the House yesterday. Blythe rules
of that body Fridays are assigned to bills of a
private character, and such only occupied its
attention yesterday. One of these was of
considerable general interest, being a propo-
stion to compensate the ancient College of
William and Mary, in Virginia, for the de-
struction of its property during the war by the
| act of some drunken and insubordinate stray
glers from the United States Army. No result
was arrived at when the House adjourned.
| The Senate will not be in session to-day and
the House will only be in session for buncombe
| debate.
MIR. Boutwell, ON Reviving American Ship.