The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1890-03-14
A Partisan and Heated Discus.
sion in the Senate on it.
THE FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT
And the Reconstruction Policy-Sentor sher-
man Thinks a Cure-dll Will be Found in
National Election Law.

q
on terms of equality with a negro; the
other to the effect that there was a law
which provided that when any colored man
was found for certain time to be out of
work, his former masters should
have the preference in his purchase.
He denied emphatically that there was any
such law in Louisiana. and spoke OF the
recklessness and restitution OF sense of re-
sponsibility with which Republican Sena-
tors spoke of southern affairs.
Hoar said he might have erred as to the
state in which such a law was passed, but
he quoted them substantially from the laws
of Mississippi passed in 1865 He thought
that substantially the same law had been
enacted in Louisiana.
The educational bill then came up. and
Blair made brief address. He also read
extracts from d speech of President Har-
rlson when he was a Senator in $780, favor
ing the bill, and said the President held the
same sentiments today.
The southern question came up again,
and Hoar admitted that his statements
about the laws of Louisiana were incorrect.
D Sherman asked Eustis whether he did
not know that the fifteenth amendment
never would have been proposed but for
the fact that there were laws in the south
ern states 0epriving the negro of the rights
Of citizenship.
Eustis replied it was his honest convic-
ton that all reconstruction measures were
adopted by the Republican party with the
single object of Africanizing the south and
maintaining political supremacy, and char
acterlzed IL as 1.-The greatest crime ever
committed against civilized Countries
Sherman then took part in the discus
sion, which became a heated political con-
troversy. He traced the course of the re-
construction movement and said at the
close of the war il had not been contem-
plated to arm the negro with the suffrage
but as laws were passed by some of the
southern states so unjust to the colored
people and to the white Republicans of the
south that the people of the north became
convinced that the object in the south was
to overthrow the results of the war and
deprive the freemen of all rights of citi-
zenship. When the time came it was seen
there was no way to protect the eman-
cipated people except by arming them
with the suffrage. Congress had re-
luctantly and slowly but deliberately
adopted that remedy as the only one fitted
Tor the case. He (Sherman) had some
times thought 1t might possibly have been
better not to have adopted the fifteenth
amendment comforting suffrage on the col
)red men, because that right had been null
1ted and uprooted. The result of the
fifteenth amendment was practically
o give the southern states in
creased representation in the House
Of Representatives and increased
power in the electoral college If there
was anything wrong in the situation of
southern affairs the people of the
south had brought il on themselves.
There was no feeling of hate in the north
against the south. If equal rights to all
people in the south were secured. the peo-
pie Of the north would be satisfied. The
fifteenth amendment had not turned out as
expected, because no man dreamed that
such measures as had been resorted to in
the south would have been resorted to to
deprive the negro of his rights. No one
had dreamed of ku-klux klans and all the
savage machinery bywhich their exclusion
had been perfected.
Butler suggested that the reconstruction
measures and the fifteenth amendment
were not so much due TO obiectional legis-
.ation in the south as to the conflict be-
tween Andrew johnson and the Republican
Congress.
Sherman replied that the selection of
Andrew johnson, a southern man and
Democrat for the vice presidency was
proof of the generous treatment thenorth
lad shown the south, but Johnson had de-
ierted the Republican party and turned
his back upon it when he came into power
md Congress tied his hands and prevented
aim carrying ont his policy.
Butler-Then / understand the Senator
from Ohioto admit that the southern PEG
pie were not alone responsible, but that
Andrew johnson, as President, was more
responsible for the enactments of the ex-
IRENE measures against the south.
Sherman look upon Andrew Johnson
as a southern man ana a Democrat.
Butler-He was your Republican Presi-
dent. and the people of the south had no
other authority to look after they surren-
dered except the executive.
Sherman-The southern people had a
right TO Look to Congress as the moving
power of the country.
Sherman went on to say TO the Senators
on the other side that there is feeling in
the north that OF only have the negroes of
tue south been deprived of Their votes, but
that the people of the south now enjoy
q larger political power than the
same number of people in the north.
Let the south obey the constitutional
amendments; let it give the negro his vote
ana permit him to vote as he viii. l would
not care If the whole of the negroes would
vote the Democrat ticket, but this feeling
of injustice does prevail in the south, that
while you are depriying the colored people
OF their votes you are exercising an undue
power IN the government. The north de-
mics hatred, but demands Justice. and now
! say that beyond and above this educa-
tional bill, or any other impending meas
ure, is an act of Congress that will secure
to every man in the United States en-
tilted TO vote his right TO cast
his vote and have it counted.
Whenever Congress rises TO the dignity
of passing such a law that will be uniform
throughout the United States. affecting
Massachusetts and Ohio as well as South
Carolina, every man viii feel that it is a
just and fair law and there will be no fur
Their ground of complaint Congress can
not exercise any control in the local affairs
of the southern states, but what we insist
upon is that there shall be a law that will
protect the right of suffrage. and that that
law shall be executed with such power
that no man viii dare expose himself to its
penalty.
Butler followed Sherman He spoke of
the exclusion of the colored men in north
ern states from all political offices and law:
on the contrary, there is no such discrimi-
nation in the south. This very day and for
the past week the newspapers have been
teeming with accounts of white men in Ok
iahoma, and Republicans among them, an
nounclng to the world that if the colored
people dared to assert taeir right to con-
troll the territory by superiority of num-
bers, they would drive taem out with the
bayonet. He had seen accounts of
outrages on colored people in Ohio and In
diana. and yet had heard not one syllable
of protest. He would tell the Senator
from Ohio that whenever he attempted to
carry out his theory of another crusade
upon the south through supervisors and
United States marshals for the purpose of
dominating the elections there, he would
have fire In his rear from mon in he north