Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1890-03-14
RECONSTRUCTION.
A Back Number Debate Inter-
ests the Senators.
WHY THE NEGRO WAS eIvEEA VOTE

sherman and Hoav Explain and Butler
Draws n Conclusion Therefrom-A Dip
into the History of the Andrew john
son Regime-The House Passes the Ok
Iahoma Bin, Opening the Cherokee
Outlet to Homesteaders-Tourg Ma
tional Educational Bill.
WASHINGTON CITY, March IA The ire
pressible southern question broke loose in
the senate again yesterday, and kept the
senatorial oratory going most of the day.
The feature of the debate was the reference
by Sherman TO the history OF reconstruction
to show why the negroes had been given the
suffrage. His remarks were ancient his
tory 20 those who were old enough to read
during reconstruction days, but IL is many
years since the matter has been adverted to
in the senate The debate was precipitated
by Eustis calling Hoar to account for charg-
ing that there were laws upon the Louisiana
statute book which provided for the sale OF
colored Migrants, and making IL a penal Of
Tense for white man to associate on terms
Of equality with n negro. Hoar owned his
mistake regarding Louisiana, but said Mis-
sissippi had such laws. He continued and
said that had it not been for the objectiona-
BILE laws passed by some of the southern
states, the government OF thoss states would
have been remanded in 1867 To those who
governed before the war
sherman Gives Some Ancient History.
Sherman asked Eustis whether he did not
know that the Fifteenth amendment never
would have been proposed but for the fact
that laws of the southern states were depriv-
ing the negro of his rights of citizenship.
Eustis asserted that all reconstruction
measures and constitutional amendments
were adopted by the Republican party with
the single object of Africanizing the south
and maintaining political supremacy, and
this he characterized as the greatest crime
ever committed against civilized communi-
ties"
Sherman then said that the first act that
passed for the reconstruction of the southern
states had been framed by conservative sem
ators such as Reverdy johnson, Trumbull
and Fessenden. The laws passed by some OF
the southern states had been so unjust TO the
colored people and white Republicans in the
south that the people north became con-
WINGED that the object in the south was TO
overthrow the results of the war and de-
prive the freedmen of the rights of citizen
ship.
Suffrage Given with Reluctance.
Later on congress had reluctantly armed
the negro with suffrage as the only remedy
fitted for the case. There had been NO feel
ing OF passion or hate about il. Sherman
had sometimes thought it might possibly
have been better not to have conferred suf-
frage on the coored man, because that
resulthad been nullified, and suffrage did not
now exist with colored men wherever it
might be valuable TO them. There was, he
said, no feeling Of hate existing in the north
against the south, and il the equal rights of
all people in the south were secured the peo-
pie north would be satisfied. Negro suffrage
had not turned out rs had been expected,
because no man had dreamed that such meas
ures as had been resorted to in the south
would have been reSorted to TO, deprive the
negro of his rights
The Ohio Senator'S Remedy.
Injustice had grown out of the Fifteenth
amendment, and out of il not only had the
negroes been deprived of their votes, but the
people of the south enjoyed larger political
power than the same number of people of
the north, and until the southern states give
these coored men their rights there would
be disquiet and discomfort, and a feeling of
injustice. Congress he said could not exer
else any control In the local affairs of the
southern states, but what he insisted upo
is that there shall be law that will protect
the right of suffrage, and that that law
shall be executed with such power that no
man dare 10 expose himself 20 its penalties.
Butler Draws Conclusion.
Butler replying 10 Sherman said that If
the debate had accomplished nothing else il
had shown by the statements of the senator's
from Ohio and Massachusetts that the suf-
frage had been conferred upon the negro OF
the south, not because he was entitl ed to
IL. not because he was qualified to exer-
else it, but because of certain laws passed by
some of the southern states Immediately
after the war. He said the south had been
ground between the upper and neither lIili-
stones of executive and legislative policy
during the Andrew johnson regime, and de-
clared that there was no discrimination
south against n man on account of his color.
willing 10 Give Up the Power.
He said 20 the senator from Ohio that any
attempt to pass az election law such as he
had suggested would bring fire on the rear
of the Republicans, because the northern
men who had recently invested money south
would not stand 1t. Butler in concluding
said he would not exchange one hour OF
good order In the south for all the political
power that negro suffrage had given TO the
south, and II he had the power tomorrow he
would transfer every atom of that political
power 10 the north and wish the north God
speed IN the solution and management OF it,
CONGRESSIONAL OOlNGS.