o sweeping in its provisions,
that it affected the loyally disposed in the South with the same
severity as it did the disloyally disposed. "Instead of erecting,"
said he, "this great military power over people of some portions of
the South who are, in fact, at peace and observing law and order, our
rule should be so flexible that we may apply martial law wherever
peace and law and order do not prevail, without imposing it upon people
whose subordination to the law renders military rule unnecessary."

--Mr. Boutwell said, "To-day there are eight millions and more of
people, occupying six hundred and thirty thousand square miles of
territory in this country, who are writhing under cruelties nameless
in their character, and injustice such as has not been permitted to
exist in any other country of modern times; and all this because in
this capital there sits enthroned a man who, so far as the Executive
Department of the Government is concerned, guides the destinies of the
Republic in the interest of the rebels; and because, also, in those
ten former States, rebellion itself, inspired by the Executive
Department of this Government, wields all authority, and is the
embodiment of law and power everywhere. . . . It is the vainest
delusion, the wildest of hopes, the most dangerous of all aspirations,
to contemplate the reconstruction of civil government until the rebel
despotisms enthroned in power in these ten States shall be broken up."

--Mr. Banks asked for deliberation and delay in the discussion. He
believed that "we might reach a solution in which the two Houses of
Congress will agree, which the people of this country will sustain,
and in which the President of the United States will give us his
support. And if we should agree on a measure satisfactory to
ourselves, in which we should be sustained by the people, and the
President should resist it, then we should be justified in dropping the
subject of reconstruction, and considering the condition of the country
in a different sense." The allusion of General Banks, though thus
veiled, was understood to imply the possible necessity of impeaching
the President. It attracted attention because General Banks had been
reckoned among the determined opponents of that extreme measure.

--Mr. Kelley of Pennsylvania declared that "the passage of this bill or
its equivalent is required by the manhood of this Congress, to save it
from the hissing scorn and reproach of every Sout