hern man who has been
compelled to seek a home in the by-ways of the North, from every
homeless widow and orphan of a Union soldier in the South, who should
have been protected by the Government, and who, despite widowhood and
orphanage, would have exalted in the power of our country had it not
been for the treachery of Andrew Johnson."

--Mr. Allison of Iowa said, "Believing as I do, that this measure is
essential to the preservation of the Union men of the South, believing
that their lives, property and liberty cannot be secured except through
military law, I am for this bill."

--Mr. Blaine of Maine expressed his unwillingness to support any
measure that would place the South under military government, if it
did not at the same time prescribe the methods by which the people of
a State could by their own action re-establish civil government. He
therefore asked Mr. Stevens to admit an amendment declared that "when
any one of the late, so-called, Confederate States shall have given its
assent to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution, and conformed
its constitution and laws thereto in all respects, and when it shall
have provided, by its constitution, that the elective franchise shall
be enjoyed equally and impartially by all male citizens of the United
States twenty-one years of age and upwards, without regard to race,
color, or previous condition of servitude, except such as may be
disfranchised for participating in the late rebellion, and when such
constitution shall have been submitted to the voters of said State as
then defined, for ratification or rejection, and when the constitution,
if ratified by the popular vote, shall have been submitted to Congress
for examination and approval, said State shall, if its constitution be
approved by Congress, be declared entitled to representation in
Congress, and senators and representatives shall be admitted therefrom
on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the
preceding sections of this bill shall be inoperative in said State."

--Mr. Blaine added, "It happened, Mr. Speaker, possibly by mere
incident, that I was the first member of this House who spoke in
Committee of the Whole on the President's message at the opening of
this session. I then said that I believed the true interpretation of
the election of 1866 was that, in addition to the proposed
constitutional amendment, impartial suffrage should be the basis of
reconstruction. Why n