In vain
did John Sherman,--who had conferred with the President in the summer,
and thought highly of his patriotism--now hold out the olive branch in
the Senate. A keen observer at Washington, Samuel Bowles,--who had held
a friendly attitude toward both the President and the party
leaders,--now wrote, February 26, "Distrust, suspicion, the conceit of
power, the infirmities of temper on both sides, have brought affairs to
the very verge of disorder and ruin." He dissuaded from taking sides in
the quarrel; there was too much right and too much wrong on both sides.
He urged, March 3,--and no doubt he represented the best sentiment of
the country: "The great point is to secure protection and justice for
the freedmen.... For the present the Freedmen's Bureau, military
occupancy, and United States courts, must be our reliance.... We want
the President firm and resolute on this point, and we want to arouse the
better class of the Southern people to do their duty in the same
regard."

The weakness of the veto message on the Freedmen's Bureau bill had been
the absence of any solicitude for the welfare of the freedmen;
constitutional theory seemed to wholly supersede the practical necessity
of the case. Now Congress again approached the matter in the Civil
Rights bill, carefully formulated in the judiciary committee, thoroughly
debated and amended, and passed by both houses late in March. It
affirmed United States citizenship for all persons born in the country
and not subject to any foreign power; it declared for all citizens an
equal right to make and enforce contracts, sue, give evidence, hold and
sell property, etc.; full equality as to security of person and
property, as to pains and penalties,--in short, complete civil equality.
Original jurisdiction was given to United States courts, and to these
could be transferred any case involving these subjects begun in a State
court. The bill empowered the President to use the army for its
enforcement. All this was under authority of the Thirteenth Amendment.

This, too, the President vetoed, as unnecessary, as employing the
military arm too freely, as extending unwisely the power of the Federal
Government, and as especially unwise legislation while eleven States out
of thirty-six were unrepresented in Congress. But the President was now
going in the face not only of the congressional majority but of the
North at large, which was unmistakably opposed to leaving the freedmen
with