Edward L. Pierce, Memoir and letters of Charles Sumner: volume 4

[220] people for the next ten years did not exhibit them as the most hopeful subjects of the first experiment. It proved to be a bad precedent, which, adopted by his successor, brought on a memorable conflict with Congress.

In view of the proceedings in Louisiana and Arkansas, and to prevent such exceptional and inconsiderate action as the House took in the admission of Hahn and Flanders from Louisiana, Sumner introduced a resolution, May 27, 1864, declaring that States pretending to secede, and still battling against the national government, must be regarded as rebel States, not to be readmitted to representation until after a vote of both houses,¹—a precaution against hasty and exceptional action by one body without the other's concurrence, which Congress two years later found it wise to adopt.² A few days later the question came up directly on a resolution introduced by Lane of Kansas, to recognize the State government of Arkansas initiated under the President's direction, when Sumner addressed the Senate. He set forth as objections, that the proposed government was organized irregularly under a military order, and by only a small minority of the people, and within a territory still under military occupation, subject to hostile raids, and excluded by law from ordinary commercial intercourse; but the stress of his argument was on his chief proposition, that Congress alone—that is, the two houses (the President in this, as in other legislation, holding the veto power)—could readmit the revolted States.³ The speech was a strong statement, briefer than most of his speeches on important topics, and it avoided any direct issue with the President. It was an appeal for caution and prudence in a first step of vast consequence, and for waiting on events. Both resolutions—Sumner's and Lane's—went to the judiciary committee, and were reported adversely by Trumbull its chairman; and the credentials of the persons claiming to be senators from the State met the same fate. This was equivalent to a decision