be correctly apprehended it would still more strongly
confirm their claim to be the special and jealous guardians of the
Union of the States--of a Union so strongly based that future rebellion
would be rendered impossible, the safety and glory of the Republic made
perpetual.

[(1)NOTE.--The members of the Joint Committee on Reconstruction were as
follows:--

_On the part of the Senate_.--William P. Fessenden of Maine, James W.
Grimes of Iowa, Ira Harris of New York, Jacob M. Howard of Michigan,
George H. Williams of Oregon, and _Reverdy Johnson_ of Maryland.

_On the part of the House_.--Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania, Elihu
B. Washburne of Illinois, Justin S. Morrill of Vermont, John A. Bingham
of Ohio, Roscoe Conkling of New York, George S. Boutwell of
Massachusetts, Henry T. Blow of Missouri, _A. J. Rogers_ of New Jersey,
and _Henry Grider_ of Kentucky.]

CHAPTER VII.

The debate on the direct question of Reconstruction did not begin at
so early a date in the Senate as in the House, but kindred topics led
to the same line of discussion as that in which the House found itself
engaged. During the first week of the session Mr. Wilson of
Massachusetts had submitted a bill for the protection of freedman,
designed to overthrow and destroy the odious enactments which in many
of the Southern States were rapidly reducing the entire negro race to
a new form of slavery. Mr. Wilson's bill provided that "all laws,
statutes, acts, ordinances, rules and regulations in any of the States
lately in rebellion, which, by inequality of civil rights and
immunities among the inhabitants of said States is established or
maintained by reason of differences of color, race or descent, are
hereby declared null and void." For the violation of this statute a
punishment was provided by fine of not less than five hundred dollars
nor more than ten thousand dollars, and by imprisonment not less than
six months nor more than five years.

In debating his bill Mr. Wilson declared that he had "no desire to say
harsh things of the South nor of the men who have been engaged in the
Rebellion. I do not ask their property or their blood; I do not wish
to disgrace or degrade them; but I do wish that they shall not be
permitted to disgrace, degrade or oppress anybody else. I offer
this bill as a measure of humanity, as a measure that the needs of
that section of the country imperatively demand at our hands. I
believe that if it should pass it