I am compelled to this statement by the assault of the Senator. I had no disposition to make it. I do not claim anything for myself. I did nothing but my duty. Had I done less, I should have been faithless,--I should have been where the Senator from Illinois placed himself.
The Senator read from the “Globe” the vote on the passage of the bill, and exulted because my name was not there. Sir, is there any Senator in this Chamber whose name will be found oftener on the yeas and nays than my own? Is there any Senator in this Chamber who is away from his seat less than I am? There was a reason for my absence on that occasion. I left this Chamber at midnight, fatigued, not well, knowing that the great cause was assured, notwithstanding the opposition of the Senator from Illinois,--knowing that at last the right of the colored people to suffrage was recognized. I had seen it placed in the bill reported from the committee. There it was on my motion, safe against the assaults of the Senator from Illinois. Why should I, fatigued, and not well, remain till morning to swell the large and ascertained majority which it was destined to receive?[233] I have no occasion to make up any such record. You know my fidelity to this cause. You know if I am in the habit of avoiding the responsibilities of my position. I cannot disguise, also, that there was another influence on my mind. Reconstruction, even with the suffrage, was defective. More was needed. There should have been a system of public schools, greater protection to the freedmen, and more security against the Rebels, all of which I sought in vain to obtain in committee, and I found all effort in the Senate foreclosed by our action in caucus. Pained by this failure, and feeling that there was nothing more for me to do, after midnight I withdrew. On the return of the Act to the Senate on the veto of the President, I recorded my vote in its favor.
What Mr. Trumbull calls “the record” in this case, and which Mr. Sumner, in the surprise of the occasion, seemingly accepts, according to the obvious import of the term, as substantially the complete record, inspection of either the Congressional Globe or the Senate Journal shows to be very far from complete. The vote following the Presidential veto was by no means the only one in which Mr. Sumner’s name appears: between this and the vote which would seem from the representation to have next preceded, designated as “the vote on the passage of the bill,” there intervened another, involving in an important degree the character and fate of the whole measure.