It reaches far beyond anything which the most sanguine of us hoped for a year ago." -- Mr.Bingham declared that "the defeat of this bill to-day is really a refusal to enact any law whatever for the protection of any man in that vast portion of our country which was so recently swept over by our armies from the Potomac to the Rio Grande." -- General Schenck spoke with great force in favor of the bill, answering the somewhat reckless objections of Mr.Stevens in the most effective manner.
-- General Garfield replied to those who objected to the Senate provision giving the command of officers in the South directly to the President.

He said, "I want this Congress to give the command to the President of the United States, and then, perhaps, some impeachment hunters will have a chance to impeach him.

They will if he does not obey." He rebuked the gentlemen "who, when any measure comes here that seems almost to grasp our purpose, resist and tell us that it is a surrender of liberty.

I remember that this was done to us at the last session, when everybody knows that if the Republican party lived, it must live by the strength of the Constitutional amendment, and when we agreed to pass it the _previous question_ was waived to allow certain gentlemen to tell us that it was too low and too unworthy, too mean and too unstatesmanlike." -- Mr.Russell Thayer of Pennsylvania supported the bill.

He said, "I see in this provision, as I believe, what the deliberate judgment of the American people will regard as ample guarantees for the future loyalty and obedience of the South.