History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States. William Horatio Barnes
have done so, says this high authority, the Freedmen's Bureau is a necessity. This is to my mind a sufficient answer to the arguments of gentlemen on the other side. In none of those States has the black man a law to protect him in his rights, either of person or property. He can sue in a court of justice in my State, but he can command no testimony in his prosecution or defense unless the witness be a white man. We have one code for the white man, another for the black. Is this justice? Where is your court of justice in any Southern State where the black man can secure protection? Again there is no response."
Mr. Grinnell, of Iowa, a member of the committee that had reported this bill, took the floor in its favor. Much having been said by Representatives of Kentucky in reference to that State, Mr. Grinnell remarked: "I can not forget, when I hear these extravagant claims set up here, that her Governor, in the first year of the rebellion, refused to honor the call for troops made by the President of the United States in our darkest hour; nor can I forget that when her soldiers wished to organize regiments they were obliged to cross the Ohio River into the State of Indiana, that they might organize them free from the interference of the power of Kentucky neutrality. That is a fact in history, and I can not overlook it, when gentlemen here arraign the President of the United States because he has seen fit to suspend the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus in the State of Kentucky."
"Let us see," said Mr. Grinnell, in a subsequent part of his speech, "what are the laws of Kentucky which are so just and honorable and equitable. The white man in Kentucky can testify in the courts; the black man can testify against himself. The white man can vote; the black man can not. The white man, if he commits an offense, is tried by a jury of his peers; the black man is tried by his enlightened, unprejudiced superiors. The rape of a negro woman by a white man is no offense; the rape of a white woman by a negro man is punishable by death, and the Governor of the State can not commute.
"A white man may come into Kentucky when he pleases; the free negro who comes there is a felon, though a discharged soldier, and wounded in our battles. A white man in Kentucky may keep a gun; if a black man buys a gun he forfeits it, and pays a fine of five dollars if presuming to keep in his possession a musket which he has carried through the war. Arson of public buildings, if committed by a white man, is punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of from seven to twenty-one years; if committed by a black man, the punishment is death. Arson of a warehouse, etc., when committed by a white man, is punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary from one to six years; when committed by a negro, the penalty is death.
"If a white man is guilty of insurrection or rebellion, he is punished by being called 'chivalrous.' I instance the rebel General Forest, who murdered white men at Fort Pillow, and is reputed the most popular man South. If a negro rebels, or conspires to rebel, he is punished with death. These are specimens."
Referring to the benefits conferred by the Freedmen's Bureau upon Kentucky, Mr. Grinnell remarked: "As it is asserted that this Freedmen's Bureau is a partial, unnecessary, speculating affair, I wish to call attention to the fact that in the State of Kentucky, during the last five months, more white refugees than freedmen, in the proportion of seven and one-fourth to one, have received rations at the hands of the Government; that this bureau has kept in schools in the State of Kentucky fourteen thousand black people."
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