The Senator from Virginia (Mr. Mason) said the same
thing; and, I believe, the Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Brown).
You all, then, have given up this bone of contention, this matter of
complaint which Northern men have set forth as a grievance more than
anybody else.
Mr. Mason. Will the Senator indulge me one moment.
Mr. Wade. Certainly.
Mr. Mason. I know he does not intend to misrepresent me or other
gentlemen. What I said was, that the repeal of those laws would furnish
no cause of satisfaction to the Southern States. Our opinions of those
laws we gave freely. We said the repeal of those laws would give no
satisfaction.
Mr. Wade. Mr. President, I do not intend to misrepresent anything. I
understood those gentlemen to suppose that they had not been injured by
them. I understood the Senator from Virginia to believe that they were
enacted in a spirit of hostility to the institutions of the South, and
to object to them not because the acts themselves had done them any
hurt, but because they were really a stamp of degradation upon Southern
men, or something like that--I do not quote his words. The other
Senators that referred to it probably intended to be understood in the
same way; but they did acquit these laws of having done them injury to
their knowledge or belief.
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