History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States — A Reader’s Guide

The Author’s Method: Abridged Speeches, Not Synopses

Barnes states plainly that he has made “no attempt to give a summary or synopsis of speeches.” Instead, he reproduces what seemed “the most striking or characteristic passage in a speech… in the words of the orator.” This editorial choice means the reader encounters extended, verbatim excerpts—often several paragraphs long—rather than paraphrased arguments. The effect is to preserve the rhetorical texture of congressional debate, including its repetitions, emphases, and emotional appeals. For example, in the excerpt on representation, Representative Conkling’s speech is given at length, with its cascading rhetorical questions (“Shall all this be?… Shall one white man have as much share…?”) and its blunt language about races deemed “so low, so bad, so ignorant, so stupid.” The reader is thus placed inside the live argument, not given a neutral summary.

The Central Debate: Representation and the “Negro Question”

Barnes acknowledges that one subject—the “negro question”—may seem to have occupied too much of Congress’s time, but he insists it was “thrust upon” the legislators. The excerpts bear this out: the core of the debate reproduced concerns the basis of representation and the proposed constitutional amendment. Conkling’s argument turns on a principle “already imbedded in the Constitution”: that representation belongs to those who have political existence. He attacks the paradox that freed slaves would add to a state’s congressional representation while being denied the vote themselves. The language is stark: “Shall the death of slavery add two-fifths to the entire power which slavery had when slavery was living?” The reader sees how the amendment was framed not as a guarantee of black suffrage, but as a penalty for disfranchisement—a race excluded from the ballot would also be excluded from the count for representation.

Rhetorical Strategies in the Excerpted Speeches

The excerpts reveal a consistent rhetorical pattern: speakers build their case through a series of pointed, often indignant questions. Conkling’s speech, for instance, strings together seven “Shall…” questions in rapid succession, each amplifying the perceived injustice. He also uses hypothetical extremes: “If a race is so vile or worthless that to belong to it is alone cause of exclusion from political action, the race is not to be counted here in Congress.” The language is deliberately provocative, designed to force a logical conclusion. Barnes’s decision to preserve these passages—rather than condense them—allows the modern reader to experience the emotional temperature of the floor debate. The speeches are not dry legal arguments; they are performances aimed at persuasion, and the text retains that performative quality.

What the Excerpts Leave Unsaid

Because Barnes’s history is a selection, the excerpts necessarily omit the full legislative context. The reader does not learn from these pages alone which measures ultimately passed, how votes were cast, or what compromises were struck. The preface warns that many important members are not quoted at all, and that “men from whom no quotation is made… may be among the foremost in watchfulness.” This means the excerpts give a skewed impression of who dominated the debate. Moreover, the focus on the “negro question” may underrepresent other major issues—such as the readmission of Southern states, the Freedmen’s Bureau, or the Civil Rights Act—that the full book likely covers. The reader should treat the excerpts as a sample of one strand of argument, not as a comprehensive record.

Barnes’s preface positions his work as a “sequel” to the war, and the excerpts confirm that the Thirty-Ninth Congress was consumed by the question of how to translate military victory into a new constitutional order. The reader who approaches this book expecting a neutral chronicle will instead find a deliberately shaped collection of speeches, chosen for their rhetorical force. The best strategy is to read each excerpt as a primary source—a window into the arguments that shaped Reconstruction—while keeping in mind the author’s own admission of selectivity.

That rainy afternoon, the History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress made me dwell on how nations stitch themselves back together after fractures—how representation is debated when the ground shifts beneath. Later, half-absorbed, I found myself in Latvia & Russia: One problem of the world-peace considered — Text and Context, another argument about borders, dignity, and the quiet work of defining a people. The rain kept falling, and the themes simply kept talking to each other.