The other occasion was when he sent in the message
at the time of the controversy between the House and te Senate
in regard to the policy to be pursued in dealing with the
outrages in the South. The Senate had passed a bill giving
a discretion to the President to take some firm measures to
suppress these disorders, and to protect the colored people
and the Republicans of the South, and if in his judgment he
thought it necessary, to suspend the writ of _habeas corpus._
This measure, which had a considerable majority in the Senate,
was voted down in the House under the influence of Speaker
Blaine, Mr. Dawes, General Farnsworth, and other prominent
Republicans. During the controversy Mr. Blaine left the
chair and engaged in the debate, being provoked by some thrust
of Butler's. There was a lively passage at arms, in which
Blaine said he was obliged to leave the chair, as his predecessor
Mr. Colfax had been compelled to do, "to chastise the insolence
of the gentleman from Massachusetts." Butler replied by some
charge against Blaine, to which Blaine, as he was walking
back to take the gavel again, shouted out: "It's a calumny.
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