The final Conference Committee report -- Trumbull's rewritten bill -- was approved 99-44 in the House, by voice vote in the Senate.
Therefore it's only Trumbull's bill which really matters here, and it's interesting to learn that Trumbull called his bill an "indemnity bill" because, as I understand it, the word "indemnity" does not appear in it.
If it was, in fact, Trumbull's intention to indemnify President Lincoln without using the word "indemnify", that's interesting.
It brings to mind the debate of James Madison on the authority of a President to fire appointees.
Madison did not wish to say that, in the bill then under discussion, because he did not want it to seem like Congress was granting authority which, by the Constitution's intent, the President already had.
Perhaps Trumbull -- or at least his fellow Republicans -- did not wish to indemnify Lincoln for exercising powers he already had.
woodpusher on 1862 HR-591: "There was NO RECORDED VOTE on H.R. 599. (sic HR-591)
It is contested that a call for the nays was even called and heard.
The only record of the vote is the Presiding Officer stating, The ayes have it.
The yeas and nays were not counted and recorded.
This is your claimed overwhelming majority vote. "
So here is the sequence of events:
- "Introduced in the House of Representatives as H.R. 591, A bill to indemnify the President and other persons for suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and acts done in pursuance thereof by Thaddeus Stevens on December 5, 1862."
- Passed the House of Representatives on December 8, 1862 (90–45)
- Passed the Senate on January 28, 1863 (33–7)
- Reported by the joint conference committee on February 27, 1863;
Agreed to by the House of Representatives on March 2, 1863 (99–44) and
by the Senate on March 2, 1863 (voice vote) - Signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln on March 3, 1863"
- "The Senate version referred all suits and prosecutions regarding arrest and imprisonment to the regional federal circuit court with the stipulation that no one acting under the authority of the president could be faulted if "there was reasonable or probable cause", or if they acted "in good faith", until after the adjournment of the next session of Congress.[27]
Unlike Stevens' bill, it did not suggest that the president's suspension of habeas corpus upon his own authority had been legal.[24]"
woodpusher quoting Randall: "It is significant that Stevens, the author of the indemnifying feature of the House bill, was not one of those who held, with the Attorney General, that the President had the right to suspend habeas corpus privilege.
Some who concurred in the Attorney General's opinion that the President had the full power to suspend, and to delegate such authority to subordinates, argued that no wrongs had been committed, and that no indemnification was necessary.
Conversely, the very basis of the bill of indemnity, in the minds of many who voted for it, was an assumption that the President did not constitutionally have this power, or at least a doubt as to the legality of this presidential suspension and a desire to clear up the matter once and for all."
Notice first that Lincoln's Attorney General, Edwin Bates, agreed Lincoln's actions were already authorized.
Second, here you've quoted my explanation exactly -- the word "indemnify" was removed because enough Republicans were convinced that no indemnity was necessary, while others (i.e., Trumbull) questioned if indemnity was even possible.
woodpusher: "It appears, amongst other things, that you must add the name of Thaddeus Stevens to your list of RINOs, Democrats and Traitors. "
Or perhaps that Stevens was satisfied enough with the substance of indemnity that he was willing to sacrifice the word itself, at Trumbull's insistence.
woodpusher: "It was agreed to take up the bill at 7 p.m. that evening.
Its passage was after midnight, in the early morning.
When did the filibuster take place?
When was the word indemnification (sic - indemnify) removed from the House Bill?"
"Indemnity" does not appear in the final version.
Democrats attempted to filibuster the evening of March 2.
- "The Senate spent the evening of March 2 into the early morning of the next day debating the conference committee amendments.[24][34]
There, several Democratic Senators attempted a filibuster.
Cloture had not yet been adopted as a rule in the Senate, so there was no way to prevent a minuscule minority from holding up business by refusing to surrender the floor..."