February 15th, the Senate began the consideration of the Military Bill, continuing in session until three o’clock in the morning of the next day. Speeches and motions showed great differences on the subject. Some were content with a purely military bill, contemplating simply the protection of the people in the Rebel States. Others wished to add measures of Reconstruction; and here again there were differences. Some were content with the requirement of suffrage without distinction of color in the new constitutions, making no provision for the exclusion of Rebels, leaving the organization in the hands of the existing electors, and providing, that, on the adoption of the Constitutional Amendment, and of a State constitution securing equal suffrage, any such State should be entitled to representation in Congress. In the hope of putting an end to these differences, a caucus of Republican Senators was held the next forenoon, when a committee was appointed, as follows: Mr. Sherman, of Ohio, Mr. Fessenden, of Maine, Mr. Howard, of Michigan, Mr. Harris, of New York, Mr. Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey, Mr. Trumbull, of Illinois, and Mr. Sumner, to consider the pending bill and amendments and report to the caucus. The committee withdrew from the Senate, leaving a Senator making a long and elaborate speech, and proceeded with their work. The House bill was taken as the basis, and amended in several particulars, to which Mr. Sumner afterwards alluded in the Senate. An effort by Mr. Sumner to require equal suffrage found no favor; nor did what was known as the Louisiana Bill, which he proposed as a substitute; nor an effort to exclude Rebels. He felt it his duty to say to the committee, that, on the making of the report, he should appeal to the caucus, which he did. The caucus, by 15 Yeas to 13 Nays,--Senators standing to be counted,--voted to require equal suffrage in the choice of the constitutional conventions; also in the new constitutions, and in their ratification. But the bill was left without any exclusion of Rebels, and with the declaration, that, doing these things and ratifying the Amendment to the National Constitution, a State should be entitled to representation in Congress. In these latter respects it seemed to Mr. Sumner highly objectionable.