Mr. NIBLACK of Indiana addressed the House for an hour. [His remarks will be published in the Appendix] February 9, 1867. The House having under consideration the bill (H.R.No. 1143) to provide for the more effectual government of the insurrectionary States. Mr. NIBLACK said: Mr. SpeakER: When I 1st sought the floor a day or 2 since I did feel very much like discussing at some length the questions in volved in this bill. Since that, however, the debate has taken so wide a range, and some of the grounds which I intended to occupy have been passed over so ably by other gentlemen, that I have ceased to have that personal desire to participate in this discussion at any great length at this period of the debate. I regard this as one of the most interesting, and at the same time important, measures that has been introduced during the present congress. It brings up legitimately for discussion every power of this Government, civil and military, legislative, judicial, and executive. It brings before the House all the questions that have been presented upon this subject of reconstruction for discussion again, if we see proper to avail ourselves of the latitude which is usually allowed in debates of this sort. At the commencement of the late civilWar I felt that this question of the relation of States to the General Government, if the war continued long, would inevitably be the great question of the times. I felt then, as I feel now, that it was one of the 1st duties of the 1st Congress that assembled after the commencement of the war to provide for some contin gencies which have since happened by appro Fo legislation, and whatever neglect may have occurred in failing to provide for those contingencies I assert with all due respect rests upon the Congress of the U.S. It is true at one time during the war a bill was passed by Congress for the reorganization of the rebellious States, as they are termed; but from disagreement between Mr. Lincoln and Congress that bill failed to become a law. That failure is in no sense justly chargeable to the present Administration nor to the present minority in Congress. When the war closed this whole question was therefore very suddenly and to a great portion of the country very unexpectedly precipitated upon the administration of President Johnson. I concur—and in that declaration I know I am liable to the charge of being considered some what extreme—I concur in the view expressed by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. LEBLOND] yesterday that the best arrangement that could probably have been made, in view of all the difficulties that surrounded the question at the time, was to have indorsed the terms of capitulation agreed upon between GenlSherman and General Johnston, recognizing the then existing State governments of the insurgent States upon their compliance in good faith with those terms of capitulation. Whatever relations they had theretofore sustained to the socalled confederate government were swept away by the collapse of that government. Every extraneous matter having relation to the rebellion certainly ceased to have any valid and binding authority or force upon those States when the confederacy expired, and only the naked State governments remained, which could have been immediately used in the restoration of law and order. I always thought it would have been better, as a practical question, to have acceded to and sustained those terms of capitulation. But, sir, in the temper in which the country then was, in view of the embarrassment that then surrounded the POTUS, it is no matter of surprise now that he failed to concur in that arrangement of GenlSherman . I did not complain of him for not doing so, for I confess the question was surrounded by many and yery great difficulties, some of which I may have failed to fully comprehend. When the Administration failed to sanction what GenlSherman had done it became necessary for it at once to adopt some other policy which would secure to the people of those States some sort of civil government. President Johnson, conforming to the policy of his predecessor on this subject, proceeded to appoint provisional governers for these States. Wow, sir, I am free to confess that I always regarded these appointments of provisional.with some degree of disfavor; and have always had some doubt as to the legality of the acts of a governor so appointed, unless his acts and conduct were ratified by the people of the State over which he was appointed to H. That question, however, has failed to become one of any practical importance in the present position oaffairs. Whatever may have been if. power or want of power of the President in the premises the people of these States have accepted them as acting governors, and have ratified and recognized their acts as binding upon them. To my mind that relieves the question of any further embarrassment. The States, under the auspices of these governments, have reorganized their constitutions with such amendments as they thought necessary to accommodate themselves to their changed condition and circumstances. I therefore contend, and have always contended, that, at least in the absence of any other power as serted to be and claiming to be the State governments of these States, these reorganized governments are, and of right ought now to be, recognized as the legitimate governments of these States, entitled to all the powers which appertain to the administration of their local affairs. Well, sir, we are now confronted fairly and squarely with the question whether we shall recognize these State governments as valid and having authority for any purpose, or whether we shall not. That view of the question was very fairly presented yesterday by the Gentfrom Ohio, [Mr. jo. He admitted very frankly that if these reorganized governments in the lately insurgent States are valid State governments we have no power to pass the bill under consideration. On that point there is not that I am aware any controversy. The validity of these State governments being admitted, all the use we can make of the military power within those States in time of peace is to aid in certain contingencies in the execution of the laws within them already enacted by the proper legislative authority. If, on the contrary, they are States for no purpose, then it has been the duty of this Congress from the 1st hour in which it assembled to the present time to provide other governments, territorial or otherwise, for the government of these districts of country once known as States. But, sir, from disagreements of opinion, and perhaps other causes, which I may not fully understand, this Congress has failed in any manner to recognize them as States in the full political sense of the term, and yet it has failed to decree that they are not States, and thus, notwithstanding theimmense interests involved, the whole subject has been allowed to move on, in this anomalous and unsettled condition, to the present time. I know it is charged that this failure on the part of Congress to adopt some affirmative and decided policy is due somewhat to the action of the Executive of the U.S. I do not really know just how far the President has failed to cooperate in all respects with the present Congress, or, has thwarted any action intended to secure this object. I only know that there seems to be some disagreement on this question. But I have discovered, as we have all witnessed today in the passage of the Nebraska bill, that when the President has failed to give his sanction to any other measure upon which the dominant majority in this congress have united they have always been able to carry their proposition over his veto. Why, therefore, has not this Congress adopted some measure of reconstruction? They can pass, if there be need for legislative action at all, any measure they choose. There is, therefore, no good reason for charging the failure upon the Executive. The blame rests rather with the majority here, who cannot it seems agree upon any proposition which will command the party strength.