Mr. JULIAN. Mr. Speaker, the conflict going on today between Conservatism and Radicalism is not a new one. It only presents new phases, and more decided characteristics in its “'0gfo58 toward a final settlement. These c ements in our political life were at war long years prior to the late rebellion. Alter the old questions concerning trade, currency, and the public lands had ceased to be the pivots On which our national policy turned, and were only nominally in dispute, Conservatism put them on its banner, and shouted for them as the living issues of the times, while intelligent men everywhere saw that the real and sole controversy was that very question of slavery which the leaders of parties were striving so anxiously to keep out of sight. Conservatism stubbornly closed its eyes to this truth. If it ever took the form of Radicalism it was in denouncing the agitation of the subject. It believed in conciliation and concession. It I reached the gospel ofcompromise. Professing liostility to slavery, it paraded its readiness to yield up its convictions as a virtue. Resistance to aggression and wron, it branded as fanaticism or wickedness, while it was ever ready to purchase peace at the cost of principle. This policy of studionsly deferring to the demands of arrogance and insolence, this dominating love of peace and cowardly dread of conflict, this yielding, and yielding, and yielding to the exactions ol the slave interest, naturally enough fed and pampered its spirit of rapacity, and at last armed it with the weapons of civilWar. such will be the unquestioned and unquestion able record of history; and no record could he more blasting, as it will be read in the clear light of the future. To us belongs the privilege of taking counsel from the lesson in dealing with the yet unsettled problems of the crisis. But Radicalism assumed is directly antagonistic position. It did not believe in conciliation and comromise. It did not believe that a powerful an steadily advancing evil was tobe mastered by submission to its behests, but by timely and resolute resistance. The Radicals, under whatever peculiar banner they rallied, thought it was their duty to take time b the forelock; and with prophetic ears they card the footfalls of civilWar in the distance, fore warned the country of its danger, and pointed out the way of deliverance. In the ages to come Freedom will remember and cherish them as her most precious jewels; for bad they been 2nded in their earnest efforts to rouse the people and to lay hold of the aggressions of slavery in their incipient stages, the black tide ofsouthem domination which has since inun dated the land might have been rolled back, and the Republic saved without the frightful surgery of war. This exalted tribute to their sagacily and their fidelity to their country will be the sure award of history; and its lesson, like that of Conservatism, commends itself to our study. But the war at length came, and with iteame the same conflict between Conservatism on the one hand and Radicalism on the other. Their antagonisms put on new sha ves, but were as perfectly defined as before. The proof of this is supplied by facts so well known, and so pain fully remembered by all loyall men, that I need scarcely refer to them. Conservatism, in its unexampled stupidity, denied that rebels in arms agninstthe Government wercits enemies, and declared them to be only misguided friends. The counsel it perpetuall volunteered was that of great moderation an forbearance on our part in the conduct of the war. It denied that slavery caused the war, or should in any way be atfected by it. It insisted that slavery and freedom were “twin sisters of the Constitution, ” eqnall sacred in its sight, and equally to he guardec and defended at all hazards. Its owlish vision failed to see that 2 civilizations had met in the shock of deadly conflict, and that slavery at last must perish. Even down to the very close of the contest, when the dullest minds could see the new heavens and the new earth which the rebellion had ushered in, conservatism madly insisted on “the Constitution as it is and the Union as it was." Its idolized party leaders and its great military heroes were all men who believed in the divinity ofslavery, whose hearts were therefore on the side of the rebellion, and whose management of the war gave proof of it. And every man of ordinary sense and intelligence knows that just so long and so far as Conservative counsels prevailed, defeat and disaster followed in our steps, and that if these counsels had not been abjured the black flag of treason would have been unfurled over the broken columns and shattered fragments of our republican edifice. Let this also be remembered in digesting a policy for the future. But here, again, Radicalism squarely met the issue tendered by the Conservatives. That slavery caused the war and was necessarily involved in its fortunes it accepted as a simple truism. Its theory was that the rebellion was slavery, in arms against the nation, and that to strike it was to strike treason, and to spare it was to espouse the cause of the rebels. In the very beginning of the conflict Radicalism comprehended the situation and the duty. It understood the foe, utterly scouted the idea of a “ war on peace principles, " and demanded the employment of all the powers of war in the accomplislimentof its purpose. It understood the conflict as not simply a struggleto save the Union, but a grand and final battle for the rights of man, now and hereafter; and it believed that God would never smile upon our endeavors till we accepted it as suc. Radicalism therefore demanded the repeal of all laws which had been enacted to uphold and fortify slavery. It demanded the arming of the slaves against their old tyrants. It demanded emancipation as a moral and a military necessity, and a policy of the war so broadly and sys tentatically antislavery as to meet the rebel power in the full sweep of its remorseless crusade against us. lts trust was in the justice of our cause and the favor of the Almighty' and just so soon as the Government turne away from its Conservative friends and joined hands with Radicalism, our arms were crowned with victories, which followed each other till the rebel power lay prostrate at our feet. But, Mr. Speaker, the war is over. So at least we are informed by the President; and with the glad return of peace comes once more the same issue between Conservatism and Radicalism, and more clearly marked than ever before. Conservatism, true to the logic which made it the ally and handmaid of treason all through the war, now demands the indiscriminate pardon of all the rebel leaders. It recognizes the revolted States as still in the Union, in precisely the same sense as are the loyal States, an restored to all their rights as completely as if no rebellion had ha pened. It opposes any constitutional amendment which shall deprive the rebels of the representation of the freedmen in Congress, who have no voice as citizens, and thus sanctions this most fla gran toutrage upon justice and democratic equality, in the interest of unrepentant traitors. It opposes the protection of the millions of loyal colored peop e of the South through the agency of a Freedmen’s Bureau, and thus hands them over to starvation, and scourgings, and torture, by their former masters. It opposes, likewise, the civil rights bill, which seeks to protect these people in their right to sue, to testify in the courts, to make contracts, and to cum property. It opposes, of course. with all bitterness, the po icy of giving the freedmen the ballot, which “is as just a demand as governed men ever made of governin, ” and should be accorded at once, both on the score of policy and justice. In short, it seeks to make void and of non-effect, for any good purpose, the sacri fice of more than 300,000 lives and 3,000 millions of money, by its eager service of the heaven defying villains who causelessly brought this sacrifice upon the nation. But on all these points Radicalism takes issue. It holds that treason is a crime, and that it ought to be punished. While it does not ask for vengeance, it demands public jus tice against some at least of the rebel leaders. It deals with the revolted States as outside of their constitutional relations to the Union, and as incapable of restoring themselves to it except on conditions to be prescribed by congress. It demands the immediate reduction of representation in the States of the South to the basis of actual voters, and the amendment of the Constitution for that purpose. It favors the protection of the colored people of the Sout, through the Freedmen's Bureau and civil rights bills, as necessa to make effective the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery. And for the same reason, Radicalism, when not smitten by unnatural fear or afflicted by policy, demands the ballot as the right of every colored citizen of the rebellious States. such have been the issues between Conservatism and Radicalisin, some of which are disposed of by time; and they are all in fact side issues, save the grand and all comprehending one of suffrage. Let this be settled in harmony with our democratic institutions and all else will be added. And in dealing with this problem, Mr. Speak er, whose counsel shall we follow? Shall we be guided by Conservatism, which paved the way for the rebellion by its policy of concession and compromise, whichwou d havehanded the country over to the rebels when the war was upon us if its policy had been adhered to, and to day would give to the winds the fruits of our victory? Or shall our guide be that some Radicalism which would have averted the rebellion if its counsel had been heeded, which alone saved us when war come, and now asks us to accept its inevitable logic in seeking a true basis of peace? Can a loyal man hesitate in his answer? Sir, we can neither stand still nor take an backward step. For myself, at least, I shal ress right on; and my strong faith is that the loyaf people of the country will not madly attempt a halt in that grand march of events through which the hand of Providence is so visibly guiding the nation to liberty and lasting peace. Mr. Speaker, of all the questions pertaining to the late rebellion which have been so much debated, it seems to me none could be more perfectly simple and unembarrassed than that of givin the ballot to the freedmen of the South. 5This would be conceded at once, if it were possible to forget the institution of sla very, and the foul legacy of prejudice and hate which it has‘bequeathed to us all. I believe the present discussions of the subject and our gin gerly reluctance to face the issue squarely, will ereafter be set down among the curiosities of American politics. Sir, what is the proposition? It is simply to extend our democratic institutions over the States recently in revolt, which have been overpowered by our arms, and are new subject to the national jurisdiction. The mass of the white people of the South, including those who have been in arms against the Government, have the ballot; and there is no pending proposition to deprive them ofit. But we imagine insuperable difficulties in the way of giving it to the colored people, who constitute the majorit in several States, who have been universally Ioyal, and have furnished a strong body of soldiery in the war for the Union. Can this, indeed, be true? Alexander Hamilton, in the 54th number of the Federalist, speakin of the slaves, says, “It is admitted that if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an eiplial share of representation with the other in abitants.” Most certainly he was right. Why then shirk the question? Would we do so if these colored men were white? No man will pretend it. Why not secure the ballot to the men who have been restored to their rights through the treason of their masters? “ liberty, or freedom, ” says Dr. Franklin, “consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws and who are to be the guardians of eve man’s life, property, and peace; for the did of one man is as dear to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the Legislature than the rich one.” And he goes on to say: “That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes, and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.” This, in different words, is the doctrine of James Otis, that “ taxation without representation is tyranny, ” and was the principle on which our revolutionary fathers planted themselves in resisting British despotism. Shall we shrink from it today, when just emerging from a frightful civilWar, caused y our infidelity to the rights of man? Are we still to love the rebels so tenderly that we must not offend them by a policy of equal and exact justice between them and the loyal men who resisted t“heir devilish crusade against the national life? We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Do we still doubt these truths thus named self evident, after having seen them written down in fire and blood during the past 4 years? Men talk eloquently of the natural equality of all men and the sovereignty of the popular'will. Sir, if we are not by ocrites, why not accept these principles by re ucin them to practice everywhere through out the e public? If all men are equalin their inborn rights, every man has the right to a voice in e governing power; and that r1 ht is as natural as the right to the breath of is nostrils. It is not a privilege, but a right, and an insult republicanism and brand the great declaration as a lie, when on dispute it. You espouse the cause of absolutism at once; for if one portion of the fpeople, black or white, can deprive another of their rights, the whole theory of American democracy is overturned. That wise men, in Congress and out of congress, should deal with this question as a difficult and complicated one seems incredibly strange. The very horn book of republicanism settles it; and if the teachings of our fathers are in fact to be accepted, and the poisonous exhalations of slavery shall ever be dispelled from the minds of men, adisfranchised citizen, white or colored, innocent of crime, will become an unknown anomaly. This much Isay on general principles, and wholly aside from those considerations which lead imperatively for impartial suffrage in the South, on the score of justice and gratitude to the negro, the peace and well being of society, and the stability of the Union itself. But our power over the subject of suffrage in the States lately in revolt is disputed; and doubts respecting it are expressed even by the JtCommee of 15, in their elaborate and very able report just given to the public. Sir, I never hear these opinions and doubts uttered without unmingled astonishment. In the whole domain of polities and jurisprudence a proposition cannot be found more perfectly beyond dispute than that Congress can prescribe the qualifications of voters in the States that rebelled against the national authority, and have been subned by our arms. I do not now speak of the power conferred in the clause of the constitution making it the right and duty of Congress to guaranty a RFG to every State; though I believe it clearly confers upon us the authority to deal with the question of suffrage in all the States. Nor do I here refer to the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, and giving Congress the power, by appropriate legislation, to enfforce such abolition; though I hold it to be perfectly clear that under this clause the power over the ballot is given, since a man without it, according to the principles of radical democracy and the revolutionary authorities already referred to, is a slave the slave of society if not the chattel of an individual master. I waive these points, and rest the case solely on the round of the authority of the nation to do what it pleases with rebels whoae revolt became a stupendous civilWar, and was crushed by the power of war. That, sir, is the impreg nable ground on which I stand, and I challenge all assailants. The revolt grew in its proportions till it became a civil, territorial war. We blockaded the rebel coast; we exchanged pris oners; we conducted the conflict accordin to the laws of war and the law of nations. the rebelsbecame public enemies and b the power of our resistless hosts we conquers them. As conquered public enemies their rights were all swept away, all melted in the fervent heat oi their devilish treason and war. Nota respectable jurist in the Union will dispute this propostion for the principles of the law of nations which govern tfie conduct of a civilWar, and define t 10rights of the parties to it, are precisely those which pertain to the conduct of a foreign war. lfthis is not the settled law of nations, settled also emphatically by the SCOTUS. then nothingis settled, and nothing is capable ofsettlement. The report of the reconstruction committee, already referred to, which expresses doubt as to the power in question, asserts that “ within the limits prescribed by humanity the conquered rebels were at the mercy of the conquerors. That a government thus outraged had a most perfect right to exact indemnit for the injuries done and security against the recurrence of such out rages in the future would seem too clear for dispute. What the nature of that security should be; what proof should be required of arctnrn to allegiance; what time should elapse before a peolile thus demoralized should be restored in full to the enjoyment of political rights and privileges, are questions for the law makin'7 power to decide, and that decision must dependon grave considerations of public safety and the general welfare.” This language covers the whole ground contended for. the power exists, and Congress alone must determine what is demanded by " considerations of the public safety and the general welfare.” The question before us today is one of necessity and expediency, and not of power' a question of fact, rather than a question of law. On this vuestion, Mr. Speaker, I think there is very litfle ground for isagreement among loyal men. If the colored millions of the South need any earthly good supremely, and need it soon, it is a share in the governing power. Let us not mock them by the hope of it at some time in the distant future, conditioned upon alternatives which we tender to their enemies, but grant it now as their imperative and in stant necessity. They are at this moment prostrate and helpless under the heel of their old tyrants. But for the partial succor afforded by the Freedmen’s Bureau their condition wouldbe far more deplorable than that of slavery itself. Although the civil rights bill is now the law, none of the insurgent States allow colored men to testify when white men are parties. The bill. as I learn from GenlHoward, is pronounced void by the jurists and courts of the South. Florida makes it a misdemeanor for colored men to carry weapons without a license to do so from a probate judge, and the punishment of the offense is whipping and the pillory. SCarolina has the same enactments; and a black man convicted of an offense who fails immediately to pay his fine is whipped. A magistrate may take colored children and apprentice them for alleged misbehavior without consulting their parents. Mississippi allows no negro living in any car crate town to lease or rent lands. Cunning legislative devices are being invented in mosto the States to restore slavery in fact. Without the bullotin the hands of the freedmen, local law, rebuforced by a public 0 inion more rampant against them than ever be ore, will render the civil rights bill a dead letter, and in the future, as it has been in the past, the national authority will be set at defiance. Even should the civil rights bill be enforced, it would be a palliative and not a cure, since the right to sue, to testify, to make contracts, and to own property run he lawfully enjoyed without commanding a title of the respect with which the ballot arms every man who wields it. This is the sure refuge and help of the freedmen, and Congress has the same power to secure it that it has to withhold it from the rebels; the same power to make suffrage impartial that it has to prescribe any other condition whatever in the reconstruction of these States. If, as is alleged, no such power exists over the loyal States, that certainly is no reason why we should not exercise it where we have the power. With the authority unquestionably in our hands to disfranchise all the rebels, the plan reported by the JtCommee leaves the ballot in their hands. With strange and l lavish liberality even the leaders of the rebellion are to be clothed with this sovereign attri bute. They may not hold office, but they may confer it. The pirate Semmes shall not be probate judge, but his ballot shall be counted in determining who shall fill the office, and so shall the ballots of the traitors who recently tried to make piracy honorable in Alabama. General Lee cannot be POTUS, nor Governor of Virginia, but he can march to the polls with his unhuug confeder ates as the equal before the law, and under the old fla, of the loyalists whose valor saved the Repubic. The legions of armed traitors who fought against the nation 4 years, and del uged it in sorrow and blood, are all to be crowned with the honor and dignityof the bat lot; and, as if to make treason respectable and loyalty odious, the colored people of the country, whose enslavement caused the war and who furnished 200,000 soldiers in crushing the rebellion, are to be handed over to the unbridled hate and fury of their old masters. One would naturally have so posed that vanquished rebels would be gla enough to escape with their lives, and that Congress, in conferring upon them the franchise, would at least atone for this unlocked for and nude served liberality by a policy of justice, if not of gratitude, toward the negroes, whose loy alty was never questioned, and whose strong arms helped strike down the enemies of the nation. One would have so posed that if any party must be disfranchisedpit would be the rebels, and that loyal men would govern the country the had saved by their valor. I am quite sure tint neither the copperheads northe rebels themselves, till they were caressed by the Executive, ever dreamed of this congressional discrimination in favor of treason. Sir, it will gladden the heart of every traitor in the Union. NO loyal man can defend it wig] a good conscience. Its rebreaucy is aggravated by every fact which comes to us respecting the situation in the South. The generulfecling there against the freedmen is that of intense hostility and envenombd hate. The institution of slavery, through the instinct of a common interest, accorde to the negro some privileges; but now he has literally “no rights which white men are bound to respect.” Sharing no longer the measure of consideration which pertained to his condition as aslave, he is regarded as a despised outeast, and treated like a dog. A feeling scarcely less intolerant, is evinced toward the few loyal white men in these States, who in many localities are living in constant dread of violence and murder, and are frequently waylaid and shot. Quite recently I have received a letter from a gentleman of intelligence and worth in one o the southern States, in which he says that he and his friends and neighbors, who have been hunted in the mountains like deer all through the war because they refused to take up arms against their country, having had their houses plundered or burned, their property destroyed, and themselves reduced to beggnry, are still living in constant dread of assassination; and he begs me, if possible, to procure for them from the SecyWar transportation to the North. This is a single instance among many of the actual condition and treatment of the loyalists of the South, under the fiendish domination of the men who have been ironically styled conquered. Sir, in heart and purpose they are less conquered than before the war. Ifpossible they hate the Yankees, with their free schools and free institutions, more than ever. I believe their wrath is more and more aconsuming fire. Down in the very depths of their souls they despise the Union, its generals, its soldiers, its statesmen, its prosperity, its peace. Upon the Freedmen's arena and the civil rights bill they pour out the sincerest and most heart felt curses. Not a man has been found among them who does not defend the right of secession, and vindicate the rebel cause. They choose as their Sens&Reps in Congress and for the highest offices in the States the most conspicuous and guilty of their unre entant traitor chiefs. They insult the old tag and scoff at our national son 5. They commemorate the deeds and honor tie tombs of their grandest villains, and refuse to the loyal colored people of the South the coveted privilege of strewing flowers over the graves of our newestwho died that the Republic might live. They crown treason as the highest virtue, and elevate murder to the rank of a fine art. Their newspapers are reeking with the foulest and most atrocious sentiments, and their man ifest purpose is to scatter the baleful fires of discord and hate throughout the South. Under this new “reign of terror” emigration to the South, which we hoped would regenerate it, is interdicted, while the loyal men already there are lookingabout them for themeans of speedy escape. such is the Eden of blessedness and beauty which has been chiefly evoked by “ my policy, ” and such are the people in whose ands Congress prouses to save the powers of government, whi c it withholds the ballot from the only people whose redeeming agency and cooperating grace can restore order, liberty, and peace. “ And these people, Mr. Speaker, who have refined upon villainy till it wants a name, " whose hearts are thus impregnated with the most rancorous hate toward the freedmen, and whose ascendency over the South is hourly extending in all directions, are expected to give the bal lot to the negro, if only we provide that otherwise he shall not be counted in the basis of representation. Sir, they will do no such thing. They would see the negro in Paradise, sooner than see him with the ballot in his hands. The madness which rushed into the rebellion in the interest of negro slavery, and which today, instead of being tamed by suffering and trial, is ficrcer than ever, will never extend justice to these people. The much' talked of “ war of races, ” ending in negro extermination, would be far more probable. I am certainly ready to vote, as I have done; for reducing representation in the revolted States to the basis of actual voters. No mad could defend his refusal to do so; but I believe the rebels, with the President at their back, will never agree to any such amendment of the Constitution, and that with their allies in the North they will be able to defeat it. Neither with norwuhoutsuch an amendment, therefore. in my judgment, is there any well grounded hope for justice from the rebel class. The decision of the case would require years of time, since it would involve the question whether 19 or 27 States are required to amend the Constitution; and the Supreme Court could not pass upon the point. till 19 States had ratified the amendment. During all this time the freedmen would be committed to the tender mercies of their ene mies instead of sharing with them at once the powers of government. Sir, why should we decline a present duty which is as clear and as palpable as the sun light? Wh impiously propose to red handed traitors andyassassins that they may trample down the precious rights of 4 million help less but loyal people, if onlyit shall be agreed that these downtrodden millions shall not be represented in Congress? Why offer them a proposition which, if acce ted. might be as fatal to the interests of the co ored race as would have been the acceptance of the offer of President Lincoln to leave that race in bondage if the rebels would lay down their arms within a stipulated time? As I have already shown, the power to do what we wish is in our hands. Congress can enact a statute securing impartial suffrage in all the insurgent States, in which civil government is totally overthrown, and over which our power is supreme. Congress can pass enabling acts, as opportunely propOsed by my distinguished frien from Pennsylvania. [Mr. Srsvrzxa] providing for the calling of State conventions in those States to form constitutions, and tixing the qualifications ofvoters. Congress, if it deems it expedient, can disfranchise the rebels, or any portion of them, and refuse admission to the rebellious States till they have secured impartial suffrage to their people. And finally, Congress, if constitutional amend Iments are necessary, can propose such as will accord with justice and the rights of man, and will therefore have the strongest pledge of their ultimate success; while, in the meantime, whatever obstacles may be thrown in our way by the accidental occupant of the White House, the great cause of loyalty and freedom will be strengthened and fortified by every honest and manly endeavor to serve it. But it is said, Mr. Speaker, that the people are not ready for so radical a policy, and that while the reconstruction of the rebel States on a solid and enduring basis is very desirable, we must accept the necessity which compels us to regard the temper of the public feeling and the practical effects upon the harmony of the Union party which advance measures would be likely to produce. Sir, I defend the people against this accusation against their intelligence and loyalty. My own exerience is that politicians are generally, if, not invariably, behind the people, and rather inclined to block up the path of popular progress than to clear the way. This was undoubtedly true during the war, and every intelligent man can recall proofs of it in abun dance. The people were ready for a radical policy in the 1st year of the conflict. as was shown by the proclamation of genlFremont of SeptemberQ, 1861. It was hailed with nearly universal 'oy by the Republican masses, while every leaing Democratic paper in the country warmly approved it. So intense and wide spread was the feeling of enthusiastic loyalty among the people from the firing upon Fort Sumter down to the revocation of this antislavery order, that party linesseemed utterly forgotten, and the Igcmocratic organization in fact ceased to exist. Copperhea Democrac was a sprout from the Executive edict which 1 Kentucky procured in the interest of slavery; but the people, at every stage of the conflict, received witi open arms and grateful hearts every earnest man who came forward, and every vigorous war measure which was proposed. Sir, why were the Union men defeated in the fall of 1862? It was because the people feared that General McClellan carried the Government in his pocket, and had no faith in his conservative policy, which bore no good fruits. The men who failed to get back to the succeeding Congress were generally the timid men who counseled policy; while the Radicals who denounced McClellan, and preached the antislavery, ospel boldly were successful. Why did the Unionists sweep the country in the next congressional elections? It was because of their bolder and more pronounced Radicalism. Why have our public men failed before the people in the political conflicts of the past 20 years? "Not, certainly, because they outrun the people in radical progress, but because the people loved courage, an felt that bolder leadership was demanded. F or the truth of this I appeal togentlemen on this floor who have made political life a profession, and who are most familiar with the history of American politics. A servant of the people needs to have faith in the people. In dealing with a great question involving the reconstruction of Government and regeneration of society in nearly half the territory of the Republic he has no right to be “a negative expression, or an unknown quantit, in the algebra which is to work out the problem.” He has no right to say that the people are not ready for a given policy. if he lmself understands it, and is convinced that ltjs gust and necessary. On the contrary, he Will ‘nd it most safe to accept our democratic thcory that the people are capable of understanding their affairs, and of managing them through honest and fearless representatives. What our politicians most need today is faith, faith in the people, faith in justice, and then to add to their faith courage. If the policy you propose is right, nothing is o safe as to trust the people; it it is crooked, a weak and shallow expedient, a truce with justice, and not a real peace, then nothing could be more unsafe than an appeal to the voice of the people, which finally Will be the voice of truth. The people, you say, are not ready for negro ballots in the insurgent States. Sir, I would be glad to have the proof of that. Since the outbreak in 1861 they seem to have been ready for whatever has come in the rapid and stirring march of events. They were ready for the war, app’alling as it was, and utterly foreign to their be its and tastes. When it came, as I have shown, they were ready for radical measures in its prosecution. They were ready, or soon became ready, to arm the negroes against their masters, and to demand the complete emancipation of the millions in chains. hey were ready to sacrifice the lives of more than 300,000 brave men to save the Republic from dismemberment and ruin. They were ready to send sorrow into millions of households, and to entail upon their children a weary burden of debt in order that freedomshould bear rule in these States. They were ready, when the war was ended, to demand the just chastisement of the great national criminals who were the instigators of the desolating conflict. They were ready to sanction the policy of a Freedmen’s Bureau to guard and care for the men and women made nominally free by the power of war. They were ready to pass a constitutional amendment abolishin slavery forever, and arming congress win the power, by approriatetion, to make such abolition legisla elective. They were ready to crown the ne to with the honors of a soldier of the Republic, and ask him to help defend it against its assassins, and thereby to pledge themselves before God and man that he should thenceforward share all the rights enjoyed by white citizens. They were ready to say, in Januar last, through their Representatives in this Tlall, by a vote of 116 to 54, that no men under the exclusive jurisdiction of the national Government should be deprived of the ballot on account of race or color; and they have been disappointed, I am very sure, in the long delay of action in the Senate. And they were ready, speakin through over whelming majorities in both oases of congress, and in defiance of the Executive, to indorse the civil rights bill, which lacks only one short step of reachin the ballot, and the principles of which can on y be defended by a ogic which necessitates the grant of it as the grandest of all civil rights, and the pledge and shield of the m all. Mr. Speaker people who have proved themselves ready for all tiiis will be found ready to move steadily forward toward the complete accomplishment of their grand purpose. Most assuredly they will not turn back, nor pause in, their course. Their schooling during the past 3 5 years has armed them against fear, and, the man who says they are not ready for all measures required to make good to the nation. the righteous ends of the war impeaches both their intelligence and their patriotism. The people are not ready! This is the c which i is daily rung out here from a chorus 0 voices. We ourselves are all ready, individually, for the most radical policy, if the country would sustain us. Impartial suffrage is openly indorsed as the true doctrine, which, in due sea son, the people will be prepared to accept. They may be ready, we are told, after the fail elections, and the hope is frequently expressed that then we shall meet the issue squarely. Almost everybody, save the most unblushing copperheads, says that negro voting in the South is the true reconstruction, and is absolutely necessary if the rebels are to vote; but the country is not ripe for it. “Personall, ” as Hen Clay said of the annexation of ‘exas, all 0 us “would be glad to see it, ” but the issue is premature. Sir, gentlemen are themselves premature, in all such statements. The people are ready, in this battle of politics, and would gladly go to the front if they could, leaving the politicians ‘expense of the rights of man. to straggle in the rear. And if the voice of the loyal millions could be faithfully executed today, treason would be made infamous, trai tors would be disfranchised, and the loyal men of the South, irrespective of color, would take the front seats in the work of reconstruction and government. Do on doubt this? lfthere is real union among nion men everywhere, upon any single point, it is in their absolute determination to make sure the fruits of their victory, through whatever measures may be found needful. Sir, remembering the past, can any man reall believe the loya masses will take fright at the spectacle of negro ballots in the regions blasted by treason? All civil governmentthere is overthrown. The Presient himself has so officially declared. The governments extemporized there b hiniself are urely military, and so far as they have assume to be more than that they are simply usurpations. This is also perfectiy understood by the country. The work of organizing civil governments in these regions belon s to their people, subject entirely to the centre and direction of Congress. This, too, has been officially admitted by the President. And now, if Congress, at this session, should pass the enabling act referred to reported by the venerable Gentfrom 1’ennsylvania, authorizing the holding of conventions to form new State governments, and prescribing the same rule of impar tial suffrage as was done by this House for the DistCol, would the people revolt against it? Would they even be offended? Does any intelligent, fair minded man really believe it? The restoration of civil government in the South is undeniably necessary. That Congress alone, in cooperation with the people, can do this, is equally certain. The mode of organizing civil government in regions under the national jurisdiction is perfectly familiar to the people, and well settle by long and uniform practice. Who, then, shall be alarmed, if Congress, in rightfully initiating new governments, shall secure a voice to the colored millions who constitute more than 2/5th s of the people, and an overwhelming majority of those who are loyal? vWhat Union man will recoil from a.policy of im artial jus tice? Do we still so love our “soutern breth= ren” that we must necessarily give them the ballot, and so sympathize with their tastes and dread their ill will that we must deny it to the freedmen? Are the people to be dealt with as idiots or madmen on this subject, and counted rational on every other? Sir, let us put away timid counsels, and face the truth like men. Let us be wise today. Letus have faith in the sturdy common sense and unquenchable loyalty and patriotism of the people, as becomes those who have seen them conrent the greatest of trials, and never yet found them wanting. Let us not doubt, for a moment, that they will sustain us, if “ we ourselves have the courage which mounteth with occasion, ” and will only “ dare do all that may become a man.” Above all, let us remember that Providential guidance which in our trials hitherto has favored as exactly in the degree we have allied our cause to justice, and withheld from us the coveted prize of success as often as we have soueht it at the fhat same Providential discipline will most assuredly go with us to the end, whether we bravely meet the great duties of the crisis or prove ourselves unequal to our day and our work. Nothing, therefore, is so safe, and so sure to win, as the policy which shall make this truth our guide. God ive us faith in His counsels, and courage to follow them 1 And let us not forget that“TBhye wiseand active conquer difficulties, daring to attemptthem; sloth and folly Shiver and shrink at sight of trial and hazard. And make the impossibility they fear." INDIANA POLICY.