Mr. ROGERS. That is one ground, that it has a tendency to change that instrument and even destroys it. [Langhter.] Another ground is that it is dangerous to interfere with the old landmarks, made in compromise and wisdom by our fathers. in a time of excitement and by an appeal to the sions of the people. another ground is that these amendments to the Constitution of the U.S. have a tend ency to deprive the southern States of representation and to prevent the consummation of that grand object which our soldiers had in view when they laid down and imperiled their lives in defense of the country. Now, sir, gentlemen undertake to base the theory which they adopt here that these States are out of the Union, that they are conquered provinces, and that they have no right to come in except by a law of congress, upon the clause of the onstitution thatt e U.S shall guaranty to every State in this Union a RFG. That clause of the Constitution says the U.S shall guaranty to every State a RFG, and protect it against invasion, and suppress an insurrection in it. In order to carry out that clause of the Constitution, Congress is " To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppressinsurrections, and repelinvasions." Arti 1, sectionB. That invasion has been repelled and the insurrection suppressed. The object was to protect the State, and to carry out that object in the preamble of the Constitution that this government was made in order to form a more perfect Union. It was to form a more perfect and perctual Union. It was that the States should e eft as the were, to maintain them in the condition in which they were before the acts of secession were passed. That object has been accomplished. The States still live. The States are not out of the Union. Insurrection was put down. The militia was called forth by the POTUS, in conformity to the requirements of the Constitution, to suppress insurrection and to repel invasion. It was not under the general power of Congress to raise and support armies at all, but under the power to authorize the POTUS to call upon the several States for a sufficient number of militia to put down insurrection in the States. What does the honorable Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEVENS] say of the States lately in rebellion? He says: "They have torn their constitutional States into atoms, and built on their foundations fabrics of a totally different character. Deadmencannot raise themselves; dead States cannot restore their own existenceasit was." Then, referring to the Constitution, he notes from the 3rd section of the 4th artic e the following: New States maybe admittedby the Congress into this Union." and proceeds thus: in“tIhnismyjud cut, this is the controlling provision case. Uiilesetho lawof nations is a doliid letter, the late war between the 2 acknowledged belliger entssevered their original compacts and broke all the tics which boundthem together. The future condition of the conquered Power depeiids upon the will of the conquerors. They musteomein as new States, or remain as conquered provinces." In another place in the same speech he says: “To prove that they are and for 4 years have been out of the union. foralllegal gur oses, and being now conquered, wheat to the a so ute disposal of Congress. I will suggesta few ideasandadduceafew authorities." The law of nations with regard to the status of these States has no application whatever, for, asI have shown in the commencement of my argument, the right of the States in the Union crusts by virtue of the Constitution itself, and that neither international laws nor State laws can regulate and control the status of a State during war, before war, or after war. I hold that they were States when they went into the war, that they were States during the war, and that they were States when they came out of the war, and that every man in the South, if he be elected according to the local laws of his State and the Constitution of the U.S., is entitled to be admitted on the same conditions on which I have been admitted to a seat upon this floor. It is provided in the o anic law that each House shallbe the judgeof the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members, and on that basis some members in this House go in for excluding members from the southern States; and they claim they have unlimited, des potic, and sovereign wer within themselves as members of this ha y to say what State shall come in and what State shall not come in, what States shall be represented and what States shall not be re presented. The Constitution a so says that each House may punish its members for disorderly beha vior, and with the concurrence of 2/3rds expel them. Now, is there anybody on the other side who believes that our fathers intended, when they made the Constitution, to authorize the Congress of the U.S. to expel a member without any cause whatever? Did they intend to confer upon Congress the exercise of omnipotent power in that respect? Not at all, but only the power to expel after investigation and proof according to the forms of law, for some reasonable and lawful cause. We might just as well construe the 2nd clause of the Constitution to mean that congress has the right, by the intendment of the ramers of that instrument, and within the spirit of the organic not itself, to expel a member without cause at pleasure, and without investigation, as to say we can keep southern members out who have all the qualifications laid down in the Constitution. Every lawyer knows that when you under take to construe a statute or constitutional provision you must do it according to the reason and spirit of it; accordin to the object or intent which the framers ha in view at the time they made it. You must consider the evil they intended to remedy, and the difficulty that existed at the time of its passage. Now, sir, our fathers intended, when they made this provision in regard to extending a republican government to a State, that no State had a right to go out of the Union or withdraw its ale ance; and if it should undertake to do so they intended, by the exercise of force, to brin it back. It was an act of insurrection, and if other States should articipate in such an act of insurrection and bring their armies into that State, it was an invasion of that State. Therefore, this war was carried on by the North to prevent the invasion of one State by another by a confederated, illegal government, and to put down the insurrection that exists in every State that attempted the act of secession. It has been settled by the SCOTUS, and no ent eman on the other side dare den it if so, will produce the opinion that the federal Government cannot make war upon any State. A provision was at tempted to be inserted in the Constitution, that the federal Government should have power to coerce a State, but it was Voted down, on the ground that it would be a declaration of war on the part of the Federal Government a just a State and then they provided, in 0rd: to prevent a war between one section of the country and the other, that the U.S. should guaranty a RFG to each State, and should do it by repelling invasion and suppressing insurrection in the State. If the people rise in anyone State against the laws of the U.S., as they did in SCarolina in nullification times, and use force, it is an insurrection. If they take up arms and undertake to enforce their rights by war, then the Federal Government is called into action by virtue of this provision which declares that the U.S shall guaranty to each State a RFG, and shall provent or put down insurrection and invasion. If ten or 11 States confederate to ether for the purpose of breaking down the nion and carrying on invasion, then the Constitution calls upon the Federal Government to send an army there to protect the minority of the people who could not protect themselves from the invasion, and to protect them from the insurrection of the people in the several States in the localities where these minorities exist. Otherwise ifamere majority, or even less than a majority, should, by some form of legislative action, carry the State out of the protection of the Union by the force of the bayonet and despot ically compel the people to participate in the unlawful government, the minority being unableto protect themselves against this majority, would be bound, in order to have protection at all, to seek it from this defacto government. For that would be a de facfo Government which was acknowledged by the nations of the world as a belligerent for the purposes of international law and Christian war are. I hold it to be a self evident principle that a man who lives in a de facto Government is bound to an port that Government, and is not bound to adhere to a Government that does not. protect him. That doctrine has been settled in many cases, and it is the only Christian rule of“ law that can be established. A State.in the meaning of public law is a comple the or self sufficientbodyof persons united together in one community for the de ease of their rights. It has affairs and interests; it deliherntes, and becomesa moral person having nndorstunding and will, and is susceptibleof obligations and laws. But our States are not subject to the definition given in public law, because under our Constitution a State is one thin and its government another. Our Constitution talks a out guarantying to every State a RFG, meaning the State as one thing and its government another. It was the government of the States under the Constitution that the rebellion for a time suspended and usurped. Mexico has had its Government several times changed and overthrown, yet the State of Hexico, as a State, still exists. Bishop on Law, in section 132, volume one, remarks: “Except, therefore, for the clause guarantying republican governments to the States, the U.S. mishtflfit chose, iifter a State has committed what is caled an act of seccssion, legislate for it foreverto the exclusionof any subsequent State legislation. But the clause under consnlcration provides that the U.S shall guaranty to the State a RFG. Thercfore as soon is the guarantee is executed.th osight of legislation which the U.S. recciv from the defunct State government flows out to the new State government. whon for any reason, a fsor instance when a State has passed what is termed in those days an ordinance of seccssion.thercceasesto be within the Staten government under the Constitution of the U.S., the guaranteomention d in this section of the Constitution attaches, an the U.S. be comes obligated to give the State a RFG., l personsresidmg within this torntory are tobe tre"aBtuetd, aso11(ln l(thSo, ugh not foreigners. in deflninirthempniiing of the term cucmies property. wawill beled intoerror ifwarefur to Plate or Lord Coke. It is atoehnical phrase, peculiar to prise courtsx and dependsupon principles of public policy as distinguished from the common law.”Prize (704016, 74. Following this argument, the SCOTUS, in the prize cases, says: “The laws of war, as establishedamong nations. have their foundationin reason, and all tendto mit igntethe cruelties and miseryprodncedbythescourge ofwur; hence the nirties to a civilWar usuall concedeto each other clligerent rights; they exc ange prisoners and adopt pthor conrtesies and rules common to public or national wars.” I here refer to the case of Luther vs. Borden, 7 Howards Reports, where, while discussmg the 4th section ot the 4th article of the Constitution, Chief Justice Taney says: “Under this article “itrests with Congress to decidowhat government is the established one in aStrite. For. as the U.S. uranty to each state a republican government, agreesmust necessarily decide what goyernment is astablished in a Statebeforeit can determine whether it is republicanor not." Then, referring to the clause relating to domestic violence, the Chief Justice adds: “So. too, asrelatesto the clausein the nbovementioned article pl"the Constitution providing for cases of domesticViolence. It restedwith Congressto do termine the meanspro or tobe adopted to fulfill this guarantee. They mig t, if the had COomedit most advisable to do so, have place it. in the power of a court.to decidewhen the contingencyhad happened which required the Federal Government to interfere. But congress thought otherwisc. and, no doubt, nisely: and byt c act of February 2!.1795p, provided that in case of nn insurrection in any State against tho government thereof it shall be lawful for the Presient of the U.S.to call forth such numbers of tho mHilitia of any Stateor States as may he applied for he may judge sutiieient to supprass the insurrection. By this act the powerof eciding whether the exigency had arisen upon which the Government of the U.S. is boundto interfere is given to the President." "If t.hore is an armed conflict” it is a eusepf domestic violence, and oneof the parties mus the in insurrection against the lawful Government and the President must of necessitydecide which is the governmentand which putty is unlawfully arrayed againstit beforehe can perform the duty imposed on him byCongress." In the case of the Amy WarWick, in admiralty, Judge Sprague, of Massachusetts, said: It has been supposed thnt if the Government have the rights of a belligerent then after the rebellion is enpressed, it will avethe rights of conquest; that a late and its inhabitants may be permanently divestedof all political privileges, ani treated as foreign territory acquired by arms." This is an error.a re and dangerous error. Belligerent right cannot e exercised where there are no belligerents. conquest of a sovereign foreign country gives absolute unlimited rights. but no nationever makes such a conquest of its own territory. If a hostile Power, either from without or within, take and holds posseuion and dominion over any portion of its territory and thenation by forceof armsexpel or overthrow the enemy and suppress cshostilitiesi, tac uires no newtitle but merely regains the possession of that of which it, had been temporarilydeprived. The untion acquires no newsovereignty.but merelymaintains its previousrights. When the U.S. take possession of a rebel distric theymerelyvindicatetheir reexisting title. Under espoticGovernments the right of confiscation n ia be unlimited; but under our Government the right of sovereignty over any portion of a State is mven and limited by the Constitution and will he the same after the war as it wasbefore. The Constitution says that each State shall have at least one Represe tive. (Article 1, section 2. It also says that no State without its consent shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate even by an amendment to the Constitution. Yet. we are violating our oaths of office to support the Constitution by refusing the positive commands of it. It says the States shall have their equal suffrage in the Senate and at least one Representative. We say they shall not. Sir, we are now doing what the confederacy attempted to do, and what. the whole U.S. attempted to prevent during the war. The confederates claimed that these were States. They even introduced into their system the Constitution of the U.S., with, I be lieve, only 2 exceptions, the one extendin the time during which the President should hold his position and excluding him from reelection, and the other doing away with comlling one State to surrender to another ugitive slaves, as the law existed before the southern States made war on the Union. The l l South fought4 years to preserve these as States, an the North did the same. We spent $3,000,000,000 in debt and the States $1,800,000,000, and we called out.two million brave men to prevent these States from destroying themselves and goin out; and yet after all this action of the federal Government and all the power exerted by the 2 armies sustaining the individuality and the status of the States, we have here honorable gentlemen, men of l learning and intelligence, and, I hope and be. lieve, of patriotism, who are claiming that these States are out of the Union and dead States, and have no right. to participate in the legislation of the country without a law of Congress for that purpose. I say to you men on the other side who are conservative, pause and think before you allow Radicalism in this House to destroy these States and the liberties of the people of this country. I say sink and perish any party rather than give up the glorious old stars and stripes of the old nion. Iwill oin with you in every act or movement by whatever name you may call it, against Radicalism and for the purpose of perpetuating those liberties which your fathers and my fathers intended should be transmitted by us to our descendants to the remotest generations of the world. Yet there is no party that can save the country but the Democratic, and in that organization I propose we all rally. Sir, the POTUS is doing all he can to secure representation to these States. He treats them as States in the Union, as they have always been treated, and it is onlybecause he is using the constitutional powers given to him to carry out that view O is denounced upon the floor of this House as a man who 200 years ago would have had his head brought to the block. All that I ask is that the POTUS may have wisdom to persevere in his present course. I believe that he is an instrument in the hands ofAlmighty God, placed here to save the liberties of this people. I believe that the Almighty has, before t is, intervened for the Democratic party; and I believe that. He will now so guide this people that the radicals here and elsewhere will be unable to thwart the wise movement of the POTUS in sustaining the Constitution, in peretuuting our form of government, and in using is power so that every stripe and every star shit be retained that. ever graced the glorious banner of the U.S.A. I have confidence, too, that that. Providence which watched over this Re ublic in its infancy, which hovered over the erable where this nation was born, will, through the agency of AndrewJohnson, still work out. the salvation of the American cople. Looking to our greatness in all the e ements of national power, our population, our wealth, our mechanical skill and industry, the day is not for distant when that bright and beautiful flag will gather back to its starry folds every star that ever represented an independent State of this Union, and our banner shall be lifted u, the symbol of the proud principle of civil liberty, which will give us strength and power to smother treason at.home and repel invasion from abroad; and under that proud banner, we will proclaim to the halls of the Montezumas and to the monarchies of the Old World that every man, woman, and child on the western continent are free. May God speed the day when the people will rally in their might and at the ballot box decide whether they want this Union dissolved or not. I am for the Union, the indivisihle Union, the Union of our fathers, the Union made by Washin ton, by Jay, and by Jefferson; the Union 1. at has given to us peace, happiness, greatness, grandeur, and glory such as never belonged to any other nation since the foundation of the civilized world. I do not want such a Union as the radicals of this country are trying to set.up for me. Their Union is a Union of despotism, a Union of tyranny, a Union not of independent fraternal States each legislating for itself upon its own domestic affairs. I agree with Bancroft and the preachers of the gospel all over the land, that God, in His wise providence, acts in m sterious ways and I I believe that the angel of peace is now hovering over us, and will soon proclaim the glad tidings to the hind, of eaceand good will to ward all men. Mr. Johnson acts as President through the interposition of Providence, and I p believe he will carry out His great purpose. am willing to welcome them back hke prodigal sons, and say to them, let us join together in such a way that if we get into a war With a foreign country we can marshal an army in the South as well as in the North, and show such an array of numbers, patriotism, and talent as to defy the combined powers of Europe in attempting to establish monarchy and despotism anywhere throughout this great continent. I am a radical for constitutional liberty. You will never find me voting to sustain any man unless that man stands within the very line, letter, and spirit of the Constitution. I was one of the eight, as is well known, who voted I inst thanking AndrewJohnson for keeing mi tary power and control over the soutern States; and although I respect him, and will stand by him in his reconstruction policy and every constitutional movement he makes to restore these States to the Union, when he violates the Constitution, I shall protest, as I did against the last Administration.