Mr. McKEE. I had intended, Mr. Speaker, to allow this discussion to close without a remark from me in regard to this bill. But as my own State has come in for such a large share in this discussion, and has taken such a large share of the opposition to this bill, I have felt it to be a duty which I owe not only to myself but to the loyal people l represent upon this floor, that I should say a few words in roply to what I have heard urged here in osition to this bill. I do not propose to wander from the bill, or to discuss anyting outside of the bill, but to answer some of the objections made to it by my colleagues and other gentlemen upon this floor. Now sir, who have made objections to this bill? Who are the men who interpose objections to its pass e? 1st, you find all those in this House who during the great struggle just closed have opposed every measure for crushing out treason. Again, you find outside of these Halls all that class of people who for the last 4 years we have been disposed to denominate as traitorsthey are opposing this bill. They are calling out that this is unsur pation; they are denouncing it as a monstrous usurpation; they are telling us that it interferes with their rights. The same class of men who have opposed everly act of the Administration proposed during the last 4 eventful years, set on foot and carried on to crush out a rent conspiracy. In the main, these are the fierce and bitter opponents of this measure. Now, what do we need to dispose of their objections? They tell us they have submitted to the laws; that they have accepted the results of the war; that they have taken the oath of ulleriance to the Government required of them. An each one of those men, with that oath ofal legiance sticking down in their breeches pocket, sworn to support the policy of the Government, now come up here and stand out against every single iota of that policy which they have held up their hands in presence of the Almighty and sworn to support. from that class of men comes the position to this bill almost wholly and why of they oppose it? Simpl because it interferes with that course whicht ey have so long pursued; simply because it. prevents them from exercising that tyrannical power which from the foundation of our Government they have been accustomed to use over one portion of the hu man race. They desire to continue that tyranny; they desire to continue that oppression; they desire to continue that wro and when this House and this Congress an this nation propose to protect all its people alike, then it is they come in here in o pesition to such a course. Do you find those who sustained this war opposed to this bill? Do you find that greatparty of the Union who throughout the grand struggle stood up for the flag lifting their voices up against this bill? No, air with few excetions, and may God help those who have straye away, the great party who stood by the country in the deathgrapple with treason, in which treason died and the nation survived, stands today for the completion of the work which 4 years of war carried so grand! on. The gentlemen on teother side of the House are accustomed to say this is amonstrous usur pation. Why, sir, we have heard that talk for more than 4 years here. What bill has been introduced into and passed by Congress since the time this war began that this same party has not been accustomed to denounce as among strous usurpation of power? When the POTUS issued his call for troops they cried out, “A monstrous usurpation of power.” When he sent a requisition to the Governor of my own State, whatwas the response? “ Not a man, not a dollar, to rose cute this wicked war againstour southern reth ren.” and the Union party, God help them! in Kentucky, indorsed the sentiment at that day. I did not belong to that part of the Union party; I never belonged to that “neutrality concern.” I never put in my car to he! proe! that ship which was in favor ofthun ering orth with its cannon against the North and the South alike.I never belonged to that party which said “We will stand as a wall o fire against either side.” I thank God I never stood upon but one side, and that was the side of my country, against treason, against oppression, against wron in all its forms and here I won d say a word to those Gentlemen who say that the course of the Government through its military satraps destroyed the Union party in Kentucky. burenn; that we do not want itpbecanse peace Mr. Speaker}, the Union party in the State of Kentucky mined themselves, because from the time the 1st gun was sounded they failed to come up to the mark and stand out for the right. There was the difficulty. Had the Union men of Kentuckyin 1861taken bold ground in favor of coercion and against treason, though we might have had a small party at. that day, we would have had a great)arty to buck us, the Government of the U.S., which would have thrown its troo a into the State of Kentucky, and we would have been saved from the evils that rolled over us after that time; and today we would have stood forth in our courage and stren th the great party of the State; and instead o fawning at the feet of traitors, and not daringto brook their insults, theywould have lain prostrate at our feet. Loyalty would have commanded a premium in the State, and treason held itself with a modesty it would certainly become its guilty actors everywhere to wear. Gentlemen say that there is no need of this has returned to our land. If we have peace today why is it that the POTUS keeps our armies in the field in the southern States? Why is it that all that rebellious country is laid off into military districts, with a military commander for each Dept? Why is it that martial law is in force there, and the habeascorpus is suspended? What says the Lieutenant General of the U.S. on this subject of ones? In acom munication to the President oi the U.S., dated December 18, 1865, after an extensive tourextensive in the distance traveled over, but very short in timehe said: “I did notmeet anyone, eitherthoseholdifig places under the Government or citizens of the southern States. who think it practicable to withdraw the mi! itnry from the South at present. The white and the black mutually require the protection of the General Government.” Does that look as if eace prevailed through outthe land? I think that the statements of the Lieutenant General flatly contradict those of gentlemen upon the other side of this House. It is said, again, that there is no need of this bureau. Whatsays the same high authority? I read from the same paper: “In some form the Freedmens Bureau is an absolute necessityuntil civil law is establishedand enforced, 5001111t101t3he freedmentheir rights and full protection.” Has any southern State given the freedmen “their full rights and full protection 1” Is there a solitary State of those that have been in rebellion, (and I include my own State with the rest, because, although she has never been, by proclamation, declared a State in rebellion. ! think she has been one of the most rebellious of the whole crew) is there a single one of these States that has passed laws to give the freedmen full protection? In vain we wait an affirmative response. Until these States have done so, says this high authority, the Freedmens Bureau is a necessity. This is to my mind a sufficient answer to the arguments of gentlemen on the other side. In none of those States has the black man a law to protect him in his rights, either of person or property. He can sue in a court of justice in my State, but he can command no testimonyin his prosecution or defense unless the witness be a white man. We have one code for the white man, another for the black. Is this justice? Where is your court 5 oijnstice in any southern State where the black, man can secure protection? Again there is no i resonse. but gentlemen say that this war was waged, for the purpose of preserving the Union, and i that now at the end of the war the policy seems to beto perpetuate the republican party. Now, i sir, this war was waged or the nion; it was, waged by the Republican party for the Union. I Now, at the end of the war, when we have crushed out armed treason in the field. do the gentlemen whoopposed this wardesire thisgrent 1 Republican party now to put the Government into the hands of those whom they have crushed? some the helm of state? I desire to see the Government continued in the hands of loyal men who stood under their flag and fought against treason and traitors everywhere. I desire now, and in all time to come, to see the men who went forth to battle in defense of right, to sustain the Government handed down to us by our fathers, aided by their friends who sustained them in that effort, direct all our affairs for themselves, for their children, and for Generations yet unborn. Again, we have heard the same old cry which men who sat here in 1360 and 1861 heard then: “You may pass odious laws, but you never can enforce them.” Well, we will try that proosition with the gentlemen who make it. I believe we can. believe we are more powerful today than we were then; and if this people desire to get up another revolt, the quicker they go at it the better for us. We will sweep them out in the future as we have in the past, and the next blast will be like the simoom of the desert, so terrible that its op onents will never dare rise again. But I pray or better things; I pray God these men may return to reason, and accept the situation in the sense in which it was tend ered by that great and good man, as he held out the oath which they so reedily devoured; that they will learn to know t rat they have committed a crime and that it is a mercy to them, and the lightest punishment for treason, that they cannot rule again. No warrant in the constitution for this law! None! I make the same response to that I have to the assumptions of gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. They have been proclaiming all the time we have had no war rant for anything we have done. They have said there was no authority in the President to appoint provisional governors for the rebel States. Yet they come here as champions for the President and his policy. We are told that abuses may arise under this bureau; that it isintrusting too much powerin the SecyWar and the officers who are appointed under it. I thinkge ntlemen, professing as they do to have ample confidence in the President and his Administration, neednot fear that theywilltrausccnd theirauthority. Itshows a lack of faith. I am not afraid of them. Moreover, we are told that abuses will occur of men under the bureau. 1 suppose there never has been a law enacted since the time the Lord of heaven handed down the ten commandments to Moses upon Mount Sinai that has not been abused; but I have yet to learn that the abuse of a law justifies its repeal or non-enactment. These things can be corrected as one of my colleagues [Mr. Rotssnsu] showedin a speech in opposition to the bill could be done in his own city. I have no doubt they can be corrected everywhere else. They have told us this is a bill to humiliate the South, to humiliate that “brave and chivalric people, ” to lower their dignity if you choose! Iy own opinion about that is that it needs to he brought down. [Laughter.] This war has failed so far to bring that chivalry down as low as it ought to be brought to make them obedient to the law as good citizens, and to extend the right of protection to all men. We need something more to humiliate them. Is it humiliation to that peopleto be brought under the same laws by wtheh we are bound 7 We do not ask them to submit to anything that we are not willing to be bound by. Is that humiliation? To the proud and chivalric sons of the South it may be. To the Virginia and SCarolina slaveocrucy perhaps it is. But they must learn that they lord it over their hundred slaves no longer. A war of subjugation, say gentlemen, for the purpose of imposing terms upon these people. [buy have to! you that in this House in 1861, after the battle of Bull Run, a resolution was passed in which we said to the world this was not a war of conquest and subjuation. I do not know, I have sometimes dou)ted if I had been a member at that time I would have voted for the resolution, for I have always held it was What loya! man desires that traitors again rell 9. war of subjugation, a war to subjugate armed power opposed to the Government of the U.S., a war to subjugate armed treason and bring armed traitors ack to an allegiance to therlaws of the land. 0W, Mr. Speaker, I am told Kentucky does not want that law. I do not know; I believe that Rontuck sent into the field 27,000 soldiers of the colored race. They have been returned to their homes by the order of the SecyWar, approved by the president, and they are allowc to retain their arms. I an ose those men, who are now freedmen, wou (I like to have this law to protect them. There is one class who want this law. there is another class who want this law. They are the men who stood by this country during the great struggle, and c not want the country overrun by armed traitors who waged war against us. My colleague from the 1st district [Mr. TRXMBLE] has said that Kentuckys slain lie upon every battlefield of the Republic. So they do, Mr. Speaker; and I regret that, pass loyal man, I must make the humiliating ae knowledgment that Kentuckys traitors lie there, too. Now, Mr. Speaker, there is one way Kentucky can yet get rid of the operations of this law; there is one way all the States from Kentucky to the Rio Grande can get rid of this law and all its abuses at the same time. Let them pass inws and enforce them in the courts giving to all men the same privileges to protection in civil tribunals. Until that is done we need the law. We need it to restrain those men who stood out against their country, to protect the loyal of all colors. Having engaged in this great work, having crushed out the greatest conspiracy the worl has ever seen, having swept the conspirators elf from every position, it is our duty now to protect these men whom we have emancipated and made free man in our land and as a humble Representative of the State of Kentucky On this floor, as one claimin to. have always stood by my country, I stan here today still contending for justice, for principle, for right. These people have been emancipated as one of the natural results of this waha war forced upon the loyal people of the land by traitors. ey can never be ree nslaved. As freedmen they must have the civil rights of free men. Let the States in which they live pass such laws for their protection as will give them the same rights in their courts of justice that other men have. Give to them the right to protect themselves and there will no longer be any need of such a law as this. The time has gone byyes, and I thank God it can never retum when a human being in this Republic because of his color can be treated as a brute; when the brutal master can have law to protect him in his crime and now, when the great mad scheme to overturn and destroy the Republic has failed, when treason has been crushed, when a million men who have gone forth to battle have returned to their homes, men scarred upon 100 battlefields, must we say to this million men today, “All your odorts have been in vain?” Shall we say to the more than 300,000 men who have gone down t“o their graves on the bloody battlefields, Your lives have been oiIored up asacrifice for your country, and all in vain?” Shall we say to the 60,000 martyrs victims to acruelty more barbarous, deep, damning, and devilish than the world has ever seen, who went down to their graves starved in rebel prison pens shall We say to those brave mart"yrs and to their widows and little ones at home, Your graves are ruled over today by the same men that looked up to heaven and thanked God. while the had youin their power, that they had it thus in and to see the Yankees die?” Let us say to the widows and orphan of the brave soldier who, with his last dying gaze, as he lay starving in those liorrid dens o iniquity, looked up to heaven, and his soul went to God as he thought of the loved ones at home, “The brave man perished a martyr to liberty, and as his redeemed spirit looks out through the windows of heaven it beholds a land redeemed, disenthralled, and free.” No, Mr. Speaker, letus claim to the world and let it go forth that, having conquered the rebellion, having subdued the robe army, we are prepared to rule this land and make our people free and when that proud old bird of freedom shall soar across the and, bearing in his beak the broad banner of beauty and glory, let all its stars unfolded to the world proclaim in a language which will make thrones and tyrannies tremble to their centers, “This is the home of the free!” [Applause]