Mr. HISE next addressed the House upon the same subject. [His remarks will be found in the Appendix] Reconstruction. SPEECH OF HON. ELIJAH HISE, of kentucky, January 21, 1867. The House having under consideration the bill. (H.R.No. 543) to provide for restoring to the States lately in insurrection their full political rights. Mr. HISE said: Mr. SpeakER: Hf occupy any time tonight in the discussion of the subject now before the House it will be of course not to enlighten the members here nor to produce any conviction upon the minds of gentlemen united in this house in support of this and other measures to which I am opposed. My only object is to avail, myself of this the only opportunity I shall have, I presume, to present some views I entertain on this subject, in order that the facts stated and the arguments urged may go to the country and go especially to my constitquents for their information and instruction, if what I may say will furnish any. The reporters will please take down what I have to say as I have no written speech prepared. I am in the habit of relying upon the current of my own thoughts, the spontaneous flow of ideas in my mind, and on the inspiration of the moment for what I may say. Mr. Speaker, I was asked, in the progress of my remarks on a former occasion, while speaking in the ComWhole, by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. Wii LIAMs, who is not now present, and for whose cultivated intellect I entertain a high respect—I was asked whether or not it was my opinion that the fact of the Republican, now commonly known as the Radical, party, had risen into power, whether their advent to power, their obtension of authority, both in the executive and legislative depts of the Government, was a sufficient cause for precipitating the country into a war by the southern States in their acts of secession and their subsequent attempts to establish and achieve their own independence? I instantly answered, in the hurry of the moment, that I thought not, and I would still give the same answer. Although there had been causes engendering for a great number of years which occasioned strife and animosity between the States in which slavery did not exist and the States in which it did, and which were well cal culated to drive the States nsunder, although there had in the progress of time been many acts of usurpation of power not granted in the Constitution and many acts of the prostitution for unconstitutional ends of powers which were actually granted for the aggrandizement of one section at the expense of the other,nevertheless I never yet believed in the expediency of resorting to an attempted dissolution of the Union by separate or collective efforts for secession on the part of the southern States or either of them as a remedy or redress for all the oppression, for all the usurpation of unopowers and the prostitution of granted powers to their injury. } never believed secession a remedy either lawful or expedient; but if they had not hitherto, if preceding the acts of secession there had not existed any cause for so momentous a proceeding, one fraught with such disasters and calamities, yet they seem now, at all events, whatever may have been their purpose heretofore, or however unfounded may have been the pretext or the grounds upon which the southern States attempted to secede and establish separate governments for themselves, they have ample grounds here now why they should hereafter resist Federal power and Federal domination; that is, provided the atrocious acts of usurpation, injustice, and oppression committed and projected are attempted to be visited upon them. I am, sir, for giving no cause for a severance of the Federal Union, or for resistance to the authority of the Federal Government; and I am for giving no substantial sufficient cause for revolution or secession. I was opposed to a severance of the Union, so much opposed to it that in fact I have always been in the hope and entertained the desire that the beneficent government of the U.S. should be coex tensive with the whole continent of North America. I have also further, however, entertained the opinion that unless this Government was administered and conducted within the limits presented in the Constitution, and in the exercise only of the powers granted therein, and to subserve only the ends intended thereby, always respecting the right of self government and the reserved powers of the States, the Union never could be preserved; but by maintaining such respect for the rights of all sections and all the States of the Union, and by avoiding the usurpation of ungranted and even doubtful powers, the Union may be indefinitely extended and forever perpetuated. The very best mode, the most judicious course for strengthening the bands of union and perief. uating its existence forever would be to respect and carefully observe that wise and celebra.ed doctrine of President Jackson, to refrain from the usurpation or exercise of any ungranted or even doubtful powers. These few preliminary remarks bring me directly to the expression of my opinion of the legal status and condition of things now. My opinion, as formerly expressed, has been and now is that there never has been n State yet our. of the Union; that the authority exists only to admit States into the Union, and when id: mitted that all the States in the Union collect. ively, under the Constitution of the U.S., compose a commonwealth of States; that they govern through that Constitution as States; that none but States can govern, and none but States can be governed by the U.S. I say therefore that you can admit a State or any number of States into the Union. This power is plenary, full, and unlimited; but there is no power reserved to a State to withdraw, or granted to the U.S. to expel or eject a State from the Union. I admit that Governments of every form, whether republics, monarchies, oligarchies, aristocracies, in former times have been over. thrown, subverted, and destroyed. such a thing may occur by one strong Power invading the dominion of a weaker Power and subduing its inhabitants. such a thing may even occur in constitutional and representative Governments by surmounting to such extent the limitations of power and the lawful manner of its acquisition, and by obliterating in practice the conservative division of authority, so ns by repeated acts of usurpation a republic may be converted into a despotism; but it can never legitimately be the case in the U.S. Government, a government strictly constitutional, having no right to exist except under a icharter, from which alone it derives allits powers (strictly defined and limited by special grants) to perform any governmental act.