Mr. BINGHAM. I have answered the gentleman when I say that this amendment offered by me gives to the people of those States an opportunity of framing such a constitution as is therein specified, to be submitted for approval or disapproval to the vote of all male citizens, irrespective of race or color, over 21 years of age, within the State, except such as may be disfranchised for crime; and they are to be protected by the military power of the U.S. in casting their votes and thus declaring their will. I submit, sir, that if the gentleman were to write from this hour till the going down of the sun he could do no more toward giving those people an opportunity to adopt a RFG. The amendment gives the people the opportunity to act in the premises. If they Wii not act, reform, or amend their constitutions, you cannot make them do it; you cannot make them form and adopt a constitution. Constitutions of government are made by the voluntary act of o the people, not by rifled ordhance the bayonet. By incorporating this amendment into the bill you say to the people, “Un til you do make a constitution you shall all be under the protection of the Federal Army; every man alike shall be protected in his person and in his property until that day comes when you Present to Congress a RFG, not inconsistent with the Constitution and laws of the U.S., securing equal and impartial suffrage to all male citizens of the U.S. of full age, without respect to race or color, except such as forfeit their right by crime.” I said before, and I repeat it now, that I do not desire to interfere with the other provisions of this bill; but I desire a vote upon the question whether the people shall have an opportunity to rid themselves once and for all of military rule and martial law. by complying with the just and equitable provisions of the proposed amendment. Oh! says some gentleman, you want rebels to participate in this government., Sir, the nation has decided this question, and let gentlemen beware how they trifle with the 25,000,000 people who have decided that very question by the ratification of the amendment to the Constitution which you proposed. What sort of a record are we Presenting here for the consideration of the country? No longer ago than the last session of Congress the very question was submitted to this House, whether you would allow the question to be to the people of the Republic; to decide whether citizens lately in rebellion should be disfranchised or not permitted to vote for the short period of 3 years, until 1870, for RePresentatives in Congress or for Presidential electors. What was the result? At least 20, if I recollect aright, of the Republican majority of the House voted against any such proposition of disfranchisement. You sent it to the senate by a combined vote of our friends on the other side, and of a minority on this side, of which I make no complaint. The opponents of the proposed constitutional amendment thought it their duty to make that amendment odious by retaining in it that provision of disfranchisement of all rebels until 1870. It was sent to the Senate, and there stands your printed record today, that in the Senate, on the motion to strike out the proposition to disfranchise all rebels until 1870 from giving a vote for Representatives in Congress or for Presidential electors, every vote in the Senate of every party preIsfent was recorded for the motion save one. that vote in the Senate that almost unan imous vote against the proposition to disfranchise the whole body of men who participated in the late rebellion in those ten States until 1870 was right last June it remains right to day and cannot be made wrong. You went to the people on that. You notified the people that you did not propose to disfranchise these men, and to take from them the privilege of voting in common with the majority of the loyal people, black or white, in these States. The people sustained you in that dec laration and ratified the amendment imposing only the disability of holding office, and that only upon those who had broken by participation in the rebellion an oath, taken at one time or another, to support the Constitution of the U.S. The exPress enumeration of disabilities in the fundamental law of the land excludes all other disabilities by every rule of interpretation. Not that if hereafter these men should be disturbers of the peace you may not control them by the strong arm of the law, and take from them whatever rights they may otherwise enjoy. But this action of the people gives even late rebels an opportunity to put themselves upon their good behavior, and to participate mean while in a Government as just as any beneath the sun; a Government that secures to every human being the equal protection of its laws; a Government that gives to all citizens who do not forfeit the privilege by crime, being male persons over 21 years resident therein, equal suffrage. But gentlemen say that they propose to vote this down. I am glad that my colleague [Mr. SHELLABARGER) has made the suggestion he would vote for it if he could. He voted for it when he voted to strike out the 3rd clause of the constitutional amendment to which I referred, which disfranchised these rebels until 1870. He voted for it again when he voted for the constitutional amendment as amended in the Senate, He voted for it again when he went before his own people, aIs did before mine, declaring our purpose to stand by that amendment. But gentlemen say you call this a finality. No, sir; that is a word I never use. There is no finality to a nation's power. But let the nation p and not their delegates in Congress. I pray gentlemen to remember, when they come to consider this question, that we are but the servants of the people, not their masters. That our business is to regard their decrees, to obey their will. I would remind gentlemen that legislators “are but the servants of the popular will;" that one condition of the people's prosperity is that their servants shall use very economically their delegated power and not Presume to raise themselves into supreme judges of the national interests or deem themselves authorized to defeat the wishes of those for whose benefit, and I may add by whose will, alone they held their trust. If this amendment goes into this bill the force of the measure is in no way impaired. It simply notifies the North and South, the East and West that military rule is exercised there for the protection of all persons alike, only until the people by a solemn vote at the polls, under the authority of the national law and the protection of the national Army, shall have assented to the constitutional amendment and set up a just and republican government. I have accepted, as the House will doubtless notice, the exPress words of my friendfrom Maine, [Mr. BLAINE:] they are incorporated and do not substantially change my amendment, the only difference being that I set out also the constitutional amendment itself, and retain the preamble thereto as it was origin ally reported to this House by the Reconstruetion Committee, in these words. That preamble is as follows:. Whereas it is expedient that the said States lately in insurrection should, at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safety of the Union restored to full participation in ali political rights; apnrodpowsheefroerarasttihfieca Congress, did, by JtResolution, to the Legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Constitution of the U.S., an article in the following words, 0 Wilt, I set out the amendment, and then set out the sections as amended by me and reported by the ComReconstruction last ses.sion. I retain what is omitted by the Gentfrom Maine, the provision that upon compliance by any State lately in rebellion with the terms set out in my amendment, and upon giving security for payment thereof to the SecyTreasury, such State shall be allowed ten. within which to pay its por.tion of the direct tax assessed by the act of 1861. There is no departure in this from what was reported at the last session to this House from the ComReconstruction. There is no compromise in it. BAsothiefGentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. was pleased to speak of the action of the Reconstruction Committee in closed session, I beg leave to say this amendment whichi offer, except the verbal changes made therein by me, received as united a vote in that committee as any bill that ever came from it. In addition to what I have said I beg leave to add that an attempt was made by me in that committee to have it reported to the House with the bill of the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, and that gentleman moved to lay it upon the table, which the committee refused to do. This was on last Wednesday, the day upon which the gentleman reported the bill to the House. In so far, then, sir, as that committee has weight in this House, the amendment which I offer has its approval substantially. I ask what objection there is to having a vote by yeas&nays. I do not see any. I o will bow pleasure to the decision of the House, but I do ask the poor privilege of having a vote by yeas&nays on the question, shall the amendment pass, and holy notify the people of the insurgent States whether it is our purpose to allow them on any terms whatever to reform their constitutions and be restored to their political relations to the Government of the U.S. as States of this Union.