Mr. OGERS If I had been present at the meeting of the committee I won d have been willing to agree to part of that resolution, but art of iIt cannot subscribe to. That part of it which prevents the U.S. from as suming the debts of the rebel StatesI agree to; but that part which undertakes to bind the people of the States in saying what debts they shall pay and what they shall not I entirely disagree to. It strikes me that 3/4ths of the States have no right bv an amendment to the constitution of the U.S. to undertake to dictate to the States what debts they shail pay or anything whatever in relation to their do mestic affairs of any kind or character. My understanding of the constitution of the U.S. is thatit contains no powersexccpt those delegated to the Federal government by the States, and that every power that was reserved lIiy the States at the time they entered into the federal Government is still held by the States, and that neither 3/4ths of the States nor even all of the mbut one have any right through an amendment of the constitution, or in any other way, to deprive an individual State of an right that that State never gave up to the Iederal Government at the time it entered into the formation of the American Union. It is upon the broad ground that the States of this country have some rights, and that 3 quarters of the States have no right, merely because they call it an amendment to the Constitution, to deprive the other quarter of the States of the rights and privileges which were giiarantied to them after the Revolution, which they held in themselves, and which theynever handed over to the Federal Government, or over which they never gave that Government, astheir out. any authority or control. If the constitution of the U.S. can be amended by 3/4ths of the States and 2/3rds of each House of Congress. so as to deprive the people of a State of the right to pay any particuliir kind of debt, or to carryou any particular kind of transaction, the right to do which was reserved to the States and which never became apart of the delegated powers of the Federal Government, then an 1865. amendment to the constitution may deprive the other 4th of the States of every sovereign power which was reserved to the States at the time they entered into and madopthe American Union. If, I say, Congress and 3/4ths of the States, by an amendment to the Constitution, have a right to deprive the States of a power which they have in their inherent right, which they claimed and owned before they on tered into the Federal Union, and can control their domestic concerns in that manner, then anamendment to the constitution might deprive a State of a Governor, and a court, and eve single domestic institution and policy which existed in the State. Now, I have not yet learned to believe, from the wisdom which I have seen exercised by those who have gone before me, and from reaing the constitution of the U.S., that the men who made and framed the Constitution ever intended that an amendment should be made to it so as to derive any portion oi the States of any rights which those States did not give up to the Federal Government which they did not hand over to the Federal government, which they did not give the Federal Government the power and authority to act upon. In other words, the right to ho] a court, the right to elect a Governor, the right to elect and hold a Legislature, all rights which were reserved to the States, are rights which were never delegated to the Federal Government, over which the Federal Government, neither by an amendment of the constitution, nor in aIfny other manner, has no right of interference. those rights cannot be interfered with, it a State has a right to hold its own courts, elect its own Legislature and its own Governor, if it has a rightto control its own domestic resources, then by an amendment of the constitution of the U.S. can the right which the people of a State in some future time may see fit to exercise, to pay a debt which they may consider themselves under a moral obligatiOn to pugi be interfered with in this manner?