Mr. SCOFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I sought to obtain the floor on Saturday last to say a few words in reply to the Gentfrom Illinois, [Mr. Ross] He claimed that inasmuch as the Republican party had voted for the Crit tenden resolution in the early part of the war, inasmuch as they had consented to the retention of members of Congress from those States during the time for which they had been elected, inasmuch as they enacted a law apportionin the members of Congress among the sever States, including those States to which he referred, they were now estopped from denying that the confederate States were States in this Union. A gentleman who had witnessed the great fire in Pittsburg some years ago, by which a large portion of that city was destroyed, was entertaining me some time afterward with a little incident of the calamity illustrating the conduct of men under peculiar circumstances. He said he noticed a builder as the flames were flying rapidly from block to block coolly standing upon the pavement and watching their progress. As they passed into a block in which my friend was largely interested, the builder approached him and said: “Will you rebuild this year?” “No, sir, ” said my friend, “I hope to save my block with a little repair.” But the flames raged on and in a little while they were bursting from the roof. The builder approached him again and said, “Will you use the walls in rebuilding?” “Certainly, ” said my friend, “I intend to use the walls if I can possibly save them.” But soon the walls began to fall one by one and those that did not fall by the flames were demolished by the firemen. The builder once more approached my friend and said, “Will you rebuild on the old foundations?” And the man gave an affirmative an swer. But when the conflagration had spent its force and the owner of the property came to remove the rubbish he discovered that the foundations were much injured, and as they were originally built partly on sand or loose soil he determined to remove them and rebuild on the solid rock with hard granite foundations. Now, sir, if when he was preparing this work the builder had again come to him and reproached him with duplicity because he had said at one time he expected to save the building, at another that he intended to save the wall, and at a subsequent time that he would save the foundation, he would have stood exactly in the position where my friendfrom Illinois [Mr. Ross] stood in his speech last Saturday. The parallel would be a little more perfect if the builder had also, in the midst of the fire, told the firemen that they had better suspend their efforts as the city could not be saved; and then when by redoubled efforts after a little time the flames were subdued he had reproached them with treating the misguided conflagration with unnecessary cruelty. Mr. Speaker, we had hoped to save these States. It is not our fault that the fires of the rebellion raged so fiercely and so long. Indeed it was not our fault that the fires were lighted at all. If anybody is at fault it is the gentlemen who at that time rePresented the party to which my friendfrom Illinois [Mr. Ross] belongs in this and the other House in the winter of 1860–61. If the members of Congress of that party had appealed to their southern brethren who were leaving these Halls to embark in a rebellion, if they had risen in their seats and said to them, “Gentlemen, you have been our political allies; we have served you well; we added Texas to this country in order to enlarge your power; we took upon ourselves a war with Mexico as a consequence; we have done all we could to get Cuba for you at the risk of a war with Spain; for your sake we repealed the Missouri compromise and gave you an opportunity to extend your peculiar institutions over the unlimited soil of the West; for your sake we passed a law by which the whole North became a slave hunting ground, and free men turned out at your bidding to capture your escaped bondmen and return them to you free of cost; but we will go no further; we will never consent that 2 republics shall be carved out of the territory lying between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, the Gulf of Mexico and the northern lakes with only the blazes of the surveyor upon the trees to mark the line between them; if you go mark, now we will join with the abolitionists and free soilers of the North, and we will fight this out on the field of battle;” if you had said that they would have remained. But instead of that you said to them, that the election of Lincoln was an insult to their pride, an assault upon their institutions; that they had, if not a perfect justification in seceding, great provocation therefor. You said to them that while you did not advise them to secede you would see that if they settle that question for themselves and determined it in favor of secession there should be no coercion on the part of the North. So on the 4th of March, when Mr. Lincoln came to take the oath of office, and the Republican party for the 1st time became responsible for the use of power, we found the Republic divided; 7 large States had withdrawn and formed a separate republic, and 7 more were preparing to follow, 4 of which finally succeeded and joined the rebel confederacy, the other 3 being retained by virtue of military power. Now, sir, we all propose to reunite this whole territory. There is only this difference in the manner of doing it: you propose to take the old foundation and the old walls and to have new State governments built upon those foundations. We propose to remove the old sandy foundations and build upon the solid rock. That is the only difference. You propose to annexthe U.S. to the confederacy and thus bring us together. We propose to annexthe confederacy to the U.S. It has been said that Governor Sey mour was asked if he had any objection to the confederate constitution then just formed at Montgomery, and he replied, “It is better than the Federal Constitution; why should we not adopt it at once?” That is a sort of reconstruction which the gentlemen opposed to us are now Pressing upon us. But my friendfrom Illinois [Mr. Ross] further claimed the sanction of Mr. Lincoln's great name for the policy which his party are pursuing. If this policy of yours is Mr. Lincoln's, more shame to you that, while you were pursuing it, you spoke so unkindly of him, for you denounced him sometimes as a tyrant and usurper, and sometimes as a buffoon and a joih. gentleman and his friends were upon his track and were barking at his heels from the hour when he was 1st nominated for the Presidency at Chicago until his tragic death; and now they propose, not to sustain his work, but to tear down the landmarks of freedom set up by him. Look at the States which Mr. Lincoln reconstructed Here are Tennessee and Louisiana and Arkansas in the hands of Union men every one of them; but the policy of reconstruction which succeeded his has?. the Union men out of power and given the power to the rebels. The States of Maryland, WestVirginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, although not confederate States, were more or less reconstructed under Mr. Lincoln's influence, and in every one of those States rebels have been disfranchised and the government of the State has been placed in the hands of loyal men. And now gentlemen who profess to be following in his footsteps, by perfidy or by weakness, are turning these States back to the rebels. Kentucky has already by law reenfranchised the confederates in that State, and they are trying to adopt the same policy in Missouri and in WestVirginia. But the gentleman, after endeavoring to fortify his position by Republican precedent and by claiming for it the sanction of Mr. Lincoln's great name, informed us that there was no danger to be apprehended; that the confederate population is so very small in these States that they can have no prospective influence when brought back into the Federal Union. How is this? I understand that the policy advo cated by him is that in these southern States no confederate shall be disfranchised and no colored man allowed to vote, and that there shall be no constitutional restriction upon the action of the confederates when once restored to power. Now, what power will you have under that system” Under the census of 1860 there were 8 millions of white population in the 15 slave States, all told; 2/3rds of that population, I suppose, were interested in the confederacy, and the other 3rd were interested in the Federal Government. Now, if they come back without any restriction of any kind, how many of those States will those who were attached to the confederacy control? I submit, Mr. Speaker, that they will control them all, having 2/3rds of the white population and having the power, this population being distributed throughout these States, to vote down the Union men 2 to one. I know, sir, that the confederate population is not so distributed, but it is nearly enough so for the vim, the vigor, the activity, and the bitterness of these men to control these States. At all events, whoever warns us that sethuenr certainties dangerouos rufgahvtort.o c Wonitchedea population of only 8 million whites they would have 32 RePresentatives in the Senate, and 5 more would give them a majority. They would have 97 members of this House, and 30 more would give them a majority here. They would have 129 votes in the Electoral College, and 75 votes more would give them a majority there also; so that with 5 or 6 millions of population to start with they will come back into the Federal Government with almost a majority in all its branches.