Mr. ASHLEY, of Ohio. It will be observed, Mr. Speaker, that, by the adoption of this amendment, every State which adopts in good faith the proposed amendment to the Constitution and modifies its constitution and laws in conformity therewith, and after such modification elects n Governor and members of the Legislature and Senators and members of this House, it shall have its representativec admit ted here. An exception, owever, is made in the case of Tennessee and Arkansas, which now have loyal Governors and other State officers and loyal Legislatures. Those States would not be requir, under this amendment to reelect their officers, but the Sens&Reps alread elected, if they can take the oath, would be admitted to seats in congress, and their present State officers would be allowed to continue in their present positions. I think this modification a very necessary one. Let gentlemen look over the South and see the character of. the men who have been elected as Senators. In almost every instance, where they are not out and out open throated rebels, who on ht to be incarcerated in prisons or exiled fremt c country instead of approaching this temple of liberty; in almost every instance, I say where there has been any concessions made to loyal men the legislatures have elected moderate men for the s ort term and the most malignant rebels for the long term. Sir, look at Georgia; they would not elect Joshua Hill, but elected Alexander H. Stephens; and so of nearly every rebel State. If the southern people are stupid enough to suppose that such men as Alexander H. Ste hens will ever be admitted into the Senate or HoRep they might as well be undeceived now. Hence, I as that in view of the fact that the loyal men have had no voice in those reconstructed governments, have had no voice in their legislation, have been dumb and silent under the sway of these trai tors who were placed in power over them by the Executive, the loyal men of those States should have a fair opportunity to select men who will truly represent them under the constitution and laws when modified in accordance with the constitutional amendment proposed by Congress. I also have an amendment which I intendto offer when the other hill comes up, but will not take up time by reading it now. I will send it to the reporter and he can insert it with my remarks. Let us look,Mr. Speaker, at the condition in which we find the country. I hold in my hand the propositions reported by the committee of 15. I need not read them. They have been carefully examined by every member. All over the land, North and South, a cry is raised against the report of that committee. I ask pent lemon if they can put their hands on a sing c page of human history where, after a rebellion has been at down of the character of the one we had? to deal with, they can find the conquerors making propositions so. mild, so concihiatory, and so merciful as these made by the committee of 15 propositions as apicable to the conquerors as the conquere. Yet we find men in this Hall, men; all over the South, men holding high positions in the Government before the rebellion, and high positions in the rebel government, who Amendmentto be proposed by Mr. J. M. Asnuv to House bill No., dealin in: certain person in eli gig: to office under the Government of the U.S. Strike out all after the enacting clause and insert as follows: That no person who has acted as president or VEEP or member of either House of the congress of the co called confederate States of America, oarsa military or bureau thereof, or orpaval officers above the grade of coloncl or masterInfill}: navy, or asgovernorof either of the socalled conlederate States or member of the legislature thereof or memberofany State convention who votedfor an ordmence of secession or any person who in a foreign country note asan agent of the socalled confederate States or who have treated olhcers91soldiersor sailors of the Arm or Navy of. the U.S. captured durin: the late war. Olherm so than as lawful prisoners of war or any person whowasan olicer of the Army and or the U.S or who was educatedat the litary or Naval Academy of the U.S or who washeadofany Departihentor bureau under the Government of the U.S or who was amcmber of the 35th or 36th Congrcu of the U.S., or Judge of anycourt thereof, or who since 1806 acted as a foreign minister or agent of the U.S or who resigned any offico, civil or military. in any State or under the Government of the U.S and accepted office under any rebel State government, or under the government of the co ciilled confederate States of Americas with intent tomvepid and comfort to the rebellion shall ever be eligible to an other;of trust or figofit under the Government of the U.S.: provided. That any person HOIMID the above named classes, who hggivfeore the lot dope! Jppnari. A, D. 1865 ceased to aid and comfort to c reellion and labored to restore the authority of the U.S. comtheState in yhich ho resid shall O exemptiom the provisions of this not: nod anyone champ: the benefit of this proVision may make application to trict court tiredn of as U.S. foif the district in which he resid mdtbe judge of sind court is hereby authorized and required to ear d determinecl applications for exemptions under the previsions c this act, and it the judge before whom apy such hearing is bad shall be satisfied from the evnlepeo before him that thg person claiminn exomptign did case to participate in the rebellion or give aid thereto, and labored to secure a rectorltdio. ncoomf tfohret authority of the Government of the U.S. on or before the ltt dey ofJanuory. A. D, 1866, 110, shall cause it recordto be madeof that fact in shock to be kept by the court for that purpose, and the judge shall cause a certificate to be issued to the personso claiming exemptron. sottincforth the facts as and by the evidenoc, wheroupon the personso receivingsuch certificate shall be restoredto all the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the U.S. in the several States. have the effrontery to tell the people of this country that they will not accept such conditions. If they will not and we permit them to dictate their own terms, is not this a practical surrender on the part of the conqueror to the conquered? Suppose our position had been reversed; suppose the antislavery men of this country had gone into a rebellion as the South did, without a pretext, without cause, when they had. a, majority in this and the other branch of congress, simply because a proslavery mon ha been elected President. suppose this to have been the case, that State sften late had seceded, had on tured the forts of; the U.S., and he. made war on the Union for 4 ears, destroying half a million of lives, as wel as running up a debt of over $3,000,000,000. for posterity to pay. I say Bup, pose this to have been the case, do you believe any such proposition would have been made by. those men when they had conquered as have been made by this Government, nay, pro posed by. this very House? Do, you suppose that leading antislavery men, like Garrison, Philli s, Beecher, Greeley, and Gerrit Smith, would have been sent for by a proslavery Executive to be counseled with an sent home as provisional governors to organize States over the heads of the only loyal men in those States 2; Do you think there would have been any such stupid performance, if the North had been in rebellion? No, sir, wewouldhave been striped naked, as was said by Henry A. Wise the other evenin at (Alexandria. My friendfrom Iowa in front of me [Mr Pslcs] hands the containing the extract am quoting, and will read it: "If Ehad trium bed." sald Governor Wise, "I should have favore stripping them naked. [Laughs tor.) Pardon! They might have appealed for inrdon but I would have seen them damned before would ohtahveer, eragn. tedit. For myself.the boot bein on the I take no oaths; I ask no pardons prolonged cheers] I give yoo that brido theol, the lasting. the enduring Wise brig 0. [Cheers and applause)" Do you suppose if the rebellion in the North to which I have, referred, had been put down, any traitor would have been permitted to wall: in Boston and utter such treason against the Government? No, sir; and yet we are denounced in this Congress as a as Jacobins, as sanguinnry menru.mpveboyn?gro Because we ask, in restoring the governments of the southern States, that our friends shall have a fair share in the administration of their State governments, and that the leading traitors shall be punished., i; i ir, under the Administration, as matters are now going, not a single, solitary traimr will be Ennis ed. Rebel soldiers that were in prison have all been liberated, while the soldiers of the grand Union Army who are in prison for the s offenses remain, and you cannot at them pardoned out. These are an leosant ts, but I could not pass them an do my; dut without referring to them. lhat do we ask? The loyal men of the nation ask that in the restoration of the rebel States the men who were our friends and allies during the rebellion the loyal men shall be clothed with the war of the local and State governments of the South. Is this askin too much? If this is not accorded to us, if these men are to come back here, the loyal oath to be repealed as is recommended, and no conditions are to be exacted; if these men are to come hackvhere neirt year and take possession of the Government, so far from treason being punished and made odious it will only prove to havlLbeen a passport to favor and to power.L Sir, as it come to this? Can the unselfish heroism and bravery, the devotion and sacrifices of our soldiers and the loyal men and women of the nation so soon be forgotten? Are the men who conducted this notion safely: through the most terrible war recorded in history to admit, now that the rebellion is over, that they are incapable of administering the Government in time of peace? Are the men who fought the opponents of this Government on the battlefiel and at the ballotbox for the last 4 years, and everywhere vanquished them, now to stack their arms and surrender themselves without condition to their prisoners? That will be the state of affairs if the present reconstruction policy of the Adminis tration succeeds. If in our work of reconstruction we do not secure the rights of loyal men who were our friends and allies in the late rebel States, we shall come short of our duty and be guilty of a blunder which, in such an hour as this, is worse than a crime. Sir, I want the loyal men of the nation, who saved it in its hour of peril, not only to administer the national and State governments, South as well as North, but to say who shall vote for their law makers in those States consecrated by the blood of half a million men. Our friends are mistaken, honestl mistaken I grant you, but nevertheless mists en, when they say there are no loyal men in the South. Sir, I know the South better than that, and I stand here to say that I do not believe at the time the ordinances were passed in the 11 rebel States that more than 2 States SCarolina and Mississippi and possibly not more than one would have voted by ballot at any fairly conducted election for secession and rebellion. I grant that after the rebellion was inaugurated a majority were carried into it, and that a majority in all those States, unless it be in Tennessee and Arkansas, and perhaps even these are hostile at the present time to this Government. But there are large numbers of men in those States who are loyal to the GOvernment, and I desire to stren then their hands by giving the black man the allot. In that way only can we strengthen these men and preserve the local State governments. The unfortunate reconstruction “experiment” of the Administration has put the loyal men, black and white, under the foot of the traitorin nearly all the late rebel States, and they are power less and compelled to submit, because the government has bound them hand and foot and turned them over to the tender mercies of their enemies and ours. Sir, it is the cause of the loyal white and black men of the South which I plead; it is their cause which this Congress is fighting. What I demand, and what this congress demands, is that the loyal men of the South shall admi ster their loca and State governments of teSouth; that none shall hold the Offices, national and State, butloyal men. We have the right to demand this. Sir, if we would have loyal Representatives here, we must 1st secure a loyal constituency at.their backs. It is idle to to k of loyal representatives and disloyal constituents. It is not worth while to deceive ourselves on this point, or attempt to deceive others. The solution of this great question of restoration is the work of statesmen, not of demagogues. All over the land deinagogucs are clamorous, and denounce Congress because they do not at once declare the late rebel States restored to all their constitutional relations to the national Government and at once admit their disloyal Representatives, who have the iinblnshing hardihood to approach and demand admission to this temple. Everywhere demagogues and traitors unite in denouncing the Congress of the U.S. because they have given 6 months to the consideration of this new and difficult problem of reorganizing constitutional State governments in 11 rebel States. Why, sir, we have spent 6 months on the tax bill, a subject with which we are familiar, and which has been in the hands of one of the ablest and most experienced committees of this House, yet with all the aid of the Treasury Dept and the special commission authorized by the last congress we could not get through with the tax ill until last evening. This question of taxation is an old and familiar one, and if we commit a blunder time will develop itv and legislation can correct it. But this question of reconstruction is a new and perplexing iiestion; a question which ought to command the best ability of the nation, because we are to walk in new and unknown aths, paths which have never been illuminated by the foot print of the statesmen who have preceded us. If we cominit a blunder it may be fatal, at least for a generation. This Congress is honestly laborsing to secure an early restoration of these States, and while I do not believe the propositions reported by the committee are all the loyal men of the South had the right to expect and to demand at our hands, I shall vote for them if I can et nothing better. But it is said that there are no loyal men in the South; that all were swept into this rebellion, and we are coolly and refreshingly told that the oath must be modified in order that rebels may be appointed to office. Sir, this claim that there are no loyal men in the South is a fallacy. I have lived in the South for years, and I know that there is not a State in which loyal men cannot be found to fill all the offices of the State and national Government. If they have not, then I would import them. I would do as I advised Mr. Lincoln to do in 1861, when he had up the question of appointing a postmaster at Louisville. Ho happened one morning when I was in his room, when the case was u to do me the honor to ask me what I would do. There was a loyal man who had been always faithful to our ideas an appli cant for the place, and also a new convert. I said, “If I had the appointing power, and there were but one man in the State who had voted for me or voted to maintain our ideas, I would appoint him to the best office in the State in the gill; of the Executive, and if he could not write his name I would appoint and pay a clerk out of the secret service fund to sign his name for him.” You need not talk to me about there not bein loyal men enough in the South to discharge teduties of all the offices there. It is a fallacy. Many honest men of my own personal acquaintance went into the rebellion believing it to be right; and before the close of the warland since the close of the war, have come out of itjust as honest, and are satisfied that it was wrong. Sir, I do not believe, with all the political heresy which has been taught at the South for the past 30 years, with all the political in iquity which has been taught in the name of religion and in the name of Christ in the South by men professing to teach the Gospel; I do not believe that all this, with the war and all the terrible consequences which have followed in its train, has been enough to obliterate from the South an entire love for the old flag and the old Union. I know that there are men in the South every where capable of filling all the offices. My judgment has been strengthened on this point by many letters which I have received during the war and since the war. A private soldier in, the Union Arm wrote me a letter after Sherman had asse through Georgia, in which the following eautiful and touching incident was related. At one of our military posts where 1000s came to receive rations from the Government which they were madly fighting to destroy, there came one morning a tall, elderly lady of commanding appearance, and of evident culture and refinement, asking for bread. When it was handed to her by a brave boy in blue who stood proudly beneath the stars and stripes, she betrayed emotions which she could not suppress, and the tears stole down her cheeks as she said, “Little did 1 think 3 years ago, when decking my 3 sons for the war, that I would ever come to this; then I had husband, son! home, and all that heart could wish; now Iain homeless, childless, a widow, and a beggar, askin aims of the government which we have song tto destroy. But it is all right. It is the punishment meted out by Providence for our Sins, and I submit." Sir, there are 1000s of nst such mothers as this in eve State in the outh today, and there is not a loyal man or woman in this nation who would not do all in their power to alleviate their wants and bind up their bleed iu and broken hearts. There is another beautiful incident which I must not omit. Last summer, when the convention met in NCarolina, in response to the Presidents proclamation, to reorganize a constitutional State government, Mr. Reade, the president of that convention on taking the chair, uttered words which thrilled the contineat. I have no language to tell you, Mr. Speaker, how they touched m heart as I read them on the shores of the acitic. I know that every loyal man in this nation called down bengdictions on his head. These are his golden words: Fellow citizens, we are going home. Lot painful recollections upon eoaurlry lautneiosnequaricaktie onnaonudr poloetassteapnst toward the haonlddsm oaf nfsriioenn, dtshhaipt, wwehim chaystgarnadspatba the door: and sheltered by the old homestead which was built a on a rock and has weathered the storm. GnJflytoge or the long. bright future which awaita us. Sir, ever loyal Representative in this Hall stands rea y With open hand today to welcome all who thus speak from the heart; and, sir, whatever of local interest or of prejudice or of passion may have carried an erring brother into this rebellion if be but set his face toward the old homestead, uttering such brave words as these, I will run to meethim afar off, and for him the fatted calf shall be slain. But I do not propose to start outladen down with pardons and with the fatted calf smokin hot from the oven and hunt up and thrust bot pardons and feast upon unrepentant, malignant, and defiant rebel; Nor do I propose to stand before them, hat in hand, and ask them on what terms they propose to return to the old mansion. Sir, every rebel shall resume his citizenship upon the terms and conditions prescribed by the loyal men of this nation, or, so far as I am concerned, he shall remain an alien forever. Mr. Speaker, to me the only vital and living question growing out of this subject of reconstruction is whether the loyal men of the South, whether all citizens of the U.S. residing in the South, shall have the right of the ballot. And when I say all loyal citizens I mean all, black as well as white. I 1d that every man born in the U.S. is a citizen of the U.S., and that every citizen, native born or naturalized, has the right to a voice in the Government under which e lives. It is a natural right, a divine right if you will, a right of which taGovernment cannot justly deprive any citizen except as a punishment for crime. Sir, every American citizen of the age of 21 years, not convicted of an infamous offene, has the right to vote for or against those who are to make and administer the laws under which he lives. That is the high rerogative of every American citizen. Anything short of that is but a mockery. I want this Congress, before it shall adjourn, to insist that every man who has been loyal to the Government in the South, whatever his race or color, shall have the right to the ballot. We now have the golden opportunity. If you do not guaranty these precious rights of the citizen now you leave the great wor before us unfinished; and I warn you that agitation will follow our refusal to enact justice, and that there 5 all be no repose until every citizen of the Republic is enfranchised and stands equal before the law. Shall we falter, Mr. Speaker, in this sublime hour of victory which God has given us, or shall we finish the work which He ins committed to our hands by securing the complete enfranchisement of all citizens of the U.S.? The voice of every friend of this country in Europe, as it comes to us across the sea, cries out to us to enfranchise the men who in the late struggle were our friends and our allies. From Switzerland, the grand republic of the Old World, there come to as words of counsel and wisdom which we ought not to disregard. From every land beneath the sun, where liberty is loved and human hearts have been touched by our heroic struggle, there comes to us a plea that in reconstructin this Government we shall 1st of all see to it that Justice is the basis upon which we build. And better than all this, from the loyal men of the South, both white and black, there comes up to us the prayer that we will see to it that they have justice; that we Wlll not falsify the pled es which the nation has made. Sir, do gent emen expect that we can make the pledges we have made, and then turn these people over to the tender mercies of their enemies and ours without calling down upon us the execrations and denunciations of all right thinking men? If they do, they are mistaken. Shall we hear and answerthese words of counsel and wisdom and the prayer of our friends and allies, or shall we turn for counsel and advice to our late ene mics? We are as a nation either to go forward in the great work of regress or go backward; we cannot standiti l. AndI am desirous tokuow whether this Congress is going to attempt the work of staing the great antislavery revolution which as swe t over the country and obliterated all the pro s avery landmarks erected by parties and by men. Sir, I have faith to believe that neither President nor Cabinet nor Congress can long stay with their uny efforts the grand decree of the nation. Hpe who attempts it, be be President, Cabinet minister, or statesman, will fall before its advancing power, and his political grave will be marked by the skeletons of those who for the past quarter of a century, having betrayed liberty, were wrecked alon the political coast and today lie unburied an unhonored because there were none so base as to do them reverence. Sir, I know that our hour of triumph may be delayed but I have faith to believe that we annot be defeated. Let the ballot be placed the hands of every loyal man in the outh, and this nation is safe safe from rebellion, safe from repudiation, safe from a war of races, safe from the domination of traitors in its councils. Sir, without the ballot in the hands of every loyal man the nation is not safe. The ballot is the only suro weapon of protection and defense for the poor man, whether white or black. It is the sword and buckler and shield before which all opwssions, aristocracies, and secial privileges bow. Sir, Mr. Lincoln, in a etter written to Governor Hahn, of Louisiana, pleading for the right of the black man to vote, said most beautifully and, as I believe, prophet icall that “in some trying time the vote of the black man may serve to keep the jewel of lib crt in the family of freedom.” lybelieve this most fully; and believing it, I would be false to myself and false to my country if I did not demand it. If I were a black man, with the chains just stricken from my limbs, without a home to shelter me or mine, and you should offer me the ballot, or a cabin and 40 acres of cotton land, I would take the ballot, conscious that, with the ballot in my hand, rightly used, all else should be added unto me. Sir, I would like to know whether there is one professedly loyal man in this nation who won d rather confer the ballot upon a traitor to his country than upon a loyal black man who has fought to save the Republic. I should like to hear such a man spea out here or elsewhere. Sir, however muc brazen faced impudence there is in ever public assembly, there is no man in this case so bold or so bad as to make such a declaration.