Mr. BANKS. I must decline to yield for any observations. The object of the southern leaders is to make the rebellion honorable. That is their object. They have no other purpose but to class the rebellion among the honorable events of our history. It is for this reason they refuse the oath and denounce those who accept it. The oath repudiates the rebellion as a dishonor. It is the purpose of the Government to stamp the rebellion as an in effaceable disgrace upon those who led the country and its people to the brink of destruction. We therefore insist on the oath as a disclaimer, a badge of dishonor. We do not rely upon it for security. Whenever it becomes necessary for the insurgent States to accept the ecclesiastical authorities, an ecclesiastical convention will proclaim that what a man does in obedience to the command of his State is an involuntary act and is without sin. This is the established law of the church. Political conventions will declare that the allegiance of the citizen was to the State and not to the General Government, and that service which the State demanded he was compelled to render. The test oath is therefore no bar to political positions and no guarantee of safety as against public enemies. Let me ask attention of the House for a single moment to a historical precedent. M. O'Connell, after a life of great experience ar: great trials, said, in a debate in Parliament, that that which shocked him most in poli: life was the fact that committees appointed by the House of Commons and sworn to do ther duty were never regarded as men bound by an oath, but only as so many Tories and so many Whigs. In 1772 the Jacobites were severely pers cuted by the administration of that day. Nearly the whole nation were summoned to swear allegiance to the Government. Lord Mahon says it carried more disaffection to the kit; and his family than anything that happened during that reign. But men took the oath without any regard to the facts of the case, saying they had rather venture themselves in the hands of God than of such men as they had to do with. They all adhered to their principles, and the oath, however it might tor. ture their consciences, did not control their conduct. The Jacobites applauded their leader, Mr. Shippen, because he had the courage to swear against his conscience on purpose to serve the good cause; and this was only to escape a tax. such is the inevitable result of any oath imposed by any Government for its security. Swearing allegiance to King George did not shut the Jacobites out of Parliament; swearing allegiance to Louis Philippe did not shut out the Carlists from the French Cham bers. The test oath will not exclude the rebels from the Halls of Congress. The Jacobites took the oath to escape a tax only; how can we expect more virtue in the rebels when it is the only bar to their restoration to power? “Although we might reasonably infer from. theory, ” says Lord Mahon, “that men honora.ble and high minded in private life would be scrupulously bound by the solemn and public obligation of an oath, experience will teach the reverse.” Gentlemen upon the other side have asked why not admit the Representatives from these States if they be loyal men? My answer to that question is this: the Representative is nothing; it is the people who speak here through us. If we disregard their wishes or interests they change their Representatives, as they ought to do. Now, a man from one of these southern States, though his personal career and character may have been spotless, must, if he represents his constituents, do what they desire, and I would just as leave that a rebel general or an exmember of the rebel Congress, or even the of the late rebel confederacy, should e here in person, as any man less conspicuous, who represents the same principles. There is no course for us but to take the plain practical, simple method of reconstruction, which does not depend upon the leading men of the South or upon any arrangement of a temporary character. It is to reconstruct he political society of the insurgent States in such manner as to exclude every element of hostility to the existence of the Government. And such a measure is presented in the constitutional amendment adopted by this Congress at its last session. And in my opinion whenever 3/4ths of the States represented in this Congress shall have ratified it by their Legislatures, it will have become a part of the Constitution of the U.S. At the conclusion of his remarks, Mr. BANKS gave notice of a substitute that, at the proper time, he would submit for the bill under consideration. On motion of Mr. BINGHAM, the proposed substitute was ordered to be printed.