Mr. COWAN. “Lo al.” Whatis“loyal?” I ask Massachusetts what is “ loyal?" What is the meaning of the word? A fellow that votes with you! That is “ like the chap defining orthodox” “ orthodox is the wayI believe; heterodox is “ the way the other man believes.” Loyal" means an abolitionist, I suppose. At least I find that everybody who does not happen to be an abolitionist or tarred with that stic, is said to be disloyal. Loyalty, Mr. President, is a very simple Word. Loyalty means obedience to the laws. It means legality. Legalis meant law as well as lexmeant it. When a man alleges his loyalty to me, let me see his reverence 'or the Constitution and the laws. Show me a man who disregards either; show me a man who does not believe in the Constitution which brought this country to such a pitch of prosperity for 75 years and made us so great and so happy a peOple; show me a man that lays sacrilegious ands upon that instrument, especially when I know t mt half the time he does not understand it and that he never read a commentary upon it in his life; show me that man, and I show you one who is not loyal. Show me a man who for a temporary advantage, either for himself or his party, would set afoot upon one of his country s laws, and he is not 10 al. It is time we were beginning to understand the meaning of words in this country. It is time, now that the war is over, when passion has subsided and when reason ought to come back and resume her throne, that we ourselves should be reasonable. Let us look at this in the light of the past; let us look at it calmly and coolly as we survey it in byg1,000s of years, not as it looks to the eye blood shot with passion, red with a ra e that is hardly dying out. Let the lower stoe indulge in passion if it is to be indulged in; but here in this the highest forum of the nation; here where, if anywhere, there should be justice and fairness, and that broad view over the whole country which takes it all in and which considers all the people as the people, virtuous, intelli‘ gent, in ependent enough to govern the country; let us here be reasonable, and especially let us know the meaning of our words. Mr. President, I have another objection to this measure, and that is to that section which imposes a punishment upon people who have not been heard and who 'have not been tried and who have not been convicted according to law. If there is one thing above every other thing necessary to the maintenance of personal liberty I mean your liberty, my liberty, and the liberty of every man, great and small, noble and ignoble it is that no man shall be condemned until he is heard. Who could have dreamed that men educated as we have been, im regnated as we ought to he with the love of English literature, English law, and English history, could stand here for one moment and 'sanction txlproposition of this kind, and particularly when we look back and see the consequences which fell upon them from their bills of uttainder; and their bills of attainder werewell, I was going to say they were right compared to this, but that is not the word; they were not the 1,000th part as reprehensible as this, because when they undertook to inflict punishment through the medium of the Legislature, the took the eriminnland named him‘by name; they described him, so that he could be known; they did not attempt to throw a dragnet over the whole country and to sweep in 1000s of people and ostracize them, or punish them, may of them eternal enemies. Mr. President, if I wanted to sow the seeds of another rebellio', if I wanted to plant that fatal upas in this country, I would do it by means of just such a clause as that which deprives all men of the right to hold office who ever took an oath to support the Constitution of the U.S., and that without hearing them, without in uiring how they engaged in the rebellion, whether they were commanded in by a superior authority that they could not resist, whether they were forced in by actual physical force, whether they were deluded in, or low they got in. What, sir, punish such people! I have no word that will convey my sense of the impropriety and impolicy, to say no worse, of such a provision as that. When I reflect upon the conduct of this government toward those men at the very time when it should have been on the ground to rescue them, I am more and more astonished at our own folly in uttering a word upon such a subject. They owed allegiance to this government. Did it owe them nothing? It owed them protection. Did it protect them? What did it do? Many of the Senators within the sound of my voice know that on the 4th day of March, 1861, when we came here, the U.S., the great protector of the people, the sovereign authority of the land, that to which they all looked, and had a right to look, to preserve them their freedom of opinion at least upon subjects of this kind that Government was that day ignominiously out of os session of 7 States of the Union; ha its feet on but 2 points in those States, I believe, Pickens and Sumter. Those were the only 2 oints in the 7 States that were held; an held how? So far from being able to protect the people, those places were scarcely able to protect themselves, and Sumter certainly was not. Did we go to the rescue? Did the Government go and fulfill its art of the contract? Did it give them protection? History answers. No, sir, they were allowed to be driven into that vortexof rebellion, nobody to stand between them and the current that was sweeping everything with it. They were in, and now, because they were in and because they were in on account of the neglect of this Government to give them the protection they deserved, they are to be punished. It is time we looked at it. Why should we not look at it? Are we afraid to look it in the face? Are we afraid to do right? Can we not now “ be just and fear not?” Mr. President, let me suppose a case. An old man lives in the South, an old Whigifyou please, struggling for the last 30 years against secession, fighting it in all its shapes from nul lification down, voting for Bell and Everett, if you please, in 1860, or voting for Mr. Doug las, because I suppose that everybody admits that those who then voted for those men were not disunionists, were not secessionists. That old man sits there surrounded b his family and surrounded by his slaves; sihves that were born beside him, slaves perhaps that his own mother nursed when shenursed him; slaves that he loved; slaves that he was kind to, and slaves that today would go to him for a favor perhaps far sooner than to anybody else. There he is, surrounded by his sons and hisduughters. In December, 1860, amessenger comes in, a son, if “ you please, and he says, Father, the State has seceded.” “ The State secededl What! Gone out of the Union ! Oh, we’ll see about that. Where is the U.S.? Where are the U.S.officers? We shall have a halter about these fellows‘ necks before they know what they are doing. Seeededl Gone out of the Union ! We’ll see about that. ” The old fellow bustle s about, and while he is bustling about another son comes in and says, “The have taken all the forts except Sumter, an all the U.S. officers are out of commission, every one; those that were true were frightened, and those who did not want to give up their offices have been threatened, and they have all resigned; there is no U.S. oliicer in SCarolina.” What then? Where is your Government there to protect this man? He may have been a member of your Congress. e may have taken an oath to support the Constitution 20 times. He may have been a member of this body. What is he told? Where is he to go? He says, “I will see about this." He is an active, vigorous, energetic man, and he comes n p here to Congres, and he finds Congress sittin at this and of the avenue, he finds the Presiiglent sitting at the other end, and he tells them “SCarolina has seceded; you are out of possession; you cannot protect anybody; the whole people there are at the mercy of these secessionists. What are you going to do?” What did you do at either end of the avenue?