Mr. WADE. Mr. President, if this was a question in the ordinary course of legislation, certainly would not object to the proposition which the gentlemen on the other side make; but I view it as onc of the greatest and most fundamental questions that has ever come before this body or settlement, and I look upon it as having bearings altogether beyond t etion on this blll. The bill is undoubted qulyesa very good one. There is no constitutional objection to it; there has been no objection to it raised that creates a doubt in the mind of any mortal man; but nevertheless we are at issue with the POTUS upon a qnestion peculiarly our own. The POTUS has no more power under the Constitution to interpose his authority here to prescribe the principle upon which these States should be admitted to this Union than any man of this body has out of it. The constitution makes him the circcutive of the laws that we make and there it leaves him; and what is our condition? We who are to judge of the forms of government under which States shall exist, we who are the only power that is charged with this great question, are to be some how or other wheedled out of it by the president by reason of the authority that he sets up. Sir, we cannot abandon it unless we yield to a principle that will unhinge and unsettle the balances of the Constitution itself. If the POTUS can interpose his authority upon a question of this character, and can compel Congress to succumb to his dictation, he 18an emperor, a despot, and not a POTUS Because I believe the great question of congressional power and authority is at stake here, I yield to no itnportunities of the other side. I feel myself justified in taking every advantage which the Almighty ha. but into my hands to defend the power and authority of this body, of which I claim to be a part; I will not yield to these appeals of comity oria question like this; but I will tell the President and everybody else, that if God Almighty has stricken one member so that he cannot be here to uphold the dictation of a despot, I thank Him for His interposition, and I will take advantage of it if! can. [Manifestations of applause in the galleries]