Mr. NYE. Thank you for that. Sir, there is something the matter, or my friends from Pennsylvania and from Wisconsin Would not be so nervous. There is some parting of old ties; there is something in the breeze that they snuff; there is something in the signs of the times that agitates them, for my oracufar friendfrom Pennsylvania is never moved by usual breezes. As his colleague said, he was elevated above the breezes of the earth and shook the flag of some Dept here so high that the winds did not affect it. [Laughter] Then, sir, it becomes as toinqnire what is the matter. I have heard it rumored that the President was not actiu in consonance with Congress. I presume at same rumor has reached the ears of his 2 distinguished champions here, or they would not be so ready in his defense. If that be true, what is the reason? What has congress donef, Over and over again I have hear it reiterated and my distinguished colleague chimed iu beautifully the other day with that that Congress had done nothing. Then the sin of Congress is the sin of omission, not of commission. Now, I wish to ask my distinguished friendfrom Wisconsin a question. Did he expect, when this country was turned upside down, when it was upheave in every part, that it would be quieted and settled by the word either of Congress or the President? When it has been tossed on the stormy billows of a tempestuous sea for 4 years and when the storm that woke those billows had been gathering for 30 years or more, did my distinguished friend, who boasts so much of his faith, ever believe he could step forth upon those troubled waters and with a word speak once and quiet to an upheared continent? lflhis faith leads him up to that point, mine never has so led me. I have expected that long mouths and perhaps long years would be necessary to heal and cicatrize the wounds that this wicked rebellion imposed upon us; and whoever has dreamed at “my policy” or yours was to calm the troubled waters in a day has dreamed of a thing as impossible as for the Senfrom Wisconsin to speak aworlcl into existence. Peace, said the distinguished Senator, is what the country wants and demands. Sir peace, with all her beauties, was what we had when this wicked storm was evoked by spirits as devilish as they who heated the furnace 7 timias hot through which Meshach, Sha drach, and Abed nego passed. Theylighted the lurid torch of war.Were the Republicans to blame for that? My distinguished friend says, and no doubt truly, that he had the honor of making the 1st 5 eech for the congressional amendment, thong I have searched the Globe carefully and cannot find it; the INDEX does not give it; but I ask him, had he any part in evoking this war? No. Had the Republican or Union party any part in it? No. They walked steadily forward in the athway of constitutional right and elected a President in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. I had labored with my friendfrom 1848 to produce that result, and olten have I heard his eloquent notes and when I say they were out in their full force anybod who was not within hearing it was not worthwhile to summon, for he was not within the jurisdiction of the court [laughter] loud, sonorons, long, 2showing the wicked iniquity of the slave holders, predicting with prophetic certainty precisely what. would occur, that in the end if they would not listen to the charmer it would result in bloody war. Sir, that war has come, by no aid, by no part taken by the Union party of this count. Who did do it? The rebels. My friend undertakes to show from the Baltimore platform that when they had complied with a certain condition which he read, the war should be over. Sir, a platform is a kind of constitution for a party; it never goes into special enactments. I do not suppose that the Baltimore platform any more than the Chicago platform 1f it is proper to use that expression now attempted to settle the details and point out the manner in which this controversy should be settled and right here, sir, let me say, that my friend, in order to a successful defense of the present Executive, deems it important over and over again in this body to show that he is treading in the footsteps of his illustrious pred ecessor. Once for all I wish to say that Mr. Lincoln had no policy upon the reconstruction of these States based upon the condition of things when we mourne his untimely taking off. He had tried the Louisiana policy of one 10th of loyal men, and the result emonstrated that the policy of allowing one out of ten to govern a State was a fallacy. He was honest at the time in attempting to gather in from this wild waste of States some one that was loyal and would come back. The effort was laudableand commendable, but it failed. Beyond that, Iassert, from the nature of things, that Mr. Lincoln had no policy. The shouts of rejoicing had not yet died away; this nation was literally intoxicated with joy over the surrender of the wicked foe; and while we were in the midst of this rejoicing, even his self poised mind was incapable of framing and had not time to frame a policy upon the condition of things at the period of that surrender. Sir, ifI had any fault to find with the President, whom the Senator has so ably defended, it would be this: that having started out to establish what he called in his message an experiment. it has now become a settled pol icy, and whoever differs from that policy is alien from him and from the Union part. I have never come to the conclusion that a l of the head or heart of the Union party was in one man. I have never had an as iration to imagine how I would feel if I were resident; but it secmsto me thatif I were. I should come here to this Chamber and to the other end of the Capitol, or send for them to come to me, the selected representatives of a rent party, and see what it was best to do under the (ir cumstances. I can pick 20 men in this circle who are not inferior in intelligence or less earnest or honest in their convictions than the POTUS I can point out 20 men in this circle who have kept their fingers upon evefl position of the Union party from the time it was born uritil it was victorious men that have watched it and its interests while the present Chief Magistrate of this nation was denouncin its organization. I make no war with him on at subject. Ithank God that if he is born again, it was not to o pose but to share in its glories; but above a1men on this earth, he should be the last to tarnish its luster or weaken its power. I do not say that he is going to do it, at there are a few suspicions circumstances. My friendfrom Delaware, [ML SnnLsnnaY] and I know he will pardon me for to him but alluding a few months ago was hurlin al manner of anathemas at Mr. Lincoln, an in doing so he honestly conceived that he was right. What has at a new song in his mouth when your President and mine is pnrsuin exactly Lincolns policy? The moment that make rebels feel good with any political action of mine and I have no reference to my friendfrom Delaware I shall think that I have done something wrong. Sir, the day has not arrived when the chief executive officer of this nation constitutes the nation. I read in my younger days, with some satisfaction, that that the Congress of the U.S. was the breathing, vital, living power of this nation, that spoke laws into existence and blotted them out; that it was a selection as well chosen in other States as in Wisconsin, Where their ablest men were selected to cotne here for what? to do as the President tells you, so help you God? No, sir; I never took.any such oath, and do not intend to do so; but to come here and frame such lawmas the interests of the hour demand. Now, suppose this question before it had been agitated here at all had been put to the plain, simple people who sent us here, and the question had been asked of them, where is the war that is to rebuild these waste places and colthese brooches that have been made? In their simplicity they would have answered, “The power lies in the lawmaking authority, in the Congress of the U.S. ” They have no more respect for a Presidents policy than they have for the Senfrom Wise on siffs policyboth ardent, both devoted, both [faith 1. The Senator has declared his policy. His people reject it. All I ever want, in order to find out what the judgment of the people is upon any question, is to get a dozen men together in a neighborhood and talk to them, and they will tell you what the judgment of the whole community is. There were more than 100 men conegated in the Legislature of Wisconsin, and their deliberate judgment is, by a resolution that they passed, that the Son ator does not represent the wishes of the people of that State. If that be true of the Senfrom Wisconsin, it is certainly true asit regards the policy of the POTUS, for their policy is identical. Be it true or false, I think there is appropriety in consulting this body in regard to this great question. Sir, there is scarcely a man within this circle but wears the outward badge of mourning for victims immolated upon the altar of this no enrsed rebellion; and the signs of outward woe are but a faint representation of the more indescribable and heartfelt sorrow within. It seems to me that the signs of the times and the exigencies demand that no man should rear a policy not subject to amendment, not subject to consultation with others, and make it like the bed of Procrastes, of a certain length and certain width, upon which all must lie, or fall under the ban of executive power. I do not know how others may feel, but I should not dare to go back to my mountain people and tell them had been mute here when I saw such an attempt made. Sir, neither the Senfrom Wisconsin, nor the Senfrom Pennsylvania, nor any man with brains, has a right to complain of the tar diness of Congress. Rebellion in its worst and most aggravated form has shaken the verypillars of our institutions to their base. I to the Senfrom Wisconsin now, and he will find it to be the truth, thatQhe frosts of ten more winters will gather upon his brow ercthis chasm is healed and perfected and closed. “Take back the States." Certainly we will. When? Just as soon as it is safe to take them back. Does the Senfrom Wisconsin, the advo cate of the policy of the lamented Lincoln, mean to tell u that his polic was to take back unwashed, red handed rebels into the power of this GOvernment? Ho shakes his he. He dare not say it.