Mr. ASHLEY, of Ohio. Not now. When Richmond fell, when Lee surrendered, when the last rebel army surrendered, and the bells all over the North were ringing out their peals of joy, who were the men that stood u 1st in this Union and asked for mercy to a fa len foe? The men who had a right to speak, Garrison, Phillips, Beecher, Gree ey, Bryant, and Gcrrit Smith the men of heart, of intellect, and of soul. While they demanded justice for black men and the loyal men of the South, they plead also for mercy to a fallen foe. When I came here last sprin to see the President he was talking about maing treason odious, and declaring that traitors should take aback seat. I was more anxious to secure justice to our friends and allies than to execute vengeance on our enemies. All we asked then and all we ask now is justice justice to our friends and mercy to a alien foe. All we ask now for white men and black men in the South and in the North is justice; and I tell you, that by the blessing of God, we intend to have it. Be not deceived. You cannot always postpone the demands of justice. As a nation we have learned by sad experience that we cannot trample upon it with impunity. Neither laws nor customs nor despotism can silence its claim, because it is a principle implanted by the Creator in eVery human heart, and can never be wholly eradicated by the selfishness or tyranny of man. He who understands the simple teachings of the golden rule comprehends the application of justice alike by Governments on men. It needs no learning or superior wisdom to interpret it. The ignorant black, so recently a slave, and the most scholarly white alike understand it. Justice demands liberty and equality before the law for all. It speaks in the heart of every man, wherever born, with an inspiration like unto that which s oke on the day of Pentecost with tongues 0 fire. Woe to the statesman or party or nation which tramples on this principle! Its complete recognition by our Government will brin us national grandeur and national glory, an secure unity, peace, prosperity, power. Its rejection will tarnish the fair fame of our country, and bring discord, dissension, adversity, war. Let the corner stone of each reconstructed State bejustice and the cap stone willbe liberty. With liberty and justice as the fundamental law of our national and State governments there can be no war of races, no secession, no rebellion. It is injustice and oppression which bring dissension and war. T to opposite will bring harmony and peace. He who votes in justice today will be held accountable by the people now, and in the great tribunal of human history will be justly chargeable with all the oppression, wrongs, and wars which must follow the enactment of injustice into law. The law maker who demands nothing for himself which he will not concede to the umblest citizen is the only. true statesman. Make the community of interests one by tarantyin the equal rights of all men before the law, an the fidelit of every inhabitant of such a commonwealt becomes a necessity not. only from interest but from a love of justice. Sir, this Congress is writing a new chapter in American history. Let. every man whose great privileve it is to record his name where it will stand forever, so record it as to secure the triumph of justicc, and his name and memory shall lave a life coequal with the Republic. Sir, he who has comprehended the logic of the terrible conflict through which we have passed and studied with profit the lessons which it has taught, will have learned the point at which in our great march as a nation we have reached, and know something of the course which in the future it will travel. Animated for many years by conflicting, sectional, hostile forces, I have lived to see since my entrance into Congress these antagonistic views so modified and melted into one that to day the condition is accc ted by all patriotic, right thinking men, and the historian without confusion can make up the record. If this war has taught us anyone lesson more clearly than another, it is that we are inseparably one people, that this continent can never am he come the abode of human slavery, an that in all our future deliberations in these Halls old antagonisms will cease to divide us, and our hopes and aspirations become one, because our interests are one. Let this measure, or these which the Senate may perfect, pass and go into the Constitution of the country; let the propositions before us become the law of the land, and you will have done something toward securin the triumph of justice. Pass these acts, an justice as a flaming sword will stand at the doors of the nations council balls to guard its sanctuary from the presence of traitors. Pass them, and he who approaches this temple of liberty shall pause at the threshold before entering and swear eternal fidelity to the Republic. Let these propositions pass and the proposed amendment of the Constitution become part of our fundamental law, and a generation shall not pass away before witnessing the complete enfranchisement of every freeman and the entire abolition of all class legislation. In this faith and with this hope, believing that Providence in the future as in the past will overrule all for our good and supply where we have failed, I am prepared to give my voice and my vote for whatever measure a majority of the loyal members of the American Congress may adopt for the restoration of the States lately in rebellion.