Mr. BROOMALL. I will answer that question bv putting another. If all the members 0t this House except the Gentfrom Indiana [ML NIBLACK] should choose to getiuto a riot, would that carry the Gentfrom Indiana into the riot unless he chose to go into it? AndrewJohnson did not choose to be carried into this mischief. I do not wish to be mderstood as advocating any extended exercise of unlimited power over the conquered South. The position I take is, that the Government has the right to pursue any policy it may deem best, unembarrassed by rights of defeated rebels; in other words, that those conquered people have no rights except such as are derived from the action or permission of the General Government since the sunrender. Let us see whether any party in the country is seriously questioning this position. The Democrats, who denied the rightto co erce States, who voted against supplies of men and money to the Army, against loan bills, who maintained the divine right to hold slaves, who magnified rebel victories and refused credit to our own, and whose constant cry, ” You cannot conquer the South l" resounded throughout the lant and blended its last echoes with the news of Lees surrender; the Democrats, I say, have accepted the new condition of things with most commendable amiabilit, and have so far amended their political cree as to indorse the policy of the President. m The semiDemocrats, looking over each should der with the timidity and almost the grace of a startled fawn, lest they should be takiu g too hold a step, still indorse the policy of the President. Indeed, they claim to be the especial champions of that licy; and sojealous are they in this regard that they almost deny the right of anybody else to occupy the same position. Finally, the Republicans, of course, indorse the policy of the President. Selecting him as they did from the hottest of the contest, tried and found true when all around him were false, they could not mistake his sentiments then, nor could either in so short. a time change so as to become an tagonistic to the other. lndorsed as it is by all the political parties of the country, what is the policy of the President? Let us deduce it from his acts, the only legitimate mode. He has taken military possession of the South as a conqueror. He has treated all the old State governments as having fallen with Lees surrender, or crushed them since, and has founded new ones upon their ruins. In doing this, he has begun with the original elements, the unorganized people, totally ignoring the fact that they had ever been bodies politic, utterly overthrowing even that part of the old governments that provided for the creation of new ones. Can anything be more radical than this? What wonder that my colleague, the distinguished chairman of the ComAppropriat, [Mr. Srsms] should claim to be a disciple of the President? More than this, in forming these new States directly from the people, he has prescribed who shall vote, and how and when they shall vote. Having thus obtained State conventions representing the will of the people, he has prescribed for them the constitutions they shall frame. The ordinances of secession of the old extinct State governments must he declared void, not repealed. The rebel debt must be repudiated. The constitutional amendment must be ratified. When all this is done he has reviewed the work of these conventions and told them when to adjourn. A.” Hi, Now, if there is any party in the country demanding measures more radical than these than the creating of new States by proclamation after destroying the old ones by warit would be refreshing to see its creed. If it were not for an abiding faith in the sleepless vigilance of the Democracy, who have stood guard for 4 years over the constitution, sounding the alarm upon the smallest pretext of an occasion, seeing the Trojan horse in every mule that pointed its ears toward that sacred instrument; if it were not for this faith, one might be permitted toquestion whether there is in the organic law of the land any provision ernpowering the Commander inChief of the armies to create civil governments in conquered territory without act of Congress. But all parties approve of this. The Dene crats, the great champions of the constitutional fl“ 1866.” 46g rights of rebels, pronounce constitutions so formed pure emanations from the will of the people and lineal descendants of the old States. The Republicans say that this 1st step toward reconstruction is all the most earnest can ask for, if only followed up with the necessary caution and by the necessary legislation; and the Gentfrom NewYork, [Mr. Raymosn] from his middle standpoint, responds “amen” to both propositions. It being conceded, then, that the rebels have no rights to conflict with what has been done, and that being all and even more than all that any party proposes. I care nothing about the pecu iar theory 11 on which each part bases our right to do this. My colleague [Mr. STEVENS] may say that the rebel States are out of the Union, and may call the people of the South conquered alien enemies. he Gentfrom NewYork [Mr. RAYMOND] may reply that if this were so, by conquering them we have succeeded to their rights and liabilities, and have already assumed the rebel debtthatif awrong doer takes forcible possession of half my dwelling house and for 4 years resists all my ef forts to dislodge him. when I succeed I become his legal representative, and whether I succeed to assets or not, I not only become responsible for his bakers bill, his grocers, and his butch ers, butl must pay the very lawyer he employed to defraud me of my rights. M colleague may call the old organizations dea States if he is only willing to put living ones in their places and the Gentfrom NewYork may urge that the rebels are merely suspended, if he is only willing to let them hang an make our future arrangements with the loyal, men of the South. The problem, therefore, being the conferrin of new rights, and not the ascertaining of old ones, nothing but the supreme legislative power of the Government is competent to the task. The Presidentas CommanderinChicf may take military possession of the conquered country. He may erect for temporary purposes a species of semicivil, semimilitary government, and he may appoint or let the people elect provisional governors, but he cannot make a State of the uion. such a power would be monstrous. The framers of the constitution never intended to give a President, reeligible and a possible candidate for reelection, the right by proclamation to create additional electoral votes. I am satisfied that the President assumes no such power. It is only fair to infer that what has seemed an exercise of despotic power, what has seemed executive legislation, is onlyatem porary expedient forced upon the President by the necessity of the occasion. It is fair to as sume that he has only invited these southern communities to frame State governments and submit them to Congress for approval, just as California did. Whether he has made his over tures to the wrong parties is a question that must await the result ofhis experiment, ifindeed that exeriment has not already been fully tried. pon the political rights of the defeated. rebels I have shown that all parties are agreed, since all parties are consenting to the utter ig noring of all their possible rights. But by whom the necessary new political rights are to be conferred upon them seems to e an openquestion. the Republicans maintain that the unctions of the war power extend no further than taking military possession. of the conquered countrythat creating States therein, ei therde new or out of old ones, is legislation, and that no Dept of government but Congress can pass acts of Congress. They therefore hold that as yet nothing has been done in the business of reconstruction except takingand holding the country subjugated in military possession. From alllthis, 2 very small, but very select parties, the Democrats and the Conservatives, entirely dissent. The former, represented by the Gentfrom NewJersey, [Mr. Rooisasj hol that these southern communities are entitled now, without further action, to representation here. The latter, represented by the Gentfrom NewYork, [Mr. RAYMOND] I maintain that. with certain guarantees, to be fixed upon by the President alone, the will be so entitle. I will leave these gent emen and their respective parties to settle this slight discrepancy between them in their own way, satisfied that the country has little interest in it. But I will venture to suggest that the organizations existing in the South are not those which existed there 6 years ago, nor those that formed the rebel confederacv, nor those that surrendered to our arms, nor telegitimate successors of them or any of them, but new creations antagonistic to them, set up over their ruins by the Commanderin Chiefof the armies. I will venture further to suggest that the pol icy they unite in sustaining would have been called, in the better days of the Republic, the arbitrar exercise of despotic power, and pronounce worthy of the 1st Napoleon. While these parties are settling between themselves which of their theories accords best with submission to the unlimited power of a single man, I will direct the attention of the majority of this House and of the country to the question, what shall we do with these conquered people? Now, I do not. object to the organizations we find among them performing the functions, to some extent, of State governments. that they emanated from the Executive, nor that their origin was military, nor that they were forced upon the people by the power of the conqueror, thoug all this is true. If they are republican in form, if they are satisfactory to the peole, and, above all. if we can safely in trust to t iem the rights of the loyal men of the South, of whatever caste or lineage, we ought to legalize now what we might have authorized. But before this is done, let us be very sure that these organizations contain the requisites, and aboveal the last one. We would deserve the execration of the civilized world ifwe should now hasely desert our allies in the South, and sacrifice them as a peace offering to our old enemies. I am not demanding sanguiunry punishments; I am willing even to dispense with my colleagues wholesale confiscations; biitthe system of reconstruction that does not eifectu ally guaranty the rights of the Union men of the South cannot command my support. It has been said in certain quarters that we have already acknowledged these pretended State governments by permitting them to take part in ratifying the late constitutional amendm ent, and taking advantage of their act to comlete the ratification. But who has done this? ot Congress, nor the courts, nor any Dept of Government that had rights or duties in the premises. It would be curious if we must consult those who have repudiated the constitution whether we shall amend it or not. What have they to do with altering a compact who deny being parties to it? According to this notion, if these 11 States had held out forever, the remaining 25, not being 3/4ths of the 36, never could alter the constitution. Besides, if the votes of those States were needed to ratify the amendment, then there was no amendment to ratify. If these States must be counted in the ratification they were entitled to a voice in the adoption, an if so, the amendment did not pass by the constitutional majority in either branch of congress. If 2/3rds of the Sens&Reps from the loyal States alone could lawfully adoptthe amendment, 3/4ths of the Legislatures of the loyal States alone could lawfully ratif it. Slavery is indeed abolished among the conquered rebels, but not by virtue of acts of ratification passed by their pretended Levislatures under duress, and by dictation from Vashing ton. No, slavery there fell when the last rebel belligerent surrendered. This position is of no practical importance now since in any view of the case the institution is abolished. But it may serve to explain my view of the status of the conquered rebels to consider the effect of conquest on the relation of master and slave. Slavery in America was not. founded upon positive enactment. Laws regulated that relation, but did not create it. No master could appeal to the statute by virtue of which he owned his slave. In tracing his title the Owner could only show that he lawfully succeeded to the rights of the former owner of the mother of his chattel, and so backward step by step until the 1st owner was found in Africa as the captor, in war of some kind, of the 1st slave ancestress. In short, slaves are prisoners of war and their descendants, the children following the condition of the mother. formerly, according to the customs of the most civilized nations, prisoners of war were at the merev of the captor, who might kill them, enslave them, or sell them; and even now there is nothing to prevent this except the changed customs of nations. Barbarians were no better than Christians in this regard, and the rinces of Dahomey made war and on tnred an enslaved prisoners. Now, suppose while yet the slave trade was a divine institution, a prince of that country, with his hundred slaves, had been captured by a neigh boring belligerent, sold to some enlightened Englishman, and transported to the markets of the New World. What would become of the relation of master and slave between the prince and his subjects? Would it have been respected in a Washington slave market? Could it have been set up with effectin any court in Christen dom? Certainly not; and why 1 BQause conquest reduces the subjects of it to one uniform level. No one can claim rights over another, because none can claim rights except under the law of nations, and the law of nations knows no distinction between the lord and the serf when both are prisoners of war. When the people of the South submitted their cause of quarrel to the arbitrament ofarms, they staked the existence of the institutionof slavery upon the result. They must succeed or it must perish. If they had forced terms from the Government their system might have been saved; but a surrender without conditions is a surrender of their entire organized population as prisoners of war, and prisoners of war can hold no prisoners. All this is in accordance with common reason. The title of these people to their slaves was no better than that ol the 1st captor to the 1st slave ancestress. In fact it was the same title. Now, if that captor and that ancestiess had been themselves captured, does anyone pretendthat the relation of master and slave won (I have continued between them? It follows that no amendment to the Constitution. no proclamation of emancipation was needed to abolish slavery among those who waged war against the Government and were conquered. The resultplaced master and slave on tesame level, from which neither can rise without the consent of the conqueror. I return to the question shall Congress legalize these preterited State governments? and to the question on which its decision, in my judgment, mainly depends, can we safely in trust to these governments the rights and interests of the Union men of the South 1 The ropposition itself is rather a starth ng one. “hcse governments are almost wholly in the hands of men who were actively engaged in the rebellion, traitors. pardoned traitors certainly, but not the less traitors. Executive clemency may remit the punishment, but it cannot uncommit the crime. Was Arnold invited to take part in the Government of the country? Was Burr, after his treason 3 Yet these experiments would have been trifling compared with what we are asked to try.