Mr. WILSON. Mr. President, the Senator says that the constitution of the U.S. protects these peolo. I agree that it does so for as the constitution can do it; and the amendment to the constitution empowers us to pass the necessa legislation to make them free in deed; and the Senfrom Illinois has a bill that is to follow this, and is to be passed, I think, annulling these black codes and putting these people under the protection of just an equal laws. The Legislature of Louisiana has passed an act by which the Senator, if he reads it, will see that any freedman who makes a contract under it is perfectly at the control and will of the man with whom he makes the contract. If that man is a bad man, at the end of the year the freedman will not receive a farthing for his years labor. He can trump up charges to cheat and defraud the laborer. So odious are these laws that the Freedmens Bureau has set them aside wherever it has had the power to do so and the other day GenlGrant issued an order setting aside these very laws, and the Army of the U.S. is ordered by him to arrest the execution of the laws of 4 or 5 of those States, because they in reality reduce the freedman to the condition of a serf, or at any rate of a peon. The Lieutenant General of our Army has ordered the Army in those States to arrest the execution of these laws, so odious and so oppressive are they, and the nation applauds the order. Now, sir, we propose not on y to empower this bureau to protect the freedmen against these laws and all other laws of the same character, but to pass an act that shall set them aside and give the freedman a practical remedy by tnkin his case at once before the authorities of the U.S. TheSenfrom Kentucky, [Mr. GUHRIL] on Saturda, opposed the passage of this bil}, but he run e 2 declarations for which I sin cerely thank him. I hope the people of the rebel States will understand that e distinguished Senfrom Kentuckyhas proclaimed on the floor of the Senate of the U.S. that the slave codes of those States fcll when slavery fell. If theselaws went down with slavery, what right have the people there to make laws tending to the same end? L thank the senator for that declaration. The honorable Senatoruttered this greattruth: “You cannot degrade any portion of your population and put a mark astnin, upon them without leaving cause of heart urning and ditheulty that will endangerthe public security hereafter.” Sir, that is a noble sentiment. It is a sentiment that lives in the heart, the brain, and the conscience of the loyal people oflAmerica. They see, feel realize that you cannot degrade any portion of your population without leaving heartburnings and difficulties that will endanger the ace of the future. It is because we who fill t iese seats, and those who sent us here. believe, religiousl believe, this declaration of the Senfrom Kentucky that we oppose filling up the vacant seats in this Chamber again without security against such deradaiion. It is because we believe in the trut of that declaration that we demand that by irreversible guarantees no portion of the population of the country shall be degraded or have a stain put upon them. I want the Senfrom Kentucky, and all others in this Chamber and elsewhere, I want the men of the rebel States, to understand that we who are here, and those whom we represent, believe in that sentiment as we believe in the commandments of Almighty God. Iwant them to understand that we mean to see it enforced, cost what it may of time, of toil, or of money. 1866. 341 I want them to understand, too, that we believe in the equality of States in the Union, and the equality of men in the States. We believe in the equality of the States and in the equality of men; and thus believing, we demand security for the futnrqbefore we again intrust power to men who, in the past, were false and recreant to the cause of liberty and to the cause of their countr. The Senfrom Kcntuck tells us that he is sorry to find a feeling of hostility here to ward the people of the rebel States; that he would act as our officers actmeet them as gentlemen and countrymen. I, too, would do the same thing. I know there is no hostility to the people of the rebel States. I speak for my own State, and I say there are not 1,000men in Massachusetts who entertain feelings of unkindness or of hostilit toward the people of the rebel States. On the contrary, we want them back here, and we want them with us just as soon as we can have them here and have with them ample guarantees and securities for the rights of a 1 men in the country. Now sir, “I know whereof I aflirm” when Isa that the people of the loyal States, who have given their sons and their blood to the putting down of this rebellion, desire that the southern people shall come back again, that all the seats in these Chambers shall be filled; but we want them to come back when we have secured ample and irreversible guarantees for the rights and liberties of all men; and I tell the Senfrom Kentucky further, that we mean to have them and that we are sure to get them. I know that there are some persons and there are Some newspapers, some starveling journals that eke out their precarious existence upon the bounty we foolishly fling to them, who tell us that the corrupting influences of public patron age ought to be used to arrest the great ideas and practical measures we advocate in the adipstment of these questions of reorganization. Yow, I say to everybody who has that thought in his brain that the people of this country are in no temperto be sol. They have decided that negroes shall not be bought nor sold, and they are equally unanimous that their Sens&Reps shall not sell them for Government patronage. If there is anybody in the country who is disposed to be bought or sold he will find that the American people will blast him by their withering scorn and indignation. Go to the 2 million soldiers who have fought the battles of their country; go to the loyal men who have furnished nearly 3000 million dollars to meet the needs of your Treasury, and attempt to buy them with the little ctty patronage of this Federal Government! hey will spurn the bribe whenever you offerit. They will scorn you and your patronage. This is not the old Whig party, that never professed to have an idea on earth, a party that simply advocated tariffs and banksand moneyed measures nor is it the Democratic party corrupted by slavery. Sir, it is a party that plants its foot “on the rock of ages, and has all the measureless moral forces of the universe to sustain it. from a small beginning, like the cloud in the heavens, not so large as a mans hand, it has developed into a gigantic, overmastering power, and has marched on until it has 2t rec of the 25 loyal States under its control, and I doubt not it. will take possession of the others about as soon as it desires to get them. The earnest men, who every time they look about their own dwellings see the vacant chairs of dead sons fallen in battle, who every time they cast their sad eyes into their graveyards look upon the little mounds that cover their kindred alien in battle, who see as they walk their streets maimed and wounded neighbors who have fought and bled for their country, are in no temper to be trifled with, to be bought or to be sold. They are stronger today for irreversible guarantees than they were yesterday; they will be stronger tomorrow than they are today; and if anybody desires to put over the adjustments of these questions to another year and to go before “the patriotic people of this country on that mas, 6 c shall welcome the contest. I predict as result of such action will be that there will be fewer in these Halls willing to allow these seats to be filled without further guarantees. We are not mistaken in these matters; wehave not been for a dozen years; we understand the American people, their temper, and their purposes. Sir, we want these freedmen protected; we mean to have them protected and there is another thing which we want: we want it settled that we are not to pay $2,000,000,000 for slaves emancipated, and that we are not to pay debts, whether they be $3,000,000,000 or $10,000,000,000, incurred to destroy the countr, and that we are not to pay pensions to men who fought against their country. I tell Senators that in view of the manifestations in the rebel States during the last 60 days, the holders of your public securities are growing anxious, and some of them are more than nnxrous in regard to these securities. Every hour thatvast capital, with its clear instincts, sees the dangerand will ward at? the danger. I tell you that the men who have been maimed and wounded by the war, and who have fought your battles, and who are pensioned by your Government fer the blood they have given to the country, are anxious in regard to the security of the future. These mighty agencies, quietly reaching into every village and hamlet of the country, are working their potent influences, and the loyal States are stronger today in demandin gnar antees than they eirer were, and will grow stronger until those guarantees are secured. Let the statesmen of the count who breathe an atmosphere tainted with the reath of trai tors or of s cophants remember this declaration. Lett e men of the rebel States realize the condition of affairs and accept the adjustment that gives security to man an to property. Sir, I know, too, that we all want to reach the end of a final settlement of all these questions. I do not desire to utter any reproaches or to heap any op robriarn upon the people of the rebel States. do not wish their money or their blood; I would not take a dollar from them if I could, for they have been punished enough, more even than a generous foe would inflict. I do not expect them before the come back here to love us or to be truly loya;Ido not expect them to like this bureau; I do not think they like GenlGrants order arresting the execution of their black laws; I do not thmk they like any of the measures for the protection of those who were lately their slaves; do not expect them to love us; I know they will not love me. But our duty is to do jus tice, to treat them with generous magnanimity, to demand what is right for our good and their good and the peace and repose of our common country. The whole philosophy of our action is in the sentence uttered by the Senfrom Kentucky, that we cannot degrade any portion of our population, or put a stain upon them, without leaving heartburnings and difficulties that will endanger the future of our country. These black men are a portion of our population; they are free, as free as the Senfrom Kentucky or myself. Perhaps they are not, some will say, equals; but that is not a question, I think, for us to discuss here. I wish that every man that breathes Gods air or walks His green earth was my equalmorally. physic ally, and intellectually. I know that I should not be degraded by the elevation of any man or all the men of the universe. I think that the bill should be passed, and passed romptly; and the little money that it costs, a though it looks large, is but fire merest trifle in comparisen with the great end to be attained. this bureau will not exist forever. I have no idea that there will be occasion for it to last any eat length of time; but so long as it is needs, so long I believe the Christian men and women of this country will demand that it shall be continued. It is demanded by all the people that o into these States to transact business. We car a great deal about evidence coming from the rebel States, and I have been very much surprised to hear certain evidence questioned here. There is hardly a township in the loyal States that has not some one of its men in the rebel States; he has kindred at home, he has neighbors at home, and the loyal States are shingled over with letters from innumerable witnesses in every portion of those States; their testimony is worth more than that of all the otiicialsin the U.S., and will have 1,000times more influence with the people. IfaGentfrom iny ncighborhood, whom I know to be a gentleman of honor and of personal character, is traveling in the heart of Iississip i, and he writes to me and tells me of what he has seen and found there, and of the condition of the people, am I to throw it aside for the statement o some one who has run perhaps through a corner of the State in a railroad car? Of courseI shall not doit; and I tell Senators that the people of this country will pay more deference to the utterances of their neighbors whom they know than to all the speeches we can make, or all the public documents we can manufacture. We know how many of us breathe the air tainted with the breath of traitors, and we know its influence. The people of the loyal States are out on their own eesimple acres in the clear country where. they are away from these personal associations and these professions, whiere they see things clearly as they are. Therefore the country demands the strengthening of this bureau, the enlargement of its powers, the increase of schools, and the instruction, protection, and elevation of a race. The country knows it will be security for the future, and will harm no rightminded and welldisposed man in any section of the country. What we advocate in this measure is for the security of all, the harm of none; the benefit of all, the injury of none; and it is so with the measure to follow it that is to protect these people. Therefore, sir, I hope we shall, as we have in the legislation of the ast 5 years, go steadily straight forward an onward to enact the needed laws that tend to the freedom, the elevation, the improvement of all our people, and the strength of our country. Sir, just in proportion as we have enacted justice as we have been faithful to the country and to liberty, have we prospered. As we have passed the series of measures beginning in Ju y, 1861, up to the present time, for the security, the libert, and the protection of all people, it seems as t ough God adopened the heavens and ruined blessings upon our country, and that the country is stronger now and has a greater influence in the world than ever before. All that we have got to do is to go right on with this work. Let timid men halt, let anybody halt who will, we know that we are right; we have a record that is flashing with light from the past. Let us do this, not talk about war, but let us engage in a vigorous prosecution of peace, and we shall put this country where it will have a power among the nations by the beauty of its life that will control the worl and change the destinies of nations.