Mr. FESSENDEN. Very well. i do not propose to dwell on the Constitution now. ut, sir, what protection have you in an act of Congress when regulatin a matter of this kind? Suppose my honorable friendfrom Illinois and the Senfrom Massachusetts are right. what pxrotection have you in an act of Congress? ou settle aquestion today by an act of Congress, which excites great feelin, great animosity, and which divides the people of this country and you may possibly carry it into effect; tomorrow Congress changes its character, or there is another Congress, and your act is repealed, and these men are put back to where they were before. What I want to do, then, for the benefit of the race of whom the honorable Senator talks so much, is to give them the protection of the Constitution, not leave them to an act of congress which may be passed today and repealed tomorrow, and they be left. to be the sport and foot ball offortiine and of ca nice and tyranny but to place them under a so cgunrd which shali stand as long as the Constitution itself stands, and requires more than the mere action of a majority of Congress to repeal. I would exercise all that power if we have it. I do not say lbut we hover and if this should not prove I sufficient, I should certainly exercise it; but, sir, I should look upon it as a most uncertain and weak protection to any class of  men, because what we may do today others may undo tomorrow. So much for “tying the hands of congress.” There are one or 2 other points, 2 fibink, made by the Senfrom Massachusetts, and the answer to them is the same. He denounces this proposition as “installing recent rebels to govern loyal citizens under the sanction of the Constitution." How? Docs it give them power? NO, sir; it limits theirpower. Does it de rive any man, black or white, of his vote? oes it tie the hands of the loyal people of those States? No. They are tied already by the Constitution, if they can be; that is to say, they are in the power of the whites, if they choose to exercise it. Perhaps this proposition does not O as far as it ought to go to relieve them, but it leaves them something to hope for in the future. The last point of the Senator is that this proposition is “a comromise of human rights, the most immoral, in ecent, and utterly s ameful in our histor." Mr. President, I stand rebuked, but I do not feel so bad as I might. The committee of 15, the friends and associates of the honor able Senator, stand rebuked. More than, 2/3rds of the HoRep and a large majority of this ha y, all the political friends and associates of the Senator, stand charged with proposing a compi Jmise ofhuman rights the most immoral, indecent, and shame fu in our history! All I can say with regard to that is, that neither on its face, in its e ect, nor in its intention, is it any compromise. None such was dreamed of. the vhonorable Senfrom Massachusetts, like the honorable Senfrom Pehnsylvania [Mr. Cowss] who originated the idea, O ose to call it a wholesale sale of negroes. The honorable Senfrom Pennsylvania knew better. He laughed almost when he was reading that portion of his speech. He is a licensed joker and much may be pardoned to him; but the grave assertion of it by the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts strikes Ime with astonishment. If I thought it was, if thought that I and the other gentlemen connected with me were acting as he described, that we were, to use his own illustration, parting the raiment of the Saviour between us, I should certainly feel like hidin my head in shame; but fortunately the wor s of the Senator fix the character of no man. We stand upon something better than the opinions of a heated controversialist, penned in his closet and poured out in the Senate. The natural effect of this would be to charge all of us with indecency and immorality. It is vain to say that such could not be the intention, because we were not aware of what we were doing. Sir, I am no more anxious to be called a fool than I am to be called a knave. A matter that I have studied care fully, deliberated well, and come to a conclusion about, I am responsible for. I do not wish to be excused on the ground ofawant of sense. When I have with me nearly all of the presses Of the country of my own political faith, when I have with me all of my own political faith of the committee of 15 who O cred this amendment, more than 2/3rds of the chosen Representatives of the people, and much more than one half, to say the least of it, of the members of this Senate, I am content to stand under the rebuke of the honorable Senator and even under his denunciation. But I say this is no compromise. Nothing can be made of this charge; there is no argument to support it. It is nothing but the bold, bald assertion of the Senator to that extent. It admits of no proof; not Even the Boston Recorder, which the Senator calls the “religious press of the country, ” and which, if I recollect aright, for 20 years was the most consistent and bitter opponent of the ab polition of slavery of any press in NewEngland, except the Democratic press, and is only a recent convert to its present position. hat is the only religious press that the honorable Senator chose to cite. Mr. President, it is sufficient for me to say that every objection that the honorable Senator makes to this amendment applies to the amendment in regard to voters, which he says he is in favor of. It affects precisely the same thing on the same principles; and let me tell you that, in my judgment, would be a more unsafe proposition than this. Look at the position in which we shall be placed by that. may vote for it; if I cannot get anything better, I shall vote for it; but I think this inlinitelydlie best. But just look at the effect of lacing representation on the voting basis. e have proposed to introduce Tennessee into the Union on condition that she disfranchises, or keeps disfranchised, her rebels. I should be glad to apply the same rule for a given length of time to every other State. Here we propose and the honor able Senator is in favor of that; Iknow he is in favor of it, for he has so expressed himself to disfranchise every man who has been in the rebel army, and then we turn around to these States and tell them, “We will found your representation on voters.” That is the double proposition. Is the Senator in favor of both of those? Who, then, is to govern the States? The blacks entirely, with a small number of whites? That must be the consequence. Take it, however; I am content, if gentlemen are content to take the voters. I have no attachment to any of these propositions. I think this is an imperfect one as it stands, but I would like to get something that looks to the enfranchisement of these men in the future, if not in the present.