Mr. HISE. Mr. Speaker, in arguing any great question it is always necessary that certain axiomatic truths, certain manifestly 1st principles, should be conceded by all reason able men. ” One principle or truth of that description, permit me here to state briefly, is that the Constitution of the U.S. is a compact by which the States as members of the Federal Union agreed with one another to institute a Government, with certain definite powers and for certain specific purposes; that the Constitution of the i.States is the supreme, fundamental, irrepealable law, and there is no functionary of Government that exists by virtue of it that has any authority to disregard its provisions. The Congress of the U.S., the Executive, and all the officers of the Government are all bound to obey the Constitution; and whenever any of the depts or of the high public functionaries of the Government are guilty of an act of usurpation not authorized by the Constitution, or of an assumption of powers not granted by it, or violate it in any particular, they are guilty of perjury, corrupt and damnable per jury. The Constitution is above all the powers of government created by it, and it is in vain to make an argument upon any great constitutional question to a body who assume to set aside or disregard its provisions and limitations. But, sir, upon the supposition that the constitution is to be respected and obeyed, and that its violation entails upon the party violating it the erime of perjury, I appeal to this House upon the question whether it is a government of limited powers and of State creation, or whether it is a Government of a mere majority, with its powers unlimited, except by the force of numbers, to carry any measure that they may think proper. If it is a limited Government then you are to find the power that you attempt to exercise in some of the grants contained in that instrument. But where is the grant of the power of the Congress of the U.S. to be found in the Constitution to control in a State or Territory or in this District or anywhere else the right of the inhabitants, who are to be governed by municipal or local laws, to discriminate as a matter of policy as to who shall exercise the elective franchise? The object of republican government, and especially the great object of our system of governments, State and Federal, is to secure the advancement of civilization and political liberty and promote the progress of arts and sciences. So, then, as a mere question of expediency the States did not think proper to abandon to the Federal Government the great fundamental power of deciding for them the question of th. right of suffrage. We know that the object of Government is security of life, liberty, and property, to promote the happiness and civilization of man as a moral, and intellectual being, and it is indispensable to. thatend that property, virtue, and intelligence should be considered as altogether important in settling the question in any State of this Union as to who shall or shall not exercise the right of suffrage. But the majority of the members of this House assume the authority and power for Congress to impose upon all the States, especially those which have lately been in conflict with the northern States, and upon all the Territories that are to be formed into States and admitted into this Union, the obligation to allow a class of people within their limits to take the government into their control, whereby, instead of promoting and securing property, life, liberty, and civilization, they would throw them back into a condition of barbarism; they would Africanize some, if not all, of the southern States by giving to the preponderant negro population therein the power to control their local governments, thus defeating all the ends that are intended to be secured by the institution of governments, and which alone can justify the cost and burden of their maintenance. Now, sir, upon what ground is this power claimed for this Congress? Where do they find the authority in the Constitution of the U.S.? They can nowhere in the constitution find any provision that, by any, the most latitudine us, construction could authorize the assumption and exercise of this power; none whatever. The Constitution provides that the Representatives in this House shall be elected by that portion of the population of their respective States which is entitled under the State constitution and laws to vote for members of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, thus conceding to the States the governmental power of controlling this subject and of prescribing who shall and who shall not vote, what classes may and what may not exercise the right of suffrage, and upon what conditions the right shall exist. This Congress now proposeto force upon the people of o. the southern as a condition precedent to their recognition as members of the Union, and upon the people of the Territories as a condition to their admission as States, a voting population which will impede their march toward civilization and to the attainment of all the great ends and objects of government, the security of life, liberty and property. The power is claimed here that the 8. of the U.S. have authority to impose upon the southern States a condition that the colored population of those States shall be placed upon terms of social and political equality with the balance of the people as a condition precedent to admission to their right of representation here as States of this Union. They can find no such power any where in the Constitution; but they claim it under the provision to the effect that the federal Government shall guaranty to the States a RFG. ow, sir, is it not astounding that in a House composed of so many intelligent and learned men as I find from the debates that this does, that party feeling and party fanaticism should so jaundice and control the minds of men as to induce them to assume as authority for what they seek to effect this constitutional provision, which, by its true construction, not only does not sanction, but prohibits the exercise of this power of instituting arbitrary governments over the people, and in effect binds and commands the U.S. to respect and uphold the republican governments of the States, and consequently denies to Congress the right to deprive them of representation or the right of self government? The intention of that clause of the Constitution was to provide that if any attempt were made by any outside Power to overthrow a RFG in the States the Federal Government should guaranty the continued existence of those republican governments as they existed at the time of the adoption of the Constitution of the U.S. Sir, I was cut short by the operation of the rules when I last addressed the House, in the argument which I attempted to make upon the question of the right of the southern States to their full representation upon this floor, at the point where I was about to remark upon this provision of the Constitution and state my views of its true meaning and how it could only be applied. Under that clause you now assume the right and claim the authority, whenever a majority of the congress of the U.S. may decide that there is some law or some provision of the constitution of a State, or some line of domes. tic policy which may be adopted by a State, in opposition to your party views, to say that the form of government of that State is not republican; and the majority of this body can, therefore, under this assumption, impose upon the people of a State a despotic government, without regard to the will of the people, and in which they are refused any representation, which is the very soul of a republic, and this under pretext of performing the constitutional duty of guarantying to the States a RFG. [Here the hammer fell]