Mr. NEWELL. Mr. Speaker, I propose to submit a few remarks for the consideration of the House upon the annual message of the POTUS In doing so allow me to call attention to the importance of the issues decided in the great political contest which agitated and almost convulsed the northern States during the recess of the present Congress. Those issues were not less momentous than the war itself. That, indeed, decided a question of mere physical superiority; those decided questions of political principle, which are to be the bases of our future prosperity. Whatever we may say of the prowess and perseverance of our people during the war, (and they were such as to attract the admiration of the world to our gallant armies,) we must admit that their conduct all through the late trying political campaign was so admirable as to extract unwilling praises even from the enemies of the country. That poolit:ical contest was the most trying test ever upon the lo. of self government; and so well did the people endure it that the most devoted worshipers of monarchical or despotic systems of government have been compelled to acknowledge that the strain was not too much for our institutions. Indeed, one of these gentlemen, on a visit to this country, in a speech delivered in this city a few weeks since, is reported to have put off the trying Wool of our institutions for at least a century. We thank him for his long respite, and only hope his descendants will do us a similar favor, as graciously, when they find his promised period of dissolution is as far off as ever. The military contest, I remarked, only decided as question of military superiority or in feriority; but the political, a question of social and material. Consequently the importance of the latter cannot be overrated. Let me call attention to a few points bearing upon that importance. Previous to the late war and the political contest just terminated, questions regarding rights of the States as opposed to those of the General Government were constant sources of dispute, which time and again threatened the existence of the Government. Those contests continued from the formation of the government to the present day. Their results were as generally unfavorable to the continuance of such a degree of authority in the cen tral Government as was compatible with its existence in case of the secession of one or more the States. The gentleman who occupied the executive seat at the outbreak of the rebellion even questioned the right of the General Government to provide for its own safety in case of such secession. In this view he was sustained by many able men in his own party, who subsequently took part with the nion in the armed conflict, and by nearly all that party in both sections of the country. So far as political force availed, the victory at that dark and doubtful period was with the enemies of the General Government and in favor of the socalled rights of the States. Many leaders of both political parties wavered. The politi: cians apparently had been so indoctrinated with the prevailing heresy of State rights that it became a question with them whether we really were a nation or a mere confederacy of States, liable to be dissolved at any moment through the ambition of some powerful sectional politician acting upon the prejudices of the people under his immediate influence. e were almost in that condition which marked the period of the dissolution of all republics, and indeed of all nations. We were about to be resolved into our original elements. Then what saved us from such a frightful catas. trophe; Simply the instinct of national preservation in the great heart of the American people. That instinct was superior to the situation. It rose above the doubts and fears of politicians; as if the will of the Almighty himself was behind it urging it on to save the country from destruction it rushed to the rescue of the Government. It not only appalled the enemy but it strengthened the friends of the Union. In the darkest hour of disaster it never once flinched from its original purpose. It was the people that saved the government during the war. It was the people also that saved it during the late political contest. As they determined by the war that this country should be a nation, so they determined by the late political contest that no party chicanery, that no dictation of men in power, even supposed to be originally for the Union could snatch the fruits of the war from their hands. This much was so emphatically decided that he must be a madman or a traitor who doubts it. Look at the influences brought to bear ainst the people in the late contest The whole executive power and patronage of the Government, now swelled to appalling proportions, were thrown into the hands of the enemy, so lately humbled and subdued on the field of battle. Every artifice that a long acquaintance with political management and an unscrupulous use of political corrupting influences could bring to bear to swerve the people from their purpose was resorted to. The Executive himself, with unblushing effrontery and a total disregard of the amenities and requirements of his high station, descended into the political arena and sought to bully the masses of the people into submission to his autocratic will. uch an exhibition of political violence as was displayed in that pretended monumental tour never before disgraced the country, and for the honor of human nature and the credit of republican institutions I pray God never will again. In the mean time, in every dept of the Government the political ax was descending upon the heads of men too honest to be corrupted and too patriotic to sell their principles for place. A reign of politicalter ror swept the land from one end to the other, in the midst of which the Executive, by his free pardons to rebels and more by promises of what he would do in the future, was pavin the way for the return of the lately defeate rebels to all the political power and to a higher than the political status they had so lately for. feited. But in the midst of all this the people proceeded quietly to discharge their duties as citizens who were determined to preserve to them solves a country; and, as during the late war they proved their prowess upon the battle field by the bayonet, so in the late political contest they asserted their supremacy by the mightier weapon of the ballot. By the bayonet they saved us a nation on many a bloody battle field; by the ballot, in one great and glorious political contest, they preserved that nation for themselves and their posterity forever. American nationality was the all important question decided by the people in the i. political contest for power. The period of that contest will mark the time when the U.S. entered into the F. family of nations, with power equal to if not greater than any other of them all, to make herself feared and respected both at home and abroad. In that contest the Congress of the U.S. submitted to the people certain propositions for their acceptance, which propositions it considered essential to the future welfare, if not the very existence, of the Republic. After a contest to which, as I have stated, the annals of our political history afford no parallel, the people accepted these propositions, while the opponents of them retired ignominiously from the field. The Executive may yet make a show of resistance to them; but he must now see (and if he does not it is time he should) that such resistance betokens not only a spirit of factious opposition, but a desire to cater to the prejudices and passions of a section of the country whose patriotism must at least for some years to come. looked upon with a considerable degree of distrust. After such a political verdict as that lately rendered by the people, opposition to it takes the form of opposition to the country itself. If any belief remains in the hearts of the opponents of the loyal masses of the ability of the people to govern themselves, they must surely see that in the late elections a higher authority than that of. ". any human law asserted will of God speaking through His chosen instrument the voice of the people. Let those in power heed it ere it be too late. As to the terms of the propositions submitted to and indorsed by the people, they are such as the lately rebellious States should be glad to accept. They are magnanimous on the part of the victors and not humiliating to the vanquished. They deprive but a few leading spirits of the rebellion of their rights, and in their cases the deprivation is confined to rights more nearly approaching the character of privileges than any other enjoyed in a RFG. In fact, these terms thus offered to rebels lately in arms tend to elevate rather than depress. people of that section of the country; as they open, a way for the gradual incorporation into its body politic of a class of persons who, under proper instruction and encouragement, may become hereafter as politically as they have heretofore been socially and materially useful. But even in this instance no force is used. The elevation of the subject class of the South to political rights is virtually left in the hands of those who at present wield sovereign sway. It is left for the latter to say whether they are ready to admit the former to association with them. All the loyal people of the country ask for is security for the future. And is it too much to expect this? In treaties with foreign Powers at the close of the war the victors in all cases ask not only for security for the future, but for indemnity for the ast. p The loyal people of the U.S. mag nanimously concede the indemnity; but let not the late rebels be mistaken, for as magnan imously as they concede it so as religiously and determinately will they exact the security. There can be no alternative. If the security is not obtained in the way indicated in the amendments as proposed by Congress, it will be obtained in another, and I am free to say one more in accordance with my own individual ideas of justice and propriety., That other I indicated as long since as the 15th of Febru ary, 1866, and consists in the assumption of the right by Congress, by a declaratory act, to pronounce citizenship and suffrage synonymous; in other words, to assert the axiom that every man born on American soil is an Amer, ican citizen, and as such heir to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of all other American citizens. So that if the rebel States are not willing to concede to the loyal people of the country the least measure of justice to which the latter are entitled, that is, security for the future, the loyal people themselves will seize that security by simply declaring that universal suffrage shall henceforth be the shib boleth of American political brotherhood. Let these men, then, who by their causeless rebellion have forfeited all their rights of citizenship choose whom they will serve, for there are and can be but few alternatives open to them. These alternatives are, the acceptance of the constitutional amendments, the creation of provisional governments, or the acknowledgment of the God given right of all men to govern themselves according to the dictates of their own consciences, uncontrolled by any external influences whatever. Either one of these is eminently just. Indeed, if a reference is to be given on the score of justice, it is to that one which is founded on the principles which are the corner stone of our political edifice. That edifice was erected by the o for the people and their posterity; not y a portion of the people for the benefit of themselves ol. Read every word of the DeclarIndep, and every article of the Constitution, and you will find no distinction or reservation as to the application of the rights there secured to any portion of the people. And this was at a time even when nearly every State held a certain class of its people in bondage. That fact was ignored to the extent that even when these people were no longer slaves in several of the States they became entitled to the suffrage; they were elevated in all respects, civil and political, to the status of the people among whom they resided. It was only when Judge Taney invented the dogma that by the universal consent and practice of the world at the time the Constitution was formed these. " had no rights that white men were ound to respect, that it was discovered (because of the existence of slavery in severa of the States and for the sake of its security,) it was necessary that these people should be declared citizens by a change in the organic act itself., But that change has been effected, and now there are no subjects in these U.S. All fire sovereigns, and entitled to sovereign rights. If this were not so, where is the article or articles in the Constitution which provides for the creation of sovereign rights in any person heretofore a subject? There is no such provision. And why? simply because the Constitution recognizes every man born in the U.S. as already possessing the rights of sovereignty. There is, to be sure, a provision for naturalization; but that is wholly in the case of subjects or sovereigns of other nationalities. It has no application to our own people. Judge Taney in the Dred Scott decision says: “The Constitution upon its adoption obviously took from the States all power by any subsequent legislation to introduce as a citizen into the political family of the U.S. anyone, no matter where ho was born or what might be his character or condition. Now, then, if the States have no power to elevate any man to citizenship, and Congress has no power to do so except exclusively in the case of aliens, does it not follow that citizenship is the natural, inherent right of every man born on the soil, and that to deprive him of it would be, not only to violate his inherent rights of humanity, but to sap the foundations of the Government itself? Citizenship in the U.S. is a right, not a privilege. In monarchical or despotic countries it may be the latter, because the king or the emperor claims to rule by divine right, and thus to disense laws by favor of his gracious will. But in this country all are sovereigns; all are supposed to be governed by laws founded on the principles of eternal justice. No man can give to another any right as by favor. No man can receive from another any privilege as by right. The moment he does, the nature of the government becomes perverted and the principles of the Constitution violated. In the extract above, quoted, Judge Taney speaks of the “political family of the U.S. ”. Note, he does not say the civil family. It is the political family to which he alludes. His position would not be tenable in any other sense. Now, the question arises, what constitutes that family? The answer is, those born on the soil; those who are taxed for the support of the Government; those who are liable to be called upon to bear arms in its defense; in fine, those who, in every material, moral, and religious sense, are its constituent arts the units of its aggregate manhood. very man, then, who is not an alien and who thus refuses allegiance to the Government on the sole ground that he owes it to another, comes within the above category. To deny to him altogether, or to abridge his rights of citizenship, is to violate the Constitution of the U.S. in its most sacred and solemn characteristics. “But, ” say the State rights oof the Constitution, “a State can make or unmake a citizen of the U.S.; can limit his rights, privileges, or immunities, or deny them altogether.” I deny this assumption in toto. A State has no right to deprive a citizen of the U.S. of any rights he enjoys as such. On the contrary, it is expressly provided in the Constitution that the citizens of every State are entitled to the rights, privileges, and immunities of the citizens of all the States. Hear what Judge Taney says upon this important point in the decision from which I have }.quoted: “And if persons of the African race are citizens of a State and of the U.S. they would be entitled to all those privileges and immunities in every State, and the State could not restrict them, for they would hold these privileges and immunities under the paramount authority of the Federal Government: and its courtswould be bound to maintain and enforce them, the constitution and the laws of the State to contrary notwithstanding. the And if the States could limit or restrict them, or place the party in grade, an inferior this clause of the Constitution would be unmeaning, and could have no operation, and would. no rights to the citizen when in another State. e would have none but what the State itself chose to allow him.” Now, let us look at the Constitution itself. After reciting in the preamble that, “we, the people for ourselves and our posterity” enact certain provisions of law, the 1st article reads: by“The HoRep shall be elected the people of the several States.” Let our strict constructionists ponder upon this. Can the question of suffrage be delegated to the several States in face of such a positive provision as this? But let us see who are the people of the U.S. And here I must again refer my Democratic friends to the Dred Scott decision, in which Judge Taney says: “The words“people of the U.S., ”and ‘cit itgheinngs’.”are synonymous terms, and mean the same But I have already shown that a citizen is not made by Congress nor by the States, but is such o his own inherent right of manhood. I have also shown by the Dred Scott decision, and by the Constitution itself, that the citizen of each State cannot be deprived of any right, privilege, or immunity inhering in him in his capacity of citizen of the U.S. How, then, ean a State limit him in those rights, much less deprive him of them altogether?. It can only be done by a misconception and misinterpretation of the organic act, superinduced by devotion to slavery and fostered by monarchical and despotic ideas and prejudices. But some persons may answer that suffrage is not a right. If it is not a right, I ask what it is2Ihave shown that there are really no privileges in the U.S.; but, as if to cover the whole ground and deprive the oppoments of the sovereign power of the central Government of all ability to cavil, Judge Taney declares not only that a State has no right to deprive a citizen of the U.S. of any rights inhering in him as such, but that it has no right to deprive him of any of the privileges or immunities of a citizen. What can be broader than this language? Does it not cover every ground? Does it not stamp in ineffaceable characters as treason to the Constitution any attempt of any State to deprive a single citizen of the U.S. of any rights, privileges, and immunities inhering in him as such. The 1st article of the Constitution expressly says that the HoRep shall be elected by the people of the several States. Now, if a State can step in and say that one of the people within its jurisdiction shall not vote for members of the HoRep it has power to say that many or all of them shall not so vote; it has power to say that a citizen shall not vote unless he is worth $1,000 or $10,000; that he shall not vote unless he owns a certain quantity of real estate; that he shall not vote unless he owns a certain amount of railroad stock; that he shall not vote unless he can read or write; that he shall not vote unless he can speak French"br Span ish or German; that he shall not vote unless he is a Protestant; that he shall not vote because he is a Jew or a Catholic; that he shall not vote because he is black; that he shall not vote because he is white; in fine that he shall not vote on account of any negative or positive characteristic it may be in the power of the State Legislature to enact to be a bar to the exercise of the franchise. How would such legislation comport with the 1st article of the Constitution? Would it not virtually nullify, if not expunge it from the organic act? Would it not place this House at the mercy of State Legislatures, who at any time might desire to limit its powers or to confine its jurisdiction to such legislation as the said Legislatures, and they alone, might deem to come within the scope of its authority? But, on the other hand, what is the obvious meaning of the 1st article of the Constitution? Is it not that the HoRep shall be a body entirely independent of the State Legislatures, not deriving any authority from them, nor acknowledging any jurisdiction of them over either its acts or the rights of the people in selecting its members? congress has no right itself to prescribe the qualifications of those whom it represents. The Constitution does this. Surely it is not the intent of the Constitution to cede away that right to Legislatures elected for mere local and State purposes; to foreign bodies having no authority over its deliberations, and even no right (except the right of enjoying in common with each individual citizen) to question its acts. I contend that State Legislatures have no right to limit the jurisdiction or scope of Congress. Who will contend that they have? But would not the power to limit its constituency or to obstruct it by laws depriving it of any rights enjoyed by that constituency have this effect? It most undoubtedly would. consequently, admitting the right of the States to limit or virtually to annihilate our constituency, and we admit their right to wipe us out of existence or to narrow down our constituency to limits which would make us the representatives of a mere oligarchy or aristocracy an oligarchy founded upon race or color, or an aris tocracy founded upon wealth or intelligence. Supposing one of our great railroad monop olies were to obtain control of one of the States, an entirely supposable case, could not its organic act be so altered as to prescribe qualifications for our constituents which would make it impossible to have the great mass of that Fol.State fairly represented on this floor? n the same manner, suppose other great corporations should combine in other States, and steal away the rights of the people, what would be the result? Why, that this body would be turned into an assembly not representing the people of the U.S., but a compara tively few privileged persons, who would be able, for all time to come, to ride booted and spurred upon the backs of the late sovereign F. s this the consummation that my democratic friends so ardently desire to see brought about? The truth is, every nation, every political family has a right in its organic act to fix the status of its component units in a free Government; indeed, this status is fixed by the irre versible laws of justice and right, and cannot be changed. It was regarded as so fixed by the framers of the Constitution. It would have continued to be so regarded by their posterity but for the pestilent heresy of State rights, through id: it was sought to enslave a portion of the body politic for the special benefit of another portion. In what article of the Constitution is conceded the right of any particular State to limit or abridge the suffrage as respects the constit uency of Congress, the people? In no one. On the contrary, the Constitution provides that that suffrage shall be placed on the very broad est basis; nor does it anywhere deny to congress the right to regulate the manner of the expression of that suffrage within the bounds of the Constitution itself, of course, but totally regardless of the laws of the several States. The States are not represented here but the people; therefore it is to the people under the U.S. Constitution, not to the States under their constitutions, that we are responsible for our acts. What justice would there then be in handing over the control of the expression of the will of the people whom we here represent to State Legislatures which are cre ated for altogether local and State purposes and necessarily limited in their jurisdiction and prescribed in their action? There would be none whatever. On the contrary, in so acting we would constitute our system of government an anomaly, leaving no foundation in reason or experience, and so obstructive of necessary legislation as to render it incapable of successful working. I have shown that no State can restrict the rights, privileges, and immunities of a citizen of the U.S. Suffrage, instead of being the least, is the most important of these; and why? Because it guards and protects all the rest. It is in fact the covering that over shadows like the wings of the angels of the covenant all other rights. Take it away, and in no despotic Government is a man so bereft of right as in that republic which thus deprives its citizens of the only means by which they can render their servants accountable for their actions. citizen to the necessity of taking up arms in order to reassert his manhood. you prepare the way for revolution hereafter; and revolution which we ourselves have always justified in other nations, on the ground that the fact of their having no voice in their governments gave them the right to resort to that ultima ratio of nations and men which has decided so many political contests, but not without an appalling loss of both blood and treasure. Indeed, the ground of our own revolution was that we were denied a voice in making our own laws; we were compelled to submit to taxation without representation. Can we compel peaceably on the part of others that which we resisted to the shedding of blood ourselves? But some may say that it is dangerous to extend the suffrage to a race illy prepared to exercise it. Is not the foreigner who comes to our shores totally unaequainted with our manners and customs, our political and so cial characteristics, after a short probation admitted into full fellowship with the political family? Will my colleague, Mr. Rogers, the leader of the Democratic side of the House, who is very ready to pronounce a particular race as unfit to exercise the rights of free men, dare pronounce the same ban upon the foreigner? But this ability to exercise the suffrage on the part of this large class of persons must be looked upon in the light of expediency if we once drop down from the position of equal and exact justice to all men. And what wi expediency teach us on the subject? Simply that though there may be great evils in extending the suffrage to the lately enslaved race there may be still greater in In fact such deprivation reduces the s o excluding them altogether and for all time from it. By so doing you raise up a class of persons alien and foreign to the Commonwealth; you create a governing and a governed class in the U.S.; you give the power of life and death to the former over the latter; you place the property and liberty of one man at the control of another; you create castes and distinctions in society; you raise up a class of tyrannical task masters to reign over a mass of outcasts, and between both you place a gulf over which no man can pass., Think you that under such a condition of things republicanism would be possible? Think you that the evils of an extended suffrage would not be altogether less than the evils of a condition of society, for a parallel to which we must only look to misgoverned Ireland or to the oppressed and exhausted Provinces of the British empire of India? Yes, gentlemen, suffrage is a delusion and a snare if it cannot be extended to every man created in the image and likeness of his Maker, then is our whole system of government an error of such giganticF. as to involve our country in ruin and destruction. For good or evil we are committed to the doctrine of equal rights to all men. For good or evil we are bound to follow it to its legitimate conclusions. Where it may lead us no human eye may be able to see, but where the opposite principle would ultimately leave us, a stranded and hopeless wreck upon the shores of time, any ordinary mind can foresee. But we know that while following the lead of universal suffrage we are carrying out the principles of justice and humanity, which are the eternal verities of God himself; and where these point it is certainly more safe to presume is the path most likely to conduct us to unity, peace, and pros perity. Some persons indeed favor universal suffrage, but couple it with a general amnesty. By this they propose to set off justice to a wronged.oppressed race against an act of unmerited mercy to their oppressors, who have been at the same time rebels against national authority. I am opposed to any such bartering of right for wrong; of justice for mistaken mercy. I look upon such a bargain as jeopardizing the safety of the nation, which has already cost such fearful sacrifices of life and treasure. Salus populi suprema est lex is my motto in this and every case relating to public affairs. And I religiously believe that the safety of the Republic requires that the leading spirits of the late rebellion should be deprived of the power, by simple exclusion from office, of again experimenting upon the life of the nation. At the South public sentiment more than at the North is created by the governing class. This arises from the absence of wide spread educational facilities; from the fact that political discussions take the form rather of oral communications in mass meetings than of printed arguments in the press. Consequently the leaders of the South always speak from their hearts to the hearts of the masses. In the North, on the other hand, the leaders more generally speak to the reason. Thus at the South, while the leaders have almost supreme at the North they have but a limited control over the masses, the effect of which is easily set aside by argument and discussion. To give these southern leaders, then, during the present generation another opportunity to “fire the southern heart” is a scheme to which I am unalterably opposed. And especially am I opposed to it when it is linked with a proposition to do that which the Constitution makes it peremptory on us to perform; that is, to render equal and exact justice to every member of the political family of these U.S. I have spoken in strong terms of the course of the Executive in the late political contest. I was for a long time loth to believe that he had really and for good or evil linked himself with the political enemies of his country. But the fact was forced upon me at length by reW. acts of usurpation on his part, which we called down upon his head the indignation of a deceived and outraged people. It is now evident that the Executive, almost immediately upon the death of the late lamented President, linked himself with that party which had all through the war, by every means short of actual aid in the field, allied itself with the enemies of the country. Upon his accession to his present place he and that party inaugu rated a plan of restoration designed to bring back the rebels to power, and when thus brought back in alliance with the Democracy they were again to rule the country in the interests of the South and its institutions. The doctine of State rights was once more to become the ruling policy of the country. The States were to be restored to that commanding position which made them the arbiters of the fate of the general Government; rebel debts were to be acknowledged; rebel claims were to be paid. It is patent to all that