Mr. COWAN. I am sorry that every man in the nation is not fully and thoroughly impregnated with the doctrine that there is no such thing as absolute power in thisland. communities have power in a state of nature; but communities have found that when they dele gate that power belonging to them in a state of nature to parliaments, omnipotent parliaments, parliaments abuse power; they found when they delegated it to monarchs that monarchs abused the power; and our fathers when they establishedt is Government limited its powers, and they said to their rulers, “ You shall have no power except that which we delegate to on ” Now, I agree that if this was the parliament of GreatBritain, omnipotent, notbound or fettered by any constitution of delegated powers, we might do that; we might impose upon a State the penalty of forfeiture of political rights for what we supposed was political treason. But that is not the case. fl: is not true. The law is different. This is a Government of law, written. express law; and he who attempts under it to exercise any authority or control whatever over his fellow men, by way of iiiiishment, must show that he has tfielaw on is side. But I was going on to state that the resolutions of the Baltimore platform forbade any offer ofterms to the States in rebellion. I am opposed today to any odor of terms. When you offer terms to your antagonist on mean that he has a right to reject them. I you offer terms to the southern States, what do you mean? Do you mean that they may reject them? Ifyou do not, it is a very strange proposition of terms and suppose they do reject them, what then? You have either to satisfy yourselves with that which you have now, or on have to enforce your terms by another war. Ton make a war 1st to compel them to come to the terms of the Constitution and laws, and then you make war to compel them to other and new terms! Mr. President, the common sense of the American people never will aerec to reconcile itself with that doctrine; and to talk about “indemnity for the past and security for the future" is as utterly idle as the idle wind that blows about the very topmost dome of the Capitol. “Indemnity for the past and security for the future7 is well enough in foreign wars and in disputes between foreign Governments; but who ever heard of a sovereign stipulatinglfor terms with his rebellious subjects? the terms are that you must submit to the law; and when the rebellion i. but down and you are in the grasp of the law, t ie law is satisfied. Other terms to rebels! Terms to the rebel States! If you do that you ratify the ordinances of secession, and you admit that they are out and that they are treating with you on equal footing. We made the war to compel these people to observe the Constitution and the law. Are you satisfied? If you want more you must put them on a footing to treat with you, or else you must compel them tomore; and when you compel them tomore, where is your right? Mr. President, it is said here that an attempt has been made to reconcile with the POTUS Why, sir, I can an that this war upon the President is a war of that society of which I spoke; I can say that its inspiration comes not only from people in this country, but 1/2 of it comes liiom England, where 1/2 of the society is; and I can tell you, air, that the programme of the war ii on the President was published in a letter from England in one of the leading journals in this country written before this congress met, in which it was laid down that the resident must be attacked and that the president must be restrained even to the ver 9 of war. I refer to a letter of Professor Newman to a friend in this country. The professor is well known. The person to whom the letter was written is unknown. If he is present, he can avow it. That letter was dated November 8, 1865, and it contains, not only the animus of this war upon the President, but it contains exactly and particularly the animus of the par“ty who assail the President. My dear friend ”and I may remark at the outstart that its tone is almost as lugubrious and doleful as that of my friendfrom Massachusetts when he tells us of his praying men and women on their bended knees beseeching Heaven to protect them against the President, or against the doubts of the President"Mv Dean Fnizsn: I confessthat it makes me sorrowful to write to you. I have indeed put it of on that account." He had evidently been written to before and had not answered as promptly as was proper. “ In your war I was never gloomy. I did not lose heart after Fredericksburg. But I am becoming glooinynow. Nor can I getcomfortfrom otherminds. All whom I meet that were your warm friends in the war are more or less sad, some direl so: but thosewho wereyour bitter enemiesthink resident Johnson very judicious, and seem highly contented.” That is a favorite argument with this set, and always has been; it is not a question what you say or what you believe, but what does some body else say. [suppose that nothing could so far condemn a man in their eyes as that the Democratic party should approve of what he does. Why is that? I think a man should be thankful for having the approval of an opposition. I think it shows that his conduct is, as this writer says, “ judicious, ” when even his political opponents approve it. Remember these men say they stood by Lincoln. Profes sor Newman goes on to say: "You all had the food hope and in spite of Mr. Lincolns woaknessmohad I that this was to be your only civilWar. You fought it With magnificent, uns aring energy, in order to give peace forever to your children. But the ghastly vision now risesover me, and makes me sick, that on are doomed to follow in the bloody routine of the Old World. With us it is an axiom, that kin have to be deposed and a dynasty exiled before they ceaseto conspire Mamet the constitution." That may be an axiom, butit has not proved true in Europe. The King generally goes back there, or has done so far. hey roll their heads sometimes off the scaffold, but the restore the son, or the heir in some way usual y gets to the throne afterward. “I now miserably forebode that you will have a civilWar to decide whether President or Congressis to set the policy of the Union." Here is the Englishman talking as good Massachusetts doctrine as if he had been bred and born there. You will have to have a civilWar between the President and Congress in order to determine who shall set the policy of the nation? Did not this writer know that the pol icy was set in the convention at Baltimore? Did he not know that neither the President nor Congress set policies here except each in its own Dept? There was no policy about it. The question was to compel a parcel of recal citrant people to return to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws. That was the l icsiion; but he assumes that there was to be war, and I will show you he advised it, too:, “All is in train for it, unless the next Congress sternly call the President to account. Nothing is clenri r the ii that he has pretended to do things expariiuentally and proviswiially.wit.h the expressaim of so ent miglhiiq matters that the Congress should have no choice but to ratify all that he hasdone and have no real direction of the public policy.” The same doctrine that we hear continually, the same apprehensions, the same misapprehonsions, of the motives of the preSident, and the same charge made against him of criminalmotivel " “It is just what Aberdeen or Palmerston have systematically done with the English Parliament. but would hardly dare to do in so terrible a crisis as yours.” This, by the by, is exceedingly characteris tic; this gentleman, as he goes along, cannot help takingaturn athis own Government. He seems to have a universal disposition to scold and find fault, and never hesatisfied with any thing; but that is characteristic of this class of people. They seem never to be satisfied and never to know what they want. "The 1st error was in not prosecutingBuchanan in the summer a 186the next was in enduring Mr. Lincolns Louisiana constitution and his reply to Congressthat human". to violate the confiscation act if he saw it to be for the public good." That ought not. to have been endured! Mr. Lincoln should have been “ sternly" restrained at. that point! "Out of lresidopt Limolnl high handed settlement of affairswithout. Congicss is dovuloped the presentpolicy of President Jo nsou." I suppose this is authorityenongh to show that the President is treading faithfully in the footsteps of his predecessor. It is so under stood across the water, and that, I should think, would be conclusive of it. “The conduct of Louis Napoleon", I begmy friends attention to this because, perhaps, he has read it, and it is at the bottom of his apprehensions “The conduct of Louis Napoleon in 1849, 1850. 1851.showswhat. a President. clect d by the people and indn endnnt of the Parliament. for 4 years, can do i he have large patronage.”, There is the apprehension. There is that which makes the knees tromblo and the hand unsteady; the fear that in this contest between the President on the one hand and Congress on the other, the President, with his atron age, may succeed. It is not very comiment cry to the people, I confess; but stil agood joke comes from the head of the table. “He has unity 0! action"I hope he will have"promptitudo, continuity. Congress has fmztious and long ebates and long vacation; and when it. comes to chat e, finds itse f too late. Your Presidents course (unless violrntly arrested) assuresto you many yearsofinstnbility and alarm and therefore many years of high expenditure and high p ronage, during all which time you will become customedto the Executive forestalli and superceding the legislative. Ont ofthin it will be almost a miracle it so vast an Executive do not. (like that of old ltoiiio) involve you in another civilWar. even if the negro question was to blow over inten or 12 yourstime." That is the nitro glycerinc that is concealed in the cargo of the ship of state. Your pilot is treacherous; he contemplates running her upon the shoals; and he Will do so and perliaps destroy her, even ifthis combustible mo terial were not there ready to blow her to pieces inten or 12 years time! I will not detain the Senate much longer with this. I only desire to give you this Gentlemans advice to his frien 5 here, and I beg the attention of Senators to it, because it seems that it " was followed: As your President is not at all deficient in understanding, I do not like to tell you what. I think of this sentonce: but he might surely be asked by a negro to exliiiu wherein is the virtue of such a tience. Si ncy Smith would so that A exercises sublime patience with B. while is tormenting C." That is a solecism that we have heard matched here very frequently. In order to have this understood Imust give the “son tence” here alluded to. It is: It is the southernStates:0 wrong.the power n in our handszlim can check them at any stage.to the end and obligethemto correcttheir errors; we must i be patient.with theiii. "Does the Prrsident seriously say that when the Federal troopsare withdrawn. the State militia constituted. Sta torights restored.you have any power of obliging the Statesto correct their crrors except by a new civilWar? Mr. Seward (in same paper) tells us at Auburn. liarour comfort, that there umnot be anew civilWar. It is comforting to the white race, but. it is the knoll of despair to the colOredracc. Do you want another war for the colored race? That seems to be this mans opinion. " It securesthat.the South shall be victorious, as Wendell Phillips puts it: and fromdespniralono will comea negro lDllSlllR Xl Dwial r of races. This would bring onyou lastigfidisgrace. instead of that moral glory which you by all but earned: it might make your whole future as stained as that of bloody old urope. This conversationof the President. following on his heartlessspeechto the coloredsoldiers (so pulike his Nashville speech.in October.1864.)exhib its him as one who cannot come right except by external constraint: and Mr. Sewardsspeech is the warrant that the whole Cabinet is going wrong. (Have they corrupted him 2) I see no possibility of Congress ringing him right by a more defensive policy: it must assume the airirrcssiveagainsthim, to give it a chanceof success. ltiemildest form of at tack. I think. would be to invite him to explain his apparent neglect of thenet of Congresswhic forbids anyone who hasbeenin overt rebellion to hold oillce or draw pay from the Federal Government." How many resolutions have we had in obe dience to that mandate? and was not the 1st resolution offered this session, addressed to the President, exactly that kind of one? Was it. not in pursuance of this suggestion? “Also. his allowing the reorganization of State militia should be solemnly denouncedas initiating the meansof a new rebellion.”