Mr. ROGERS. No, sir; I do not contend for any such thing. But it was a right of a State to pay its own debts in its own way, in its own manner, and at its own time, and 3/4ths of the States have no right, by an amendment of the constitution, to say that the other 4th of the States shall not pay any debt they may see fit to pay. I am not ere arguing in favor of ayin the rebel debt or in favor of the rebe a, or I denounce butI am here to stand up for the rights of civilliberty, the rights of the States not to be invaded by a majority of this House. taking away from them reserved rights which they had fought for and wrested from the tyranny and depotismof King George, and which they supposed they had lirmly implanted in themse ves, and had never given away or turned over to the authority and control of the Federal Government. Can the constitution of the U.S. be amended in every respect and in every way? Unless it can be, unless there is supreme, unlimited, controlling power in 2/3rds of both Houses of Congress, and 3/4ths of the States, to take away all the rights of the individual States, than there is no power, under the spirit and reason of the organic law, to take away from a State any right which that State reserved at the time of the adoption of the constitution which it never intended to place under the control of the Federal Government, but of which it expected to retain the exclusive control within its own domain, and under its own sovereign antherity, without any right of interference on the part of any other State or of the General Government. I know that the constitution of the U.S. provides that 2/3rds of both Houses of Congress may propose amendments which shall be valid when ratified by the Legislatures of 3/4ths of the several States, or by conventions in 3/4ths thereof; and the only express limitations of this power are that no amendment made prior to 1808 shall affect the provision with reference to the importation of slaves, and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal voice in the senate. It has been argued that, as these are the only exceptions or limitations specilied, there resides wnh 2/3rds of both cases of conss and 3/4ths of the States an unlim ited power to amend the constitution in every other particular.