Mr. JOHNSON. Now, you will not admit them. I understand from the question which my friendfrom Massachusetts has propounded to me that his objection to SCarolina being represented on this floor is personal to the man. Then he Wlll admit anybody who can take the oath, I suppose; otherwise, his question was a little out of place. I Will not speak of Mr. Perry, as I know him by reputation to be, and as he informs me.his course was during the whole of the rebellion, nor shall I speak at all in that regard of other members whose creden tials are upon your table. All I mean to say is that they are here. Whatever may have been their mistakes in the past, however they may have violated the laws in the past, and have subjected themselves to prosecution because of such violation, yet they are here, permit me to say to the honorable member from Massachusetts, (and I say it with all sincerity and with no possible purpose of disparaging his loyalty) as loyal this hour as he is. Mr. President, it is a grateful theme to me to refer to those men in terms of praise. Nobod denounced their course more ceidedly than did i but.the mass of them were honest. It was not my purpose to call the attention of the Senate to what I am about to read, but the guestion propounded to me by the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts makes it perhaps more applicable to this art of the question than itwould be to any 01m. t. I shall read a sentence or 2 from a speech recently deliv cred before the General Assembly of the State of Georgia, delivered on Washingtons birth day, the 22d of February, by Mr. Alexander H. Stephens. The whole speech, I am satis lied, if it shall be read by the Senators, will give them nothing but pleasure, both for its 5 hit and its patriotism, and for its chastened eloquence: “Anothettouoofourent duties isthisz we should accepttheissucs of the war and abide by them in good faith. This. I feel fully persuiided. it is poseto do. aswell as that your plpr of your constituents. he people of Georgia have in convention revoked and annulled her ordinance of 1861, which was intended to severher from the compact of Union of 1787. The Constitution of the U.S. has been reprdnined is the organic law of our land. Whatever difforonce l of, opinion heretofore existed as to where our allegiance was due during the late state of thin. none for any practical purpose can exist now. bother Georgie. by the action of her convention of 1861.was over rightllillly out of the Union or not there can be no question that.sheis now in. so far asdependsupon her will and deed. The whole U.S., therefore is now withont questionour country. to becher ished and defendedas such by all our hearts and by all our arms. The Constitution of the U.S and the treaties and laws madein pursuance thereof, are now acknowledgedto be the para mountlaw in this whole country and he concluded, looking to the prospect and indulging the hope that. our country would be grander in everything in the future than it had been in the past, by saying: “All this is possible if the hearts of the people be right. It is my earnest wish to see it. Fondly would I indulge in fancy in gamingon such ii picture of the future. ith what rapture run we not suppose the spirits of our fathers would hail its openingscelwl from their mansion nbnycl such are mylm "1 9" in: On such contingencies; but if, instead c all the passionsof the day shall continue to bear sway. if preiudice shall rule the hour. if a conflict of races shall arise, if ambition shall turn the scale, if the sword shall be thrown into the balance against patriotism.if the embersof the late war shall be kept aglewing until, with new fuel. they shall flame up again, then our present gloom is but the onumbrii of that shadow.the deeper and darker eclipse which is lb totally obscure this hemisphere and blight forever the anxious anticipations and expectations of man kind. Then. hereafter. by someharditmay bBHIBI: The star of hope shone brightest in the West; The hope of liberty. the las the best; That too, has set upon her arkened shore. “ and hope and freedom light up earth no more. May we notall. on this occasion.on this anniver sary of the birthday of Washington. join in a fervent prayer to heaven that the Great Ruler of avert from this land such a fall. such a fatecv.acndtssmuaei a requiem?" This was received with the applause of the whole assembly. Now. ought we to deal with the mass of these men as if they were criminals indutent"? The doctrines that they held in relation to the character of the Government were not confined to the South; they had a place in what were called the free States. I stated when I had the honor to address the Senate on a former occasion, that the doctrine of the right of a State to judge for itself without being responsible to the Government of the U.S. whether the cams fmderis existed which would authorize the State to aban don her place in the Union, was by Mr. Jefferson in so many words announce. I have not the resolutions of ltentucky, of which he is known to be the author, by me, but I have an extract from a eulogy pronounced by the late John Quincy Adams on Mr. Madison, in which he says: Concurring in the doctrine that the separate States have a right to interposein cases of palpable infractions of the Constitution by the Government of the U.S and that the alien and sedition acts presented a case of such infraction, Mr. Jefferson considered them as absolutely null and void and thought the State Legislatures competent not only to declare. but to make them so to result their oxe oution within their respective borders by physical force, and to secede from the Union rather than subgiyitfotorctoh.cyinif attemptedto be carried into execution But I have said that that doctrine was not confined to gentlemen of the South. I find in one of c papers of the day a resolution offered at am eting in the State of Ohio some 7 years ago, in which the doctrine almost in the words of Calhoun was announced, said to have been reported by a committee of which one of the honorable Senators from Ohio, not now in his place, [Mr. WADE ] was a member, and to have been supported by him in a speech, and to have also been supported by a speech of the present Chief Justice of the U.S. It was during the excitement, as I understand, growing Out of the attempted execution of the gitive slave law. Ohio was inflamed. She deemed it unconstitutional. The Supreme Court had decided unanimously that it was constitutional, but she, in the exercise of her alleged right of judgment, deemed it to be unconstitutional, and having that opinion what did her people in council determine to do? What did they state were the reasons that had brought them to adopt that opinion? I beg the Senate to"bear with me while I read: On the25thof May. 1859b.ut little more than 7 ears ago a convention was held at Cleveland. Ohio. t was styled Conventionof the Sons ofLiberty and was resided over by Joshua R. Giddin s, lately U.S.Consul General for the Canada s. Upon its committee of resolutions. the chief man was BENJAMIN F. Wxos. then as pow. U.S. SenfromOhio. That committee brought forward aseries of resolutions. which were adopted.the principal one boip as follows: Resolved. That the several States comprising the U.S.A. united on the principle of nnlimited submissairoenntoot ernment, their General Gov title of a Cbuotnstthitautt.i obnyfcoormt iaset U.S. y, alendand of amendments thercto, theyconstitutedaGeneral goveSrtant meetonittfsoerlfc. Ethrtearines didefuinairtye powers.reserving. each ifilf Sovernment; massof right to theirown and that whensoever the General Government assumes undolegated powers.its actsare unalllhoflmllw void.andMac forCO and being void. tciaonn; derive no validity from mere judicial interpret a State. tahnadttmoapthinistmcoaml ppaacrttye;atchhat State acceded as a created by this compact.wasnot Government or madethe exulasivo hiial Judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself. since that would have made its discretion and not the Constitution the measure of its power; but that. as in all other easelofcompaet mom I)". ties having no oommon judge, each party has an equal right to Judge for itself. as well of lllilMllODS as of the mode and measureof redress." and that resolution it is said was not only by my friendfrom Ohio, [Mrs.uppAoDrEte, d but by the present Chief Justice of the U.S. an that was in 18.39; literally a tran script from some of the resolutions offered by John C. Calhoun. I have not cited it for the purpose of assailing the present loyalty of the Senfrom Ohio, but have cited it for the purpose of proving that holding such opinions as that even a few years ago is no evidence of present disloyalty. If the honorable member from Ohio has a right now, as he certainly has, and as it will be his pleasure I am sure to do, to renounce and denounce the doctrine which he maintained in 1859, these southern gentlemen have the same right; and if they exert it, ifihey do renounce and denounce it, why should not their loyalty be considered as dear as the loyalty of the men who ircseuted and supported the resolution to which I have just adverted? But it was no new thing. It ada place in Massachusetts, that State which now is giving us so many good political maxims. In the war of 1812, as we know historically, she refused to let her soldiers go beyond her limits. That it was an act of disloyalty, I felt then and have never doubted since. That for a time she was under (fliprobriiim, we all know. She has emerged out of it since, and stands among us now as a peer as loyal as the most loyal; but there were other times when she was obnoxions t o loyal criticism. Sir, in the debate in the HoRep of January, 1811, in relation to the acquisition of the territory of Orleans, as it then was called, Massachusetts was again on fire. The men of that day taught their people that there was under the Constitution no authority to acquire territory by treaty, and one of her most istingiiished sons, one whose memory will live as a scholar and a statesman (iiotwithstandin the language to which I am about to call teattention of the Senate) as long as letters live, Josiah Quincy the elder, now nthered to his fathers, full of years and full ofhonors denounced that act an act which has proved of such material advantage to the prosperity of the country as a flat violation of the Constitution and what did he say it was the duty of Massachusetts to do? I read from the Annals of congress a passage from Mr. Quincys speech on that oc casion: " Mr. Speaker. there is a great rule of human conduct which he who honestly observes cannot crr widely from the path of his sought duty. It is to be ver scrupulous concerning the principles you select as this test of your rights and obligations: to be very faithful in noticing the result of their application; and to be ver fearlessin tracing and exposin their immediate c ccts and distant cons uence s. nder the sanction of this rule of conduct, am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion, that, if this bill passes.the bondsof this Union are virtually dissolved; that theStateswhich compose it are freefrom their moral obligations and that. as it will betheright of all. so it will a the duty of some.to preparedoli nitely for a scpaation amicably if they can, violently if they mus." Has any gentleman whose credentials have been laid on the table of this body, ever uttered a sentiment so manifestly disloyal, so palpably unconstitutional, announcin that the purchase of Louisiana, if consummatcigl by an appropriation to pay the amountofpurchase money by congress, would lead to a separation to be attained peaceably if it could be so attained, but as far as Massachusetts was concerned, if it could not be attainvrl peaceably, to be attained by force? If he was here an applicant for a seat on the floor of this body, and the honorable member from Massachusetts was hiinselfa Senfrom that State, would he object to his bein admitted on the ground of disloyalty? An et he will say, I am sure, that the sentiment which I have just read as coming from his lips was as disloyal as anything that ever came from the lips of John C. Calhoun. Why would he not? Because he would know that he would be loyal now, and would prove an ornament to this Chamber. I question not the Senators motives, I have no right to question the motives of any Senator, and if I had I would not do it, because I am satisfied their motives are as pure as my own; but it is a little singular that dislo alty now, as proved by the expression of disloyal opinions in the past, is to take from the States a right of representation on this floor whu we have upon the floor a member whose loyalty nobody will now doubt, who has stood by his country in her recent peril as one of her firmest friends and supporters, willing to sacrifice all in vindicating her integrity, butwho 7 years ago announced to the people of his own State doctrines as heretical, and disloyal because heretical, as ever fell from the lips of any southern man. Ay and that doctrine had the support of the present Chief Justice of the U.S., who, like the Senfrom his State, is equally loyal now. Judicial interpretation in relation to the validity of the fugitive slave act, however unanimous, was as nothing if erroneous iu the opinion of Ohio; and if r scvered in upon the faith of such interrotation, Ohio, assuming to herselfthe sovereignty with which she went into the Union, claimed the right to decide for herself, notwithstanding decisions by Congress, decisions by the Executive, decisions by the judiciary of the U.S., whether the Constitution in the passage of the act had been violated, and if she came to the conclusion that it had been, to resist by force! A monstrous doctrine, fatal wherever entertained to the continuing existence of the Government, contra to the provisions of our fathers, inconsistent in m view with almost every provision to be foun in the Constitution, and yet honestly entertained. Who will question the honesty of Mr. Quincy? Nobody. Certainly none who knew him personall. Who willquestion the honesty of the honorable member from Ohio? Nobody who knows him. Frank, if possible, even to a fault, he carries his heart in his hand and who will question the honesty of the present Chief Justice of the U.S.? Mr. President, if the Chief Justice of the U.S. has not chaned the opinion which be entertained in 1859, e is not the man to sit in judgment upon Mr. JeffersonDavis, or anybody else standing in the like position. He might renounce him and I suppose he would to have been guilty of treason according to the letter of the law; but, with this resolution in his hand, he would say to the Dept of the Government in which the power of mercy is lodged, “ For Gods sake, as you value inc and my character, pardon, for he did only to a greater extent what I said I would have done or that my State should have done if the contin ency had arisen." Buti have wandered somewhat from the purpose of the argument. Let me go back to the condition of the States. My friendfrom Maine maintains that I am in error in supposing that the insurrection which prevailed for 4 years was at down only by virtue of that clause of the constitution which gives to Congress the right to use military force for the purpose of suppressing insurrection.