Mr. EDMUNDS. Universal in substance And in effect. My friendfrom Massachusetts neys he did not say “universal.” No, he did not: but what he said was tuntumount to universnl; and that is, that the whole body of southern society was rotten with treason. I do not believe it, sir. All the evidence that we bud proved directly the contrary. The evidence of the rebel government itself, its official acts from the beginning to the end, prove the contrary, and prove the truth of t)8 feet that all through the South, in the worst and oat truitorous districts, there were still apostles, and martyrs of liberty every day and every year. It is true. as my friendfrom Michigan Days, that by n fiction of low or some partie ulnr legal contrivnnee that he describes, they become legally enemies, although at. heart they were patriots. Thut is another question. Now, air, in! us look a little urther qt thisv state of southern society. What was the report to us from the armies of the West, who, as they went down the Mississippi and across the country to the ocean, had some opportunity to observe the state of southern society? Have we not been officially told that Sher man’s army got 1000s of recruits among southern white men, who boiled with joy the opportunity to shed their blood to regain the liberties tlmt treason had deprived them of ‘1 Are they traitors? I should be glad to have the Senfrom Massachusetts tell me. If they are traitors, they are the kind of traitors that I like. Look at it in another point of view, sup‘ posing it to be true, taking it for granted that there are some really loyal, honest men in the South, men who still have some respect for oaths; and I am bound to say that I differ from the Senfrom Massachusetts on this question of oaths in a degree, because it is within our experience in this Senate, at any rate, that cases are arising numerously every day in which we find that even rebels have some respect for oaths, because we are puzzled, the freasury is puzzled, the internalrevenue is puzzled, the Government is puzzled, to find men who are willing to swear that they have not been rebels, to whom offices are to be intrusted. If there was so much of perjury there it would be u very rare thing, indeed, that we should find any difficulty in selecting suitable men, because they would all be willing to commit perjury; but it. would seem that there is some respect paid to oaths even by a man who has been n.traitor. It does not necessarily follow that the greatest rebel in the world, (and who would have been a utriot if unfortu untely he had been suecessfu,) may not, upon occasions, as the English dramatist tells us, tell, the truth. We are desirous of consolidating this government, of making it again homogeneous and perfect in its relations to all its nuts, and the relation of all its parts to the whole. We are to provide not only indemnity for the past, to use on old phrase, but security for the future. We are to provide, as for as human wisdom (an, against future rebellious. We are to make treason dishonorable, unprofitable, distasteful. We are to hold out inducements to patriotism, and to hold'out the opposite to treason. How are we to do it? We have had the experience of a.rebellion; and the moment the rebellion is over and those men who have been true and faithful to us, who have fed our armies as they advanced, come forward and ask for the citizen’s'compensstiou, we tell them, in the language of my friendfrom Michigan, “ Is very sorry for you; you are a good man; you area true ntriot at heart, but by some fiction oflsw whi lthe lawyers have discovered, you became a traitor when you did not know it.”