Mr. JOHNson. I know it is. Butall the members of the State Legislature, all the judicial officers of the State, are compelled to take the oath prescribed by the Constitution of the U.S.; and I suppose it is fair to estimatgthat persons will be excluded who held office 20 and 30 years ago, as well as those who held office at the time the rebellion broke out. Now, I put it to Senators to say whether they think that these southern States will, with such a restriction as that, accept this constitutional amendment. If the amendment was in separate articles, so that each article might be acted upon separately by the States, the rejection of some of the articles would not be so fatal, perhaps, as will bearejection of the whole. Suppose the whole is rejected, and it must be if any part is, where are we? Just where we are now. Where are we now? As far as arms are concerned, peace has returned; as far as harmon.is concerned, peace is apparently as far 0 as ever; and what is to be the effect upon the prosperity of the States which are to be kept in this condition of thralldom? Who will go as immigrants into the southern States? Who will invest their capital, who will engage in the cultivation of cot ton and of rice and of sugar? And justin proortion as these products are lessened, just so in proportion is the prosperity of the whole country dela ed. I have ha occasion to say more than once, and the idea is so fully impressed upon my mind that I hope the Senate Will excuse me for reiterating it, that we ought to consider, it is due to justice to consider, it is due to generosity and magnanimity to consider, that many of the men who will be excluded by this constitutional amendment from sharing in the honors of the country believed that the Constitution as it stood gave them the right. to secede. Illegal as the notion was in my judgment, yet some of the brightest intellects in the country, North as well as South, maintained the same doctrine; and the war, therefore, in which we have been engaged was not a war like the civilWars which have existed in other countries. It was a war growing out of a difference of constitutional opinion, to say nothing of any thin else. The opinion entertaine by the Sout was as honest as was the opinion entertained by the North wrong, dangerous, unconstitutional, inconsistent asI think it is with the continuance of any Union to be formed out of the States of the U.S., but still honestl entertained. Now they have become satisfie by the result of the conflict that their doctrine was one which could not he main taiued and never will he suffered to exist as long as the people of the U.S. are true to the interest and the prosperity and renown of the country., Why, then, should we exclude the numerous class that will be excluded by this revision? Do you not want to act upon the pubin opinion, of the masses of the South? Do you not wan g, to win them back to loyalty? And if you do, why strike at the men who, of all others, are most influential and can bring about. the end which we all have at heart? That. my friendfrom Indiana properly construcs the obligation of that oath have no doubt. I think every lawyer in the Senate would say, every states' man within the sound of my voice would say, that for no not done after the termination of the official term of the officer, inconsistent with the Constitution of the U.S., by him who had been the incumbent of the office, could he be indicted for perjury; and if'he'could not be indicted for perjury, it could only be because the legal obligation of the oath I am not speaking now of the mqral obligation expired at the termination of the term of office to which the party had been elected or appointed. Then as to the moral obligation, what does it add to the force of that moral obligation which allegiance as between the Government and the party owing the allegiance creates? Treason has been committed against the U.S., according to the letter of the law and according to our understanding of the law; but. it is neither more nor less treason, it is not a milder or more aggravated t pe of treason, because the parties who may have committed it may at some time or other have taken an oath to an port the Constitution of the U.S. I an man was indicted who had not taken that oat, he could not be permitted to urge in his defense or in extenuation of his crime that he had never taken an oath to support the Constitution. But this amendment does not go far enough. I suppose the framers of the amendment thought it was necessary to provide for such an exigency. I do not. see but that anyone of these gentlemen may be elected President or VEEP, and why did you omit to exclude them? I do not understand them to be excluded from the privilege of holding the 2 highest offices in the gift of the nation. No man is to be a Senator or representative or an elector for President or VEEP