Mr. ELDRIDGE. Oh, no; the gentleman certainly misunderstood me. I meant the troubles which the Republicans themselves were makin., Mr. BOHTWELL. The troubles of the gentleman and his friends are very likely to increase. But, Mr. Speaker, the chief object which I have now in view and I trust that in seeking to attain that object I shall not go beyond the line of parliamentary debate into the domain of partisan controversy is to show how the proposition now before us from that committee traverses the policy of the Democratic party with reference to the reconstruction of the Government. I admit that the policy of the Democratic body is a simple policy. It is a policy easily comprehende. this a policy in which for ten years, within my observation, they have been consistent. It is a policy which they laid dowq as early as 1856, in the platform made at Cincinnati, wherein the declared substantially for I cannot recite the precise language of the declaration as it is many years since read those resolutions that it was the right of a Territory to be admitted into this Union with such institutions as it chose to establish, not even by implication admitting that the representatives of the existing Government had any right to canvass those institutions, or to consider file right. of the Territory to be recognized as a State. Now, sir, from that doctrine, which probably had its oriin in the resolutions of 1798, the whole of tieir policy to this day has legitimately followed. 1st, we saw its results in the doctrine of Mr. Buchanan, announced in 1860, that, while the Constitution did not provide for or authorize the secession of a State from this Union, there was no power in the eigisting Government to compe a State to remain in the Union against its own judgment. Following that doctrine they come legitimately to the conclusion of today, in which they are supported, as I understand, by the POTUS upon the one side, and, as I know, by the testimony of Alexander H. Stephens, late VEEP of the socalled confederacy, upon the other. That doctrine is that these 11 States have to da, each for itself, an existing and unquestionable right of representation in the Government of this country, and that it is a continuous right which has not been interrupted by any of the events of the war. This is a simple policy. It is a direct pol icy. It is a policy which can be comprehended. It is the policy of the Democratic party. Now, whether the POTUS or the humblest citizen of the country accepts or avows it, he has no right whatever to call it his policy. It is the policy of the Democratic art. I {wishto lay before the House a proposition, and I beg the attention of Democratic Gentlemen to it. I have written out the proposition with some care, and I think that I state exactly, and I hope not unfavorably, the position of the Democratic party on this question. The proposition is this: 1. The Democratic party maintains that a State of the American nion cannot by its own acts separate itself from its associates. 2. That the events of this war, includin the individual, organized, and public acts of the nanometers an arose M! phople and governments of the 11 rebellions States, have not in any way changed the constitutional relations which previous to the war subsisted between those people and States on the one hand and the nations Government on the other; and, as a consequence, 8. That those States respectively, and the loyal people thereof, hava an immediate and unquestionable right. of representation; provided, always, that in one case the person elected now is, and heretofore has been, loyal to the Government and a supporter of the constitution of the country, of which fact each House is the sole judge on the question of the right of a claimant to a seat; and therefore, 4. That no legislation or amendment of the Constitution is necessary, or even proper, as a prerequisite to the full exercise of the right of representation in the Congress of the U.S. by the people and States lately in insurrection.