Mr. FINCK. Mr. Speaker, is there a state of war existing in this country? because it is upon this assumption, as I understand, that the legislation of this Congress in regard to the southern States is to be based. I deny that there is a state of war existing within the Union. There is not in anyone of these States a single arm upraised against the just authority and juris diction of the U.S. We are in a state of peace. The people of the State of Louisiana are in a state of peace. There is within that State no resistance to the Federal Government. There would be no difficulty about the restoration of these States to their just and rightful relations to the Federal Government but for the attempt of the majority of this Congress to perpetuate their power in defiance of the will of a majority of the Polo of the 36 States of this Union. The purpose is to compel these States to indorse the policy of these Radicals, whose doctrines, if carried out successfully, would subvert the Constitution and disrupt the Union. Sir, these men are not the friends of the union of these States under the Constitution. By their legislation they have committed themselves in favor of a dissolution of the Union. They are not the friends of the Union, because the very effect of this bill and kindred measures before the House is to prevent the union of the States and to strike down the great right of local government in the States. For, sir, if you may put the State of Louisiana under this kind of government to be organized by Congress, and deprive, her people of the free exercise of their constitutional rights, exclude their Sens&Reps from Congress until such time as it may please a majority of this House and the Senate to admit them, you may by the same exercise of power invade the rights of any other State and thus effectually subvert the constitutional rights of the joi. of any of the States and destroy their governments. Mr. Speaker, the voice of the people of the U.S. is not fairly rePresented on this floor. Not only are ten of the States utterly ignored and denied all rePresentation in either House of Congress, but even the people of the States which are rePresented have not their fair proportion of power here. Look at my own State, for I cannot go into an examination of all the States. Look at Ohio, with her 213,000 Democratic voters and her 256,000 Republican voters at the last election. What is her rePresentation upon this floor? That State has 19 RePresentatives in this House, 17 of those rePresent the reWublican.element in Ohio; 2 rePresent the and Conservative element of that State. 213,000 voters are rePresented by 2 members on this floor, 1 6,500 to each member 1 250 6,000 voters are rePresented on this floor by 17 members. It therefore requires nearly 7,000 of the Democratic voters of Ohio to exercise one vote here on this side of the House, while each 15,000 Republican voters of that State have one vote on the other side of the House. So that in effect it takes 7 Democratic voters of Ohio to equal one republican voter in that State in the power of rePresentation on this floor; and this gross inequality, I believe, exists almost to the same extent in some of the other States, while the Democratic element of the 6 NewEngland States have not a single voice in the legislation of this House. I repeat it, therefore, the voice of the people is not fairly ol.upon this floor. It is a struggle on the part of those who have power here to maintain that power, in my judgment, against the will of the actual majority of the people of these 36 States. When I denounce this measure, as I have already done, as revolutionary in its character I say but what is the truth. If you have the power under the Constitution to make governments for those States, not only to dictate their governments, but also to dictate who shall be their executive, legislative, and judicial officers, then you have the power to destroy all government within the States. It is an attempt, sir, not only to overthrow a government existing in one of the States, but it is an attempt to control that government, to take it out of the hands of your own race and to confer power upon another race who have heretofore been the servants of the white race of Louisiana. You propose by this bill to exclude and disfranchise the white citizens of Louisiana, and to enfranchise the negroes of that State so that they may have the power and control of the government of that State. And where do you get that power to do all this? Anywhere in the Constitution? You look in vain for any such authority in that instrument. Yet you assume it, and by what authority? By the law of nations and the law of war? They, Mr. Speaker, have no application to this case. You cannot rightfully today exercise any jurisdiction over these States by the law of nations; the only warrant you have for authority in the exercise of jurisdiction is the Constitution of the U.S., and that confers none which authorizes this bill. But, sir, I cannot in the few minutes allowed to me enter into any detailed examination of the provisions of this bill. Indeed, this mon strous measure is proposed to be pushed upon the House without any information or statement of facts why it should be passed. Your committee sent out to investigate the riot at NewOrleans have made a report, and yet, before that report has been printed and before we can examine the facts gathered by the committee, we are called upon to vote upon a measurelike this, which is revolutionary, which overturns one government and establishes another in its stead over 700,000 people in the State of Louisiana. The Gentfrom Massachusetts, the chairman of the committee, whose magnanimity went so far as to yield 2 hours for debate, was kind enough to say that these 2 hours were to be used by this side of the House, and he did not even in the opening of this debate venture upon any statement in justification of this revolutionary measure of deposing a State government by an act of Congress and creating another by the same assumed power. I admit, Mr. Speaker, this is not so starth ng a proposition as the one we had up the other day, because this affects but one State while that affects ten. But the doctrine is still the same. Both invade the rights of the people; both usurppower; both are revolutionary in their purposes; both are unwarranted by the Constitution; both postpone indefinitely the restoration to the people of these States their just rights and relations with the Federal Union; both invade the foundation upon which this Government rests, that all Governments derive their jo powers from the consent of the governed. [Here the hammer fell]