Mr. BRANDEGEE. Mr. Speaker, I shall ive my support to the bill now before the house, reported by the select ComReconstruction, with all my heart. Of all the various plans which have been discussed in this Hall for the past 2 years to my mind it seems the plainest, the most appropriate, the freest from constitutional objection, and the best calculated to accomplish those 2 master aims of reconstruction. 1. The garnering up of the fruits of our victories. 2. The restoration of peace and union upon the only stable basis upon which peace and union can be restored; liberty to all, rights for all, and protection to all. It begins the work of reconstruction at the right end, and employs the right tools for its accomplishment. It begins at the point where Grant left off the work, at Appomattox Courthouse, and it holds those revolted communities in the grasp of war until the rebellion shall have laid down its spirit, as 2 years ago it formally laid down its arms. This bill is founded upon the indisputable law of nations as affirmed by every publicist from Wattel to Halleck, ancient or modern, and denied by none whose word is an authority “That the victorious belligerent may and should hold the vanquished belligerent, in the grasp of until he shall have secured all the issueswhich hawvaer been involved in the contest, obtained absolute protection to addedguartahneteaellsies who have aidedhim, and such as shall forever securehim agaiust the renewal of the contest.” Founded upon these principles which have passed into the axioms of national jurisprudence, the bill is justified by the fact to I challenge contradiction that thus far not one single issue of the late colossal contest has been settled, not a solitary irrepealable guarantee has been obtained, and no protection other than a mere mockery and insult secured to those allies to whom, in the depth of your distress, you cried out in agony for assistance and succor. Mr. Speaker, 2 years now in the coming month of April have elapsed since the great rebellion forthally laid down its arms. What have you thus far obtained for the 350,000 of your 1st born who sleep in bloody shrouds in these cold blasts of the coming spring? What for the $4,000,000,000 of debt, for the payment of which you are compelled to rob the earth, the air, and the sea? What one traitor has been punished for his crime of crimes? Where upon this broad continent has treason been made odious? What protection is there today to loyalty, black or white, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande? What indemnity have you for the past? What security even for the future? What guarantee against a new rebellion? A new rebellion! Why, Mr. Speaker, tha old rebellion has not yet been supPressed; it still lives; it dominates in every one of these the constructed States; it has made loyalty odious and treason respectable by forcing trai tors into the gubernatorial chairs of ten of the 11 of these revolted communities; in ten out of 11 it has sent traitors who auda ciously demand seats upon this floor; it has clothed treason with the ermine on the bench of the ten revolted States; it has filled their o: halls of local legislation; it has armed treason with the sword of the law in ten of the States; it holds today the pen of the Press, that weapon mightier than the sword; it des: ecrates the word, of the Most High from all their pulpits;, it hisses out curses against the Union from the sibilant tongues of its women and the prattling. lisp of its babes; it proscribes and hunts to their deaths that noble army of martyrs, the Union men of the South; and it, scouts and throws back in yourteeth the mild and merciful terms of reconstruction offered in the constitutional amendments of last session. It no longer creeps upon the ground as in the 100 days which followed Sherman's marvelous march to the sea, or the awful thundering of Grant's cannon in front of Rich mond; but it stands erect, defiant, and auda cious, demanding as a right to accomplish by legislation what it failed to achieve by the sword; and, countenanced by a weak, if not a wicked, Executive, and sustained by its copper su at the North, it erects its brazen brow to the sunlight and beats at the doors of the Capitol "Paroa meta, primo, mox seseattollit in auras,ingreditur que solo, et caput internubila condit.” Mr. Speaker, something must be done. We must do it. The American people demand that we shall do something and quickly. already 1500 Union men have been massacred in cold blood more than the entire population of some of the towns in my district whose only crime has been loyalty to your flag, and in the single State of Texas alone, in all the revolted States, upon the testimony of your ablest generals, there is no safety to the property or lives of loyal men. Is this what the loyal North has been fighting for? 1000s of loyal white men i. like partridges over the mountain, homeless, houseless, penniless today throng this capital. They fill l. hotels, they crowd the avenue, they gather in these tessellated and marble corridors, they look down from these galleries and with supplicating eyes they ask protection from the flag which floats above the Speaker's chair; a flag which to them has thus far unfurled its stripes, but concealed the promise of its stars. For myself, may my right hand forget her cunning and my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth if I desert them. We must stand by them; we owe it to them, to ourselves, to our martyred dead, to the God of nations and of justice. This bill alone can Preserve them; other schemes of civil reconstruction can come by and by. The duty of today and now, of this hour, is to stand by the men who stood by the flag, the noble Union men of the South, black and white. For one I mean to do it to the end of the chapter. Believing this bill justified by the undoubted law of nations, demanded by the necessities of the hour, recommended by all the highest military authorities, and necessary to the Preservation of the true men of the South, I give it, Mr. Speaker, my eordial support. I see no other way out of our difficulties; and while I am ready to extend the olive branch of peace when it can be received in the spirit of peace, I now vote to unsheath the great sword of the Republic and place it in the hands of the greatest captain of the age, that he may demand once more, in the name of the God of justice, the “unconditional surrender of the rebellion.”