Mr. PIKE. Mr. Speaker, in the remarks which I propose to make at the present time I shall not speak particularly upon the substitute presented this morning by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. STEvens, ] because I have had no opportunity to examine it; but I shall rather occupy the attention of the House in giving my opinion upon the present state of affairs with regard to the insurrectionary States than to enforce it by a recital of the facts and arguments upon which it is based. It has got to be time now for action if we are to fulfill the reasonable expectations of the country during the life of this Congress, and for one I am quite ready to act. 3 modes of dealing with those States have been proposed and are now before us for consideration and decision: 1. The President's plan of admission at once to a full participation in the Government, treating them as if they had never been inrebellion; 2. The let alone policy, which would merely refuse them representation in the General government until they had adopted the constitutional amendments proposed at the last session of Congress, with perhaps the addition of ne gro suffrage; 3. The immediate action by Congress in superseding the governments of those States set up by the President in 1865, and establishing in their place governments founded upon loyalty and universal suffrage. It is not worth while to waste words upon the President’s “policy.” It is resadjudicata. He explained it at length to the people before the election, and the better they understood it the more emphatically they condemned it. What little life his plan had during the last session of Congress was crushed out of it by the weight of the popular avalanche at the polls; and now that the Democratic party has deserted the Administration as rats do a sinking ship there are no mourners at its grave. It and its cognate, “universal suffrage and uni versal amnesty, ” are laid out of the question. We are not to allow the rebels to participate in the Government they sought to destroy without being somewhat shorn of their capacity for mischief; nor are we to purchase of them good conduct toward the loyal men in their midst by entire condonation of crime. We cannot afford to ignore all distinction betweenrebellion and loyalty just yet. Neither the past nor the future demand such action at our hands. The 2nd plan stands in a somewhat pecu liar position. The constitutional amendments should be adopted and will be. They have been sanctioned by the popular judgment in the most decided manner. There are no reasons why loyal men should object to them. But the question of their acceptance or rejection is quite outside of these States. It is one with which they have nothing to do. Should they persist in their desire to be admitted to representation, it is quite certain they cannot succeed during this Administration unless they each of them adopt these amendments. No State can have representation here that does not itself subscribe to them. such an adoption would constitute a badge of loyalty that is indispensable. Whether having adopted the amendments they shall be admitted is another and different matter. As yet there is no agreement to that effect. A bill was prepared at the last session providing for their admission under certain contingencies; but it failed, and its failure indicates an indisposition on the part of congress to hamper itself with pledges. Undoubtedly there were expectations on the part of many of the voters that those States would be admitted upon the adoption of the amendments. The national couninittee of the Union party issued an address to that effect. The constitutional amendments were called the “congressional plan” and antagonized against the President’s “policy.” It is not improbable that many members in the canvass declared themselves willing to vote for the admission of every State that should adopt these amendments. If so, they should fulfill their ledges. That should always be done. But it is matter of individual concern. There is nothing binding me, either as a member of this Congress or a member of the Union party. I have made no agreements here or elsewhere to admit the representation from any of those States upon such contingency, and do not proe to do so. Undoubtedly they would have been admitted had they or any of them adopted the amendments. It may not be too late now. I should not undertake to say what would be the action of the 2 Houses if they should at once accept the amendments. Furthering this idea, it is said that a propo sal is to be made that the House shall make a direct promise to those States in the shape of a resolution pledging admission to any State that shall ratify the constitutional amendments. But such a resolution ought not to pass. A ratification of the amendments by any of the rebel States is at most but an indication of loyalty on the part of the State ratifying. It has no legal significance. The amendment was submitted only to the States recognized by congress as States, and their action alone should govern the question of its adoption or rejection. f; one of those States should give such indication of loyalty as an adoption of this amendment would certainly be, and should accompany it by a grant of suffrage to all loyal men, of whatever color, I should cheerfully vote for her admission. But let them adopt it grudgingly and under protest, as Alabama did the great antislavery amendment, determined to give it in practice as little significance as possible, and refuse to colored citizens their rights, and I would not vote for the admission of such a State, for I should deem the Union better without her than with her. In any event I shall retain to myself the privilege of judging in each particular instance whether or not the State Fo shall be admitted to representation. am in no hurry about the admission of any of them. It is better they should come in gradually. They are incongruous elements at best; let them be absorbed by degrees and assimilate with the other States and thus do the least possible harm to the body politic. I Ero.test against any action here which shall the House to admit all these States to representation upon going through the formality of adopting i. constitutional amendment. They might do it as the rebels took the oath in Maryland, declaring it unconstitutional and not binding in conscience or law. They might declare themselves under legal duress and appeal to the Supreme Court for such protection as a majority of that body seems to be in the way of granting to rebels. I beg the House to commit itself to no such folly. “Every tub on its own bottom.” Let us judge each State by itself, and let us make up that judgment in the light of facts as they exist at the time we act. But there seems little probability that any of the rebel States will comply with the terms and seek admission through such channels. We shall adopt the amendment by means of 3/4ths of the loyal States, and then the question will come back on us in full force, what shall be done with the ten States not now represented? The fact that the amendments have become part of the Constitution by means of the action of the other States will make little difference in our action toward them. They should not be allowed to come back into the Union under the implied protest which the non-acceptance of the amendments by all of them would itself be. They went out on what they called constitutional grounds. Let them come back with no unsettled questions between us. Let them come like the new States of the West in harmony in feeling and interest with the States now comprising the Government. The Union is certainly stronger in all desirable elements as it now is than it would be with the other States in it as they used to be. We want no more nominal union with them. Let us make a clean thing of it, and settle everything that is to be settled between us. We shall never have a better opportunity in the whole tide of time. The 3rd plan I havementioned is for congress to act at once affirmatively, and, gathering up the elements best fitted for the purpose, proceed to constitute a State government which shall take the place of that now in operation under the sanction of the President. The present governments seem to have been the offspring of the military authority of the Executive. I see by the newspapers that Judge Ruffin, of NCarolina, pronounces the present government of the State illegal because the President's authority over the States has ceased by the advent of peace, and also because the conventions were called by him for special purposes, and when these things he required were done they were functus officio. Neither rebels or loyal men or even the Democratic party indorse the President's action. It is clear that the President has no authority to create a State. If, as he says, he found the rebel States “destitute of all civil government, ” he should have appealed to the lawmaking power to carry into effect that great clause of the Constitution guarantying governments to the States. And the governments so established have failed. Complaints are made to us from loyal men in all those States, and we are urged to interpose and protect the property and persons of citizens of the U.S. not now safe or rather entirely at the mercy of the prevailing lawlessness. The memorial of the loyal men of those States exhibits a state of things which should call for the intervention of congress if the statements are true. The reports of officers in charge of the depts in which those States are situated confirm the statements. GenlSheridan in his report to GenlGrant last month says: “But justice is not done. To give you an instance of this, 2 soldiers were shot at Brenham, Texas, about 2 months ago: they were unarmed and offered no provocation. The grand jury could find no bill against their would be assassins, but found a bill against Brevet Major Smith, 17th infantry, for burglary, becausehe broke into the house of somecitizen in his attempt to “My arrest thesemen. own opinion is that the trial of a for the murder of white man a freedman in Texas would be a farce, and in making this statement I make it be ca“uDsuertirnugth compelsme, and for no other reason. the last 6 months Indian depredations have taken place on the remote frontier. Their extent is not, defined as yet, but they are not very alarming, and I think that the Governor has to some extent beeninfluenced by exaggerated reports gotten up in soune, instances by frontier, people to get, a market for their produce, and in other instances by contractors to make money. “I have ordered 2 regiments of cavalry, to the frontier and placed a regiment of infantry at Austin, to be moved if necessary. “It is strange that over a white man killed by Indians on an extensive frontier the greatest excitement will take place, but over the killing of many freedmen in the settlements nothing is done. I cannot help but see this, and I cannot help but tell it to my superiors no matter how unpleasant it may be to the authorities of Texas.” His statement of the murder of soldiers is paralleled by that in SCarolina, where the murderers of 3 soldiers on the Savannah river in 1865 go at large and no attempt is made to othem. The court has decided that military commissions have no authority, and the civil authorities are indisposed. GenlSickles gives a better account of SCarolina, but he says of some parts of it: “In some parts of IBarnwell, Edgefield, Newberry, Chester, Laurens, and Richland districts, (counties.) in SCarolina, a freedman has little security for life, limb, or property apart from the presence and of a garrison of U.S. troops. here are other districts in the westernpart of South iCsa, rolina wherethe same insecurity exists. The truth that in certain localities of these States personal encounters, assaults, and difficulties betweencitizens, often resulting in serious wounds and death, have for years occurred without the serious notice or action of the civil authorities; and in those neighbor hoods where, it has heretofore, seemed to the population officious to arrest and punish citizens for assault upon eachother they can hardly be expected to yield with any grace to arrests for assaults and outrages upon negroes. It is precisely in theselocal ities that the most impatience is displayed at the presence of, ong violated acivgialrrlaiswonw, itbhecimaupsueniptyeodpislelikweho martial law or any other law that is enforced.” I am informed at the Freedmen's Bureau that in Georgia during the last year there have been about 150 murders of freedmen and not a single punishment. The Watson case in Virginia indicates the state of public opinion there. It is useless to go into details. The statements could be duplicated almost everywhere in the rebel States. Besides this insecurity of life and property these present governments have dotricised a large fraction of the loyal citizens of those States. In 2 States and perhaps more a majority of the whole population is so ostra. cised. Black men are in the same condition politically, now that they are citizens, as they used to be when they were slaves. Certainly, if ever the “U.S., ” in the language of the Constitution, were called upon to intervene, it would be for the relief of American citizens so situated. That clause in the Constitution is but a dead letter if it will not apply now. And I should hardly be willing to wait for a decision of the Supreme Court affirming the authority of Congress before we act. I notice that a decision is threatened against, such action. I do not know that it is improbable. But the court should recollect that it has had bad luck with its political decisions. The people of this country thus far have preferred to govern the country themselves and let the court attend to its law business. Both its great political opinions have been reversed upon appeal to the ballot box, and the general opinion of the bar of the country follows the popular verdict rather than the judical decisions. The Constitution, by furnishing Congress with a mode of etting rid of i. both President and court, evi intended to make it “master of the situation.” Of course its ultimate powers are not to be exercised upon slight occasions. But the questions with which we have now to deal embrace in their scope the well being of a large portion of the country and one 4th the entire population. As an industrial and political question weshall have none more important before us during this Congress. Having determined the proper thing to be done, it is the manifest duty of Congress to take all the constitutional methods within its power to compass it. And I know nothing that promises so good a result as to reorganize one or more of the insurrectionary States. Perhaps it would be wise now to make the attempt in such States as offer the best opportunities for success: a general bill, embracing the whole present difficulties in its execution, which would bid fair to shipwreck the attempt. Better allow a part to await future developments, getting along mean time as best they may. Nor do I see the with of establishing territo. rial governments, as is proposed. Why create a territorial organization in a State of a million inhabitants? Appoint a Governor from Washington, and provide that a delegate may be sent here to speak, but not to vote? It looks like a farce. It will serve no good purpose whatever. Certainly for domestic government it is not needed, nor to prepare the machinery to become a State. such an organization would be a laughing stock to the people in the State and out of it. But let Congress provide at once for a convention to frame a constitution, to be submitted to Congress for its approval. The principal question in such a case, upon which there would be division of opinion, would be as to to the qualification of voters. All who would favor such organization would of course insist upon ignoring color as a basis for suffrage; but should there be any other restriction? Both education and property have been at times insisted upon; but I have hoped that, since the prompt action on suffrage in the DistCol we had come to the sensible conclusion that “man was superior to his accidents, ” and go at once to a result which will be arrived at finally, delay it as long as we may. If men all over the country may safely be trusted with the ballot when it is in white hands, I know of no reason to apprehend danger when it is in colored hands. Let us have no adjourned or unsettled questions about this matter. Organize a government, give univer sal suffrage without regard to color; in other words, duplicate the suffrage bill in the DistCol, and then our friends across the way may begin to congratulate themselves that they are in a fair way to see the end of the “negro question.” The negro has been a hard antagonist for them..He has destroyed the Democratic party; and the only way now for any party to deal with him successfully is to do the fair thing by him and give him his rights! Let him have?. same rights as the white man, and be subject to the same disabilities. Then he will help to pay your debt and bear his share of the burdens of the Government. But restrict him, hamper him, and you make trouble for the future. It is only when the stream is vexed with dams and its natural course impeded that "you have care and anxiety. If we will but strike out boldly and rest the governments of the States we are to reorganize upon manhood, and not upon caste, I have entire faith we shall be successful and the “negro question” be finally settled. I confess I see no other course that promises the blessing of good government to this generation. Having done this, the present Congress may well leave the completion of this great business to its successor. Make the attempt with 2 or 3 of the States, I care not which, and the next Congress will, I have no doubt, so far approbate your course as in time to bring in all the States in the same manner.