Mr. HOWARD. Mr. President, the constitution of the U.S. declares that" Congress shall guaranty to every State in this Union a RFG. That is the power, I suppose, to which the Senfrom Missouri alludes. When it shall be made manifest to me as a member of this body that there is in any State in this Union a form of government which is not republican, I shall be ready to apply the remedy which is guarantied by that instrument; but I must at the same time say to the Senfrom Missouri that I do not believe that that clause of the Constitution authorizes Congress to pass a law, in reference to any State in this Union giving to the black people or any other class of people of that State the right to vote. In other words, I do not hold that the exclusion of the black race from the right of voting is such a depart ure from the principles or forms of a republican government as would authorize Congress to interfere. Sir, the whole history of the Government from the time of its formation down to the present moment is a standing, unmistakable contradiction of this assumption of the Gentfrom Missouri. That is all the reply which at the present time I have to make to the query of the honorable. Senator. I hold that this constitution of Nebraska is republican in form, that it embodies republican principles, and that in this respect it is a complete compliance with the enabling act of 1864. In the course of the debate upon the present bill a remark fell from the Senfrom Ohio [Mr. Shery AN] upon a collateral subject and a subject of very great importance. I under stood that honorable Senator to declare that Congress at the last session “proposed” to the rebel States, that if they would ratify the amendment of the Constitution proposed by Congress at the last session, they should be respectively readmitted into the Union, and permitted to participate in legislation in the 2 Houses of Congress. Doubtless, Mr. President, the honorable Senator said what he really believed to be the truth, for I should be very reluctant to have it inferred that I impute to him the slightest insincerity upon a question se grave and so momentous as this. hat statement has often been made, not very frequently, I believe, in Congress, but very frequently during the congressional can vass and in the various journals of the country. I take this occasion, so far as I am concerned to contradict it. Congress have never proposed to the insurgent States that if they would adopt the present amendment of the Constitution they should be readmitted as States of the Union to a full participation in the legislation of Congress. At the last session, after the most mature deliberation, we saw fit to propose an additional article to the Constitution, which upon being ratified by 3/4ths of the States of course I mean 3/4ths of the States in the Union and not out of the Union it should become a part of the Constitution of the country. But neither the committee of 15 nor either House of Congress, so far as my memory serves, has ever made such a proposition as that the rebel States shall be readmitted upon their ratification of this amendment.