Mr. BINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, I beg the House to remember that the t ree several measures reported by the ComReconstruction must be considered together as an entirety in order to determine the merit of the question immediately involved before the House in the adoption of the constitutional amendment. I do not believe myself, sir, that the purpose for which this committee was organized by the House would be fully attained i nothing more were to be done by the Congress of the U.S. than simplyto send to the people of the several States e proposition reported by the committee for the amendment of the Constitution. There are 3 measures, Mr. Speaker, and not, as some gentlemen seem to argue, but one, that have been reported by this committee. The 1st of these measures is a condition precedent to the reorganization and restoration to political power of any State lately in insurrection. That measure has more than once during this debate been lost sight of by gentlemen who have spoken. No State lately in insurrection, accordin to one of the measures reported, in case it shall become a law of the U.S., can ever exercise political powers in this Union until the ening constitutional amendment shall 1st have become a part of the Constitution of the U.S., by the consent of the Legislatures of 3/4ths of the States new maintaining their constitutional relations to the Government, and by the subsequent consent of the insurrectionnry State itself, the State also conforming its own constitution and laws to all its requirements. Additional to this there is yet another races are reported by the committee to which I attach rent importance and to which I doubtnot the Ioyal people of this country of every section will attach great importanco. That is the bill which disqualilies orever from holding any othee of honor or trust within the Republic ever leading and marked actor in the late rebellion. By that bill the resident and VEEP of the late eo edemte States so It will come out of the called will be excluded; the members of the 36th Congress who in any manner aided this rebellion will be excluded; allpersons who were educated at the national acade mies, naval or military, who have been endowed by the people with the power of knowledge, a ift next in value to the ift of the understanding with which the breat of the Almighty has given them, are excluded; the persons who represented this confederacy of treason and crime in any part of the habitable lobe are excluded; and above all and beyond a 1, allpersons who in any manner subjected to untimely death by exposure or neglect or the slow torture of famine or oison the cative defenders of the Union, are iorever excluded.The mere statement and concession of the peoples right to exercise this power, which is undoubtedly the sovereign right of the American people, by a congressional act, ought to have suggeste to the honorable Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. BANKS] that if it is need iul in this great work of reconstruction further to disfraiic ise the participants in this rebellion, it can be done in like manner by an act of Congress, and without a constitutional amendment. The franchise of a Federal elective office is as clearly one of the privileges of a citizen of the U.S. as is the elective franchise for choosing Representatives in Congress or presidential electors. They are both provided for and giiarantied in your Constitution. Why, then, prohibit rebels from the enjoyment of the 1st for life by an act of Congress and restrict the 2nd foraterm of years by a constitutional amendment? To be. sure we all agree, and the great body of the peopleof this country agree, and the committee thus far in reporting measures of reconstruction a ree, that the exercise of the elective franc iise, though it be one of the privileges of a citizen of the Republic, is exclusively under the control of the States. But, sir, the committee never intimated and never intended to intimate by any measure they have reported that any State lately in insurrection can exercise either that power or any other until it is restored to its constitutional relation to the Union save by the express or implied consent of the Congress of the U.S., nor that after being restored they can exercise that power contrary to the express conditions rescribed by Congress for their restoration. The power to prescribe these conditions is exclusively in Congress That is the philosophv of every measure of reconstruction now pending before the House and that is wherein it is opposed to the opinions of gentlemen on the other side of the House who have spoken, I am sorry to say and I say it without the slightest intention of giving oliense to any man not in the spirit of representatives of the people, but in the spirit of partisans. For myself, I cannot, approach the discussion of this great question, which concerns the safety of all, in the spirit of a parti san. God forbid that I slioul approach this subject in any other character than that of a representative of the peable a representative of the people not unmindtul of the oath which I took, sir, before your tribune. M