Mr. SHELLABARGER. Mr. Speaker, this important bill is precisely what its title indicates, one “to provide a civil government for Louisiana.” The bill assumes as the truth upon which it is based a proposition that was uttered by him who administered the Government before the Present acting POTUS came into power, and which was repeated by the latter, that these revolted States have lost their civil governments. It assumes nothing beyond that. It does not touch what has i. to some extent, the controverted question whether their condition is exactly analogous to Territories or not. It simply attempts to restore to those States civil governments; nothing more, nothing less. Now, let me remind gentlemen on the other side, who have asserted so earnestly that this bill is unprecedented in its legal aspects. that they forget that the SCOTUS, in a well considered case, and by an opinion which according to my Present recollection was unanimous, decided that the Government of the U.S. in its Congress has the identical power upon which this bill proceeds, to wit: the power to decide whether the government in a given State is republican or not, and if it be found to be not of that character, to set it aside. That was decided in the celebrated RhdIsland case, so perfectly familiar to every gentleman of the House who is at all versed in these legal questions. Gentlemen, therefore, must not come to us with the charge there is anything starth ng, in this bill. My learned colleague who spoke a moment ago ought not to forget the very horn books of his law when he makes a speech to this House on constitutional questions. The Constitution itself speaks about a State being a State notwithstanding it may have lost its republican government. He upbraids this bill because it speaks of Louisiana as a State. So does your Constitution speak of States as things which may be States and yet not have republican governments, because it assumes that it is possible a State in the constitutional sense may be a State and yet have lost its republican government. Is not that alphabetical constitutional law 7 Do you not find it on the very face of the instrument, and why do gentlemen seek to startle themselves about a question of this kind?