Mr. ROITSSEAU.No.sir: I cannot be interrupted now. I depart wish to saythat when a membercan so far know, from what everybody believes he ought to and does know is the truth.it is a degradation, not to his State, for he cannot degrade her, but to himself. in this paragraph be distinctly charges the Gentfrom Iowa. [Mr. GRIKNELL] with saying 2 things which the record shows he did not say. In other words, the Gentfrom Kentucky very plainly misrepresented the Gentfrom Iowa in 2 particulars, which have been so fully discussed that I hardly need refer to them again. One of them, however, has not, as I think, been properly appreciated or represented by any gentleman who has spoken, and I will advert to it. It is this: the Gentfrom Kentucky charged that the Gentfrom Iowa had said in his place in the House that he did not know whether the Gentfrom Kentucky had fought on the Union side during the war or on the rebel side. Whereas the gentleman really said. “I care not whether the gentleman was 4 years in the war on the Inion side or 4 years on the other side; but I say be degraded his State and uttered a sentiment I thought unworthy an American officer.” Now. I think that gentlemen have not been exactly correct in their comments on that passage. It is quite a different thing to say, “ I do not care whether you fought on the nion side or not, ” from saying, “It makes no difference to my present argument whether you fought on the Union side or on the rebel side.” Now.I hold that the remarks of the Gentfrom Iowa had precisely the latter scope and meaning. He had stated as his opinion that a certain sentiment uttered by the Gentfrom Kentucky was a disgrace to that gentleman's State, and a discc to himself, whereupon General SMITH,0 Kentucky, said he did not think his colleague ever used the words imputed to him, and called attention to the fact that his colleague fought. 4 years in the Union Army. It was in response to that remark that the Gentfrom Iowa said what I have referred to, and I think I have accurately stated the scope and purport of his remark. I do not believe that it can be fairly inferred that he did not care whether General Rousseau fought on the Union or rebel side. It was simply a declaration that the whole question of fighting on the one side or the other was not perhnent to the subject then in debate. The Gentfrom Kentucky, in reopening this conflict of personalities between himself and the Gentfrom Iowa, on the 11th of June, also made another misrepresentation. He declared that the Gentfrom Iowa had called him an unworthy member, and a disgrace to his State, because he had declared that he would defend his family against the agents of the Freedmen’s Bureau. This is clearly misrepresentation, as the record in the Globe already quoted shows. After having made these 2 palpable! misrepresentations he proceeds to say that what the Gentfrom Iowa had uttered in the House in Feb ruary was not only false, but that he did not suppose there was a member on the floor who believed aword that the gentleman said. And he went on to say that the gentleman himself knew that it was not true; and he concluded by saying that the gentleman, in what he had said, had not degraded his State for he could not degrade her but that he had degraded himself. 4 months and 3 days after the 1st controversy had closed, with about equal credit to both parties, the Gentfrom lien tucky not only reopens it by 2 palpable misrepresentations of what had been said by the Gentfrom Iowa, but he goes on to declare at every member knew it was false; that the gentleman himself knew it was false, and that e degraded himself in saying so. Suppose Mr. Speaker, that the Gentfrom Iowa had answered not a wor, but had applied to the House to pass a vote of censure 0n the Gentfrom Kentucky for this personal, slanderous assault, is there a member of this House who would not have felt compelled to vote, if not for a censure, at least for a most marked disupprohation of the conduct of the Gentfrom Kentucky? Gentlemen say it was a terrible thing for the Gentfrom Iowa to iinpute cowardice to the Gentfrom Kentucky and assail his military record. I beg them to remember that to be a man is far greater than to be a general; that lobe a man is far greater than to be a legislator; that the man is greater than the office, and that one's manhood is of far more consequence than his professional reputation. I had athousand times rather be charged with being a failure in the military profession, a failure as a legislator, a failureas a lawyer, a failure in all my official relations, than to be charged with being a fail ure as a man. Now. when a man is told on the floor of the House that he is a falsificr, and that every body, himselfincludod, knows he is a falsifier, what, I‘ask, can be said more offensive? Stin ing under this reproach, smarting under this charge, the Gentfrom Iowa attemptedto make an explanation at the moment, and the privilege of doing so was denied him by the Gentfrom Kentucky, who proceeded with that portion of his speech which I have quoted. When he had concluded, the Gentfrom Iowa obtained the floor and responded to the attack as follows: “