Mr. DEMING. Mr. Chairman, I propose to submit some remarks to the committee perti nent to that paragraph of the Presidents message wherein he Wisely refers to the House the question of the readmission of members from the insurrectionary district, and I submit them now because they will serve to vindicate votes upon questions of this nature which we have already passed upon when no opportunity for explanation was a orded, and because, also, they will vindicate the opinions which will guide me when similar cases shall hereafter be presented. I had hoped, in rel to the resolution offeredb in colleague, fifin Baasnsossfl that we should have been urnished ere this with copies of the laws and ordinances which have recently been enacted by popular conventions and provisional legislatures in the enemys country, that our judgments might have been enlightened upon the important part of reconstruction which has been graciously submitted to the wisdom of Congress. r I In the absence, however, of such valuable aid, must govern myself by the principles which have hitherto uniformly uided the executive Dept in administenn the reclamations of its sword, and by such si edand uninflam matory facts as the powersthat be, with a consid crate regard for the public health, permit to dribble out from officia channels of intelligence. If we had been engaged in a war with England for the last 4 years, the legal effect and liabilities of such a conflict upon the 2 partics would have been clear and unmistakable, for the legal relations of 2 nations belligerent to each other, as well as the legal relations of their respective inhabitants, are as fully and accurately defined by the law of nations as the relations of landlord and tenant or grantor and grantee are by the municipal law. As respects the nations, is war instantly an nuls the most solemn comacts and treaties, and destroys all the claims o one belligerent upon another, exec tthose which may be sanctioned by a treaty o peace. As respects the citizens of the 2 nations, it instantly converts all of them into a state of enmity to each other in utter contempt even of their own animus or predilections sothat in the case supposed a war with England eobden, were be alive, and John Bright and John Stuart Mill audl Thoinas Hughes, owever much they might oppose the war, and however amicable they were to this country, would be, in the eye of the law, our. i enemies Just as much as the cabinet ministers who advised it, and the generals, ndmirals, soldiers, and sailors who were carrying it on. The 1st blast of war would immediately render unlawful all intercourse, commercial or otherwise, between the people of the 2 countries. contracts which were in existence at the commencement of the war would be suspended, and those entered into during its continuance void. The insurance of enemies1 property, the drawing of bills of exchange or pure use on the enemys country, the remission of bills or money to it would be illegal and null. Existing partner ships between the citizens and subjects would be dissolved, and all trade and intercourse, direct or indirect, would be comletcly and absolutely interdicted by the mere lorce and effect of the war itself. All the property of the people of the 2 countries onland and sea would be iable to confiscation and capture, with certain qualifications ns to property on land, and all debts interchange by due would be liable to forfeit ure at the discretion of the respective Governments. Judge Nelson in Prize case, 2 Black.) Now, thereis one fact which in all the fog and bewilderment which surroun s present issues, looms out in promine tand starth ng relief. We have been for the las 4 years “ in a state of war;” not, it is true, against any foreign nation, but against certain States which once owed allegiance to this Government and afterward confederated to ether for its destruction; and the existence of this “state of war, ” with a full knowledge of the legal meaning of that phrase, and of the legal consequences which attach to that state, has been repeatedly recognized both by the legitirnate and revolutionargJ Governments, an by all their Depts; y the 2 Executives, in levying and marshalin armies, and hurling them together with all the implements and a encies of destruction; by establishing a blocfiade and issuing letters of marque by virtue, and by virtue only, of a cessation of peaceful relations; by both Congresses in solemn and deliberate enactment tantamount to declarations of war, as by the act of the confederate congress, at Montgomery, of May 6, 1861 entitled “An act recognizing a state of war, as by the act of this Congress of July 13, 1861, generally known as the non-intercourse act; recognized by the full play and operation, with all their machinery for confiscation and forfeit ure, of the courts of prize, in abeyance during peace and only liberated and set in motion by the inexorable necessities of war; recognized by foreign nations, which have conceded full belligerent rights to each party to the contest; recognized, finally, by the highest arbiters of conflict between the State an Federal authority known to our system, the SCOTUS, which, by the voice of all its judges, has unanimously declared that from the 13th day ofJuly, 1861, “a civil territorial war has existed between the U.S and the confederate States.” and this war, the same august tribunal declares, commenced in no tu multuous and unorganized insurrection, but was organized by bodypolities calling themselves States, claiming to be sovereign over all persons and property Within their respective limits, and asserting a right to absolve their citizens from their allegiance to the Federal Government. As States they seized national forts, arsenals, customhouses, navyyards, postoffices within their boundaries; as States they extinguished every pliaros upon their coasts; as States they raised armies, fe vied taxes, loaned their credit, and issued bonds for supporting the war; as States they adopted a new constitution and confederated togct or into a hostile government claiming to be sovereign and independent, and waged, to sustain the claim and secure its recognition by the world, a war so vast in its proportions, so terrible in its destruction of life, so a palling in its barbaiitics, so damnable in the monstrous horrors which it conceived and executed, that all the nationsfrom “China to Peru ” stand aghast. as crash after crash of such awful thunder reachcs their affrighted ears. Now, how does this war, in such frightful terrors clad, and so notorious, organized by States claiming to be sovereign, and we edby those States united into a government claiming to be inde cond ent, differ from a foreign war in the beligerent rights which it bestows upon us and in the legal consequences which it entails upon our enemies? t differs but in one essential particular. A civilWar, as absolutely as a war infer genies, confersuion the parties to it full belligerent rights and the corresponding liabilities of a pertect war. Need, to substantiate this position, appeal to those great public jurists whose weighty maxims are the imperial rescripts to the international code? Need I summon here Grotius, himself a refugee from civilWar, the founder of these imperishable statutes, which, as by an elemental force, hold warring nations from rushin madly from their spheres into the chaos and darkness ofutter barbarism, to say "That acivilWar between members of the same society is amixed war, public on the sideof the Government, but private on the part of the igcoplqrcsist authority“: get such awnr cntitles bot belligcrent parties to fu clligcrent rights?" Need I summon one to whom public law is scarcel less indebted, but who wrote a century later, that attcl may reiterate With more precision that “A civilWar breaks the bands of society and ov cinincnt or at leiustsusncnilstheir inrce and c cct: itproducosin the nation 2 independentparties. who considereach other as enemies. apd acknowledgeno common Judge. Those 2 parties, thercfurcm, just necessarily be considered as coustituting, at leastfora time. 2 distinct societies.” Need I appeal to Riquelme, who declares th“at When a part of the State takes up armsagainstthe Government, if it is sufficientlystrong to resistits notion and to constitute tw opartiesof equallybalanced forces. the ciiistenoo of civilWar is thenceforwardde termined. Iithoconspiratorsagainstthe Government have not the meansof assumin this psition. their cmivoivl ementdoes not passbeyon arabelion, Astrue war breaks the bonds of society. by dividin it in fuel into 2 independent societies. it is for t in consideration that we treat of itin international law, since each(partyformin asitweroaseparnte nation, both should he regards as subicct to the laws of war. This subjectionto the law of nationsis the more no cessa in civilWars, sincethese. by nourish ingmore hatr s and resentmentsthan foreign wars. require more the corrective of the law of nations in order to moderatetheir ravages.” Need I “ call upon Bello, who says: When a faction is formed in a State. which takes up arms against the sovereign, in ordor towrest from him the supremepower or impo2nditionsonbun; or when a republic is divided into 2 parties which mutually treat each other as enemies, this war Ll called a civilWar, which menuswar between fellow citizens. ClVll wars frequently commence by popular tumultswhich in nowiii cconcern for curpnations; but when one faction or party obtains dominion over an extensive territory, gives laws to it. establishes a government in it. administersj justice and, in award, excrcises acts of sovereigntv. it is a person in the law of nations; and the foreign fowers which desire tomaiu tnin their neutrality ought to consider both as 2 States. Independent as respects one anotherandother States and who recognize no judge of their differ once sj Or, in order to define more precisely the great and ervading change which has been produced in terelation of the insurgent States and of all their citizens to this Government by the war which the have waged, need I quote the decision of the Supreme Court in the memorable prize cases, where, upon a point raised, it is expressly affirmed that all within the hostile territory “arepublic enemies and liable to be treated as such;” that the U.S. may exercise full belligerent rights, and that to the antagonist party a lthe legalliabilities and consequences of war necessarily attach; the sole element of distinction, according to the court, between the legal effects of a civilWar and the legal effects of a foreign war, being, that in the former the party claiming to be sovereign may exercise fu l belligerent as well as sovereign rights? Or need, finally, to corroborate this position, cite the uniform action of the executive dept, which, since hostilities commence. has pursued the enemy With investon, blockades, armies, fleets, seqpestration, conscription, militar commissmn, courtsmartial, by virtue of its o aim to full belligerent rights; which has received from them ngs of truce, granted to them paroles, passports, and safe conducts, and negotiated terms for a general surrender in deference to their possession of belligerent rights; and which, since their Military power has been broken, has ruled them by military governors, dictated conditions of permanent peace, superseded laws and muni cipal elections, suspended Governors elected by themselves, arrested the judgments of their local courts, and administered their local affairs in 1,000ways which would be utterly without justification unless it was abundantly justified by the laws of war, and without ving dication under the constitution unless it was abundantly vindicated by that construction of it for which I am here contending? Now, if I am right in the position which I have. assumed, that the “civil territorial war" in which we have been involved differs in none of its legal effects (except in the particular which I have indicated) from a foreign war, then we are able to define with precise accuracy the legal relation of the insurgent States and their citizens to this GOvernment since they 1st. appealed to wager of battle. U to the time their military power was bro ken by the universal surrender of their armies and the universal trailing of their unhonored flag, the States were hostile States, and their citizens “ public enemies, ” with belligerent rights and belligerent rights only, entitle to claim no benefit from laws or constitution, whether that constitution be called a compact, a treaty, or a covenant, or whether the parties to it were States in their sovereign capacity, or the people Of the U.S. as individuals. An since the surrender the legal relation both of the States and individuals has been that of vanquished enemies, with their lives, property, and political system absolutely at the mercy of the conqueror. Having thus tried these States by the accred ited maxims of public law for the purpose of ascertaining their precise legal relations to the Government they have conspiredto destroy, I was intending here to aply to the insurgent 11 the touchstone of the constitution, and see what powers it confers upon States as States, what rights it secures to States as States, and what duties and obligationsit enjoins as essen tial, inevitable, and necessary equivalents upon States as States, for the purpose of deducing the comforting conclusion that a State under the constitution has no rights, and can exercise no power, which discharges no duty and spurns every obligation. But this proposition has been so ably discussed by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. SHELLABARGER] that I am willing to leave the dogma, that organized rebellions are States, just where he left it, crawling and writhing under the blows of Mr. EEBRIDGE. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question at this point?