Mr. SUMNER. The letter is dated in Texas, November 19, 1866, and, as I have alread said, it came to my desk here yesterday. read as follows:, TExas, November19, 1868. DEAR SIR: The really loyal men in this part of Texas concur in thinking that the 1st move of Republican party the at the approaching session 9f congress s hould be the passage of an act abolishing the sham State governments that have been set up in the South without authority of law, and declaring all their acts, except so far as on revision they may be affirmed by competent authority, to have been null and void from the beginning. If that is done wethink that everything else required to be donewill be easy. Petitions will be sent on from here to that effect. Governor Hamilton will be requested to have them presented. Our socalled Legislature adjourned on Tuesday last. It was a worse and more disloyal body than the I convention., All its members, except about 6, showed by their speeches, proposed bills, and acts, that they were not merely in law, but in fact, public enaessmeideasr of the U.S. unt Tthoe nelaitwhserthmeoyrheanvoer eeffseset than Faociulnnirnegsltyo rdaetvioisned of slavery.intIenredfeedr ttoo their public and general laws, and not to the batch of roguish charters and special statutes which they have enacted. Some of them do not contain the word “freedman, ” but they are aimed at the poor freedmen nevertheless. For example: the acts in regard to nla, beoxr, emtrpetsion passes, apprenticeship, stay of execu and regulating county courts, are intended to reestablish slavery, and that in a worse form than before, under which the responsibility for the sick and the very young and aged will not be attached to anyone in particular. The leading object of our legislators seemed to be to make contracts to labor specifically enforceable, and at the same time, by stay and exemption laws, the contracts to pay for the labor unenforceable. By the county court act they arranged it sothat the freedmencould be gotat in the way of prosecution for offenses without the intIesrvinecnetrioenly hoof paegr and jury. that Congress will declare that no isntsauturrteecstoiofnliamryitation shall be held to operate in the States until they are reorganized and readmitted. The act of 1864 is not broad enough. Limitation should not, on principle, be held to run where there are no lawful tribunals. I learn from persons of character that some of the members of our “Legislature” (Mr. Short, anex rebel captain, for instance) boasted in private that they h President, taken the amnesty oath prescribed by the only and that in one county of Texas where 13 of the inhabitants had taken that oath some 200 voted at the last election. Will Congress prescribe an oath? If so, ought it not to require all inhabitants, without regard to sex, race, onreg color, under penalty of being precluded, in caseof or refusal, from inheriting, or asserting rights in any form in any court of justice, to register themselves and take the oath which may be prescribed 2 haveinserted the word “sex” after much reflection. The women keep the rebel spirit active in the South, All women fear to take ajudicial oath, and in general observe one when taken. If the rebel women who now exciteand exasperateonly swear allegiance they will subside into quietude. Besides, the registration might furnish the censusof the South now wanted. We have beenin a horrible state of suspense here. Had the earlier northern elections gone against the party I should have had to promptly make my escape from Texas, if indeed, I could have ot off at all. Thespirit of rebellion downto that time adwared fiercer and more intolerant than it was at themiddleof 1861. Many loyal men left, and all who could, and with whom I conversed, told metheywere preparing to leave. Since thoseand the later elections the rebels, opolicy, have been more quiet. Deeming it my duty to remain as long as practicable, in order not only to aid in any move thought advisable, but to keep the loyal press of the North informed of the actual condition of affairs here, I have remained and suffered. Congress does not wipe out all that has been done, but abandon the loyal whites and the poor freedmen to rebel rule, I must and will emigrate. Many otherswill do the same. In what a horrible condition will those beIwho cannot got away! WanFte, main with high respect, your obedient ser Hon. CHARLEs SUMNER, of the U.S. Senate, Boston, Massachusetts. That is a letter from a gentleman with whom I have been in correspondence now for some 2 years, whose character I know well, and for whom I vouch. I should not read the letter on this occasion if I were not entirely sat isfied of the character and intelligence of the writer. It is in the nature of testimony which the Senate cannot disregard. It points out the way to our duty. We must, sir, follow the suggestions of this patriot Unionist and erase those governments under which these outrages are perpetrated. The writer calls them “sham governments.”. They are governments having gnoine, lement of vitality. They are disloyal in ori and they share the character of the rebellion itself. We must go forth to meet those governments and the spirit in which they have been organized, precisely as in years past we have gone forth to meet the rebellion. The rebellion, sir, has now assumed another form and our conflict is no longer on the field of battle, but it is here in this Chamber and in the Chamber at the other end of the Capitol. Our strife is civic, but it should be none the less strenuous.