Mr. BINGHAM. Mr. Speaker, my objection to this 6th section imposing these additional disabilities rests upon the grounds I have already intimated. I hold that it is an interference in the 1st place with the right of petition in that people. Although they were traitors, they have “the right peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” In addition to that, it is a clear departure from the letter and spirit of that great amendment, which we have submitted to the people of this country for their approval and ratification, and which has already received the final ratification of the legislatures representing not less than 12 millions of the people of this nation. That amendment clearly imports that they may vote. Sir, it imposes no legal disability upon any person lately engaged in the rebellion South other than the disability to which I referred before ineligibility to office, military or civil, until such disability be removed by act of Congress. The amendment places all those persons in every other respect on an equal footing with their fellow citizens, and by express intendment, having placed this sole disability upon them, proclaims to them and to the world that by their acceptance and ratification of the amendment under a constitutional State government they may be restored as States to the Union, in. event they shall not be denied the elective franchise within their States respectively. I propose to stand by that amendment. The gentleman's answer would be to the effect if the amendment is adopted and made part of the Constitution, his bill if passed simply falls. That is a strong reason with me why his bill should not be enacted into law in advance. The probability of the speedy ratification of the amendment by the requisite number of States is a reason for the reference of the bill to the JtCom on Reconstruction for consideration until the American people decide the great question whether they will place this limitation upon our power. But, sir, there is a further provision in this bill to which I ask the attention of the House, and that is the provision of the 4th section. I think a more monstrous atrocity never was presented in the form of legislation to the American Congress for its consideration. It is that No person shall be deprived of the right to vote, or otherwise disfranchised, by reason, of conviction and punishment for any crime other than for insurrection or treason or misprision of treason. In order to understand the effect of this let me read from the 8th section. It is there provided That whenever the foregoing conditions shall be complied with the citizens of said State may present said constitution to Congress, and if the same shall be approved by Congress said State shall bedeclared entitled to the rights, privileges, and immunities, and be subject to all the obligations and liabilities of a State within the Union. What conditions, sir? Why the foregoing conditions in the provisions of the bill: a constitution, of State government which upon its face shall declare that no person for crime shall be denied the elective franchise or be otherwise disfranchised within the State, save persons convicted of insurrection, treason, or misprision of treason. What is this but asking this Congress to say in advance, if the insurgent States shall so frame their constitutions of State government, that thieves, robbers, and assassins shall never be deprived of the right of the elective franchise it will be approved; otherwise their constitutions will be rejected. o: bill will bear no other construction than this. It is no objection with me that the bill secures, in the election of delegates to frame a constitution of government, to all male citizens over 21 years of age, without regard to race or color, the right to vote. But it is an insuper able objection to this bill that it is decreed of perpetual obligation upon the State and nation never to be altered or abrogated; and that only in pursuance of its conditions can a State be admitted to representation or be permitted to retain representatives in Congress after admis slon. Mr. Speaker, while I am willing to exert all the essential powers of this Government as it now stands in protection of life, liberty, and property in the insurgent States, to govern them, if need be, as they now are for years, I will never, with my present conviction of duty, incorporate by law upon the statute book of this Union a provision which knocks out the corner stone of the fabric of American Government. I do not forget, sir, the words of Washington, transmitted to us. When about to surren der his public trusts he declared “the basis of our political systems is the ‘right of the people to make and alter their constitutions of government.’” The gentleman, doubtless for humane purposes, puts into this bill, in the 7th section, a provision that All laws shall be impartial without regard to language, race, or former condition. If the provisions of this section should ever be altered, repealed, expunged, or in, any way abrogated, this act shall become yoid and said State lose its right to be represented in Congress. I do not propose myself to support any such legislation, for the reason that with my present convictions the Congress of the U.S. has neither the power nor color of power to do this. It is in vain that gentlemen say it is only to protect the freedmen in their rights. God knows I am ready to go as far as he who goes the farthest under your exclusive legislative power in those disorganized States, and of which I have already spoken, to protect every one of them in all their rights: the right to enjoy the fruits of their toil; the right peaceably to assemble and petition this Government for a redress of grievances; the right to participate in the reorganization of the governments of the insurgent States; but I am not going, under the pretense of a mawkish humanity, under the pretense of throwing guards about the sacred right of liberty, to take away the right of a free people to amend and alter their constitutional government at their pleasure, subject only to the limitations of the Constitu.tion of my country. What does the 7th section say? “All laws shall be impartial, without regard to lan. guage, race, or former condition.”. Why, sir, in its fullness and extent it is a declaration by statute in advance that these States shall not exclude from the right of suffrage or from of. fice aliensin their midst, and not merely aliens, but men who come in their midst as paid spies or hirelings of foreign Governments; because, forsooth, they are come of another race or speak another language. Let the laws for the protection of personal freedom be the same for the alien as for the citizen; but let the laws regulating political rights restrict their exercise to the citizen. Sir, I am not to be thus driven into a violation of the letter and spirit of the Constitution of the country. Under it the rights of the States are as sacred as those of the nation; its express provision is that “The powers not delegated to the U.S. by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” o In strange conflict with this is the proposition of this bilh, that if the State organized and admitted under it exercise the essential powers of local State government thus reserved to the people, contrary to the provisions of this act, the State shall lose its right to be represented in Congress. The equality of the States and the equality of men in the rights of person before the law is what the Constitution enjoins and the people demand. Sir, this bill not only assumes to fetter the power of the State, but it assumes in like manner to fetter the power of the nation, by declaring as it does that If the provisions of this section should ever be altered, repealed, expunged, or in any way abro gated, this act shall becomevoid and said State lose its right to be represented in Congress. Suppose a future Congress should repeal it, would it not be repealed? Suppose it should alter or abrogate it, would it not be altered or abrogated? Is a State to be denied representation because Congress exercises the power that rightfully belongs to it to repeal the legislation of a prior Congress? I think instead of being a bill of reconstruction it is a bill of destruction; instead of being a bill of restoration it is a bill of disunion and perpetual dismemberment; instead of a bill to restore the disorganized States as equal States of the Union it is a bill to convert them into vassal provinces. And as for the bill introduced by my colleague, I beg leave to say, with all respect for the chairman of the ComTerritor, Mr. AsHLEY, of Ohio] that it needs a great eal of consideration before it can be passed upon safely by this House or accepted as a rule for its action. I do not intend to delay the House with any extended remarks about it further than to say this: that it recognizes in its provisions that those disorganized communities are States of the Union for Federal purposes, as they undoubtedly are, and will continue to be until Congress in the exercise of that general power to which I have referred chooses to degrade them to the condition of Territories, to partition them or to dismember them, which I hope Congress will not be in haste to do. Until Congress exercises that power and so legislates, the insurgent States irem.ain States for Federal purposes. confrom the beginning of the war to this hour as always so recognized them. It so recognized them in 1861, in the 1st year of the war, when it apportioned direct taxes among them as States and upon the basis of their representative population. The Congress recognized the insurgent States as States of the Union for Federal purposes in 1862 when it apportioned representation among every one of them as States of the Union, which bill stands unrepealed at this hour. The Congress recognized them when it made an appropriation to pay the salaries of the U.S. district judges in the States of Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama. There is no escape from the conclusion. I recognize our authority to reduce those States to Terri tories; but you have not so reduced them, neither is it made to appear that it is necessary so to partition and dismember them. By my colleague's bill those States are legislated over both as States and Territories. The Federal courts are there; and by one section of this bill men are held to answer in the district courts of the U.S. in the several insur gent States, and under another provision of the bill conventions, composed of delegates authorized to be chosen for the purpose of organizing constitutional State governments, are authorized to appoint judges for county and district courts in all those great States, to which courts so created are to be committed the issues of life and death. I want to know by what authority the Congress of the U.S. can invest a convention of delegates with power to authorize courts that are to sit in judgment upon the lives, liberties, and property of the citizens of the U.S. anywhere within the States of this Union? A gentleman inquires what right the President has to do it. No more right than the Czar of Russia; but that does not excuse the Congress of the U.S. for undertaking any such acts of usurpation. The judicial power of the U.S. can only be exercised in the States. Who ever hea of a district court of the U.S. in any Territory of this Union? You hear of terri torial courts, but there is no district court of the U.S. in Nebraska, nor in Utah, nor in Washington, nor in Dakota; but there is a district court of the U.S. in session today in the States of Alabama and mississippi and 2 of them, in Florida, as there are in NewYork and Massachusetts. Not withstanding the fact that the courts of the U.S. are established and oin the late insurrectionary States, this bill provides for the organization of courts with general jurisdiction over the lives, liberties, and property of men, and the judges of those courts to be appointed by a convention and controlled by a committee of public safety. [Here the hammer fell, Mr. BINGHAM's hour having expired]