Mr. DEMING. I would inform the Gentfrom Wisconsin that I have not so thoroughly got the hang of this schoolhouse at present that I can consent to interruptions. As I am speaking without notes or brief, I tell him frank y that I cannot have m concatenation disturbed by interruptions. [Laughter.] Although this is the theory which I have uniformly maintained here and elsewhere respecting the nature of this rebellion, and although I do not believe that these vanquished enemies and “organized rebellions” have any reason for claiming that mitigation of the extreme rights of war which are accorded by modern usage to those who think they are waging a just war, yet. I deprecate and most emphatically disclaim any desire or purpose to apply to their case the or rigid of international law. But I do intend fairly, squarely, and firmly, to plant myself, in deciding the momentous issues before us, upon the milder interpretation of the rights of conquest, conceded now by every publicist and vindicated by all the wars of history, that we have the right, as victors, to impose any terms upon the vanquished which are necessary for the future security of the republic and for enforcing and redeeming all the pledges of public faith which the Government as given as the price of victory. I shall in sit at organize rebellions called by courtesy “ States, ” shall not resume their former rights without irreversible guarantees to national security and national honor. I shall insist that we the right, both as victors on the one hand and as legislators on the other, to exclude them from the Congress of the U.S. until the repetition of the secession experiment is place beyond a psiadventure; and no vote from any of these vanquished enemies shall, by my consent, endanger the public faith until that precious jewel is imbedded in the imperishable buttresses of the constitution. I am now prepared to declare with precision but. with brevity, what the national security and the public faith, in my judgment, require as conditions precedent to tere admission to the public councils of “public enemies” from States who for more than 4 years have deliberately divested themselves of every legal idea of a State as defined by public law, and of all the elements of a State which the constitution of the U.S. enjoins them to possess and maintain. It requires, 1st, that the Government shall be, absolutely protected from a repetition of the secession experiment by a provision in our organic law; 2nd, that the freedman shall be secured an absolute equality with the white man before the civil and criminal law, and shall be endowed with every political right necessary to maintain that equality; 3rd, that the public creditor shall be protected, as completely as organic law can protect him, from any repudiation or scaling down of the public debt; 4th, that the citizens, both of the rebel and loyal States, shall be protected, as completely as organic law can protect them, from any taxation, direct or indirect, for the payment of the rebel debt; and unless the equality of the freedman before both. civil and criminal law can be fortified by legislation here, under the 2nd clause of the amendment to the constitution giving universal freedom to the slave, we shall require. 5th, an amendment similar to that introduced by my distinguished friendfrom Ohio, [Mr. BINGHAM] “That Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to secure to all persons in every State equal protection in their rights of life, liberty, and property.” Much more than this we might rightfully demand; much more than this we might reason ably claim; but not can we fail to secure as conditions precedent to the readmission of these “ public enemies” to the public councils without being guilty of treachery to the living, to the dead, and to those who are yet to be. Having thus defined the relation of these in surgent. States to the Government according to public law and according to the constitution, I wish to address myself for a moment to the spirit, temper, animus of these “public enemies” at the present time, and to ask, what security have we that the indispensable prerequisites of national safety and national faith which I have enumerated would not be jeopardized by the presence here of the Representatives of those men, who, when the grass on these surrounding hills, which is now but just withered, was but just green, were pursuing us with the sword, with the firebrand, with pestilence, massacre, and slow starvation, as on that wild and awful night in the kalends of Aprilbut I forbear; the wedding follows so close upon the funeral that “The funeral baked meats Might coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.” We are here, in the full gaze of the nation and the civilized worldwith the future grandeur and renown of the Republic. We are here fairly coining and molding the rising eras and ages of a continent. We are here attempting to save an empire from being mortally wounded by that ball which has hardly yet spent its force, and which these new converts sped at its head when in mv regenerate bosoms burned all the concentrated flames of hell. We are here, having just rescued the Government from death on the field of honor, attempting to save it from the death of infamy which would follow its perfidy to the freedman who fought its battles and to the creditor who purchased its bonds and when here, under such oppressive responsibilities to the present and the future, tot e living and the dead, we ask, earnestly ask, like tortured Ajax begging for light, what proofstrong, convincing, overwhelming. as the enormous improbability of the supposition requiresdo you present that these redhanded rebels can safely participate with us in launching the now enfranchise Republic on its dazzling orbit of justice, probity, and freedom, we are forthwith answered by a flux of glittering generalities, which are no more proofs of loyalty than the dogged submission of the assassin Payne to his fate was proof of loyalty.” They accept the situation;” so did Payne. They submit to necessity;” so did Payne. “The as set of affairs is more promising than could have been expected, ” so it was in Paynes caseit was supposed he would kick and bite the executioner. “An abiding faith is entertained that their actions will conform to their professions;” that mustbe a “ faith like Tertullians, who said, impossible eat.” I see by the northern papers that some reverend gentlemen have been transcendently weak enough to bless God “ for having converted the southern heart to loyalty.” If this be so, StPauls conversion was rather a tame affair. If it be true that these fireeating, blood thirsty southrons, whose untamed insubordination, whose furious and vindictive passions, were the proverb and shame of our past have been sud only born again, then has the day of Pentecost met with an eclipse which amounts to a total obscuration, and the cpistles of Andrew have worked a greater miracle than the preaching of Peter. Why, Mr. Chairman, we all know that hy pocrisy is not one of the vices of southern character. There is no loyalty there which would support what I regard, or what the least exacting Union man should regard, as indispensableto the present and future safety of this imperiled nation. That most acute and patient observer of the southern animus, General Carl Schnrz, commissioned by the President to examine this very question, in the condensed essence and summing up of his most valuable report says: “ The loyalty of the massesand most of the leaders of the southernpeople, consistsin submissionto necessity. There is. exceptin individual instances. an entire absenceof that national spirit wtheh forms the basisof true loyalty and patriotism. "The emancipation of the slaves is submitted to only in so far aschattel slavery in the old form could not be kept up. But althoug the freedmuu is no longerconsidered the property of theindividual mus ter, he is considered the slave of society and all in dependentState legislation will share the tendency to make him such. The ordinances abolishing slai veryI passedby the conventions under the pressure of circumstances, will not be looked upon as barring the establishment of a new form of servitude.” This is the final exhibit of the keen observer deputed by the President to examine upon the spot the condition of the insurgent States. Sir, their conversion consists in bowing their still stubborn necks to a power which they could no longer withstand, and the instrument of it was the sword of Ulysseii. Their penitence consists in discovering that they have committed a blunder. When the Administration of Abraham Lincoln was inau rated 2 alternatives were before them. iey COUld. llflV8 staid here, tighting the Government from the inside as they addone for the last 30 years, and while warmed in its too gentle and forbearing bosom, marking it for slaughter and measurin it for the grave. They could have gone out an attempted an as sault upon it from the outside. They chose the latter. The raised their bloody hands in rebellion; an had no sooner done so than they found themselves confronted with the most puissant military Power which the world has ever seen when he irt for war, and when it had summoned its chi dren for battle. They went down with their shorth ved banner in the dust of humiliation and defeat and if there is any truth in this introversion into the southern animus, which has been laid before the country, they are, like a Wily and disco"! fited enemy, watching the chance to steal back and adopt the other alternative, and strangle the Government here in the very sanctuary of its powerand majesty.” Oh doubter and gain sayer!” I hear some ardent friend of read mission ask, ” have they not repealed the secession ordinances? Have they not adopted the amendment to the constitution and repudiated the rebel debt?” Oh. yes, with a command of countenance and solcmnity of visage which, under the circumstances, is truly marvelous. They have told all the beads, repeated all the aves, and pattered all the prayers enjoined upon them asacondition of absolution, but it is within the limits of possibility that they have done all this to purchase unlimited indulgence to sin; and not to be iuvidious in comparisons, I am told that Italian brigands are never so devout in kneelings, crossings, and paternosters, as when they are nboutto plunge afresh into crime. They have ratified the amendment to the Constitution, have they? But how have they ratified it? With a construction and gloss upon it which is more trumpet tongued proof of their perennial perfidy to the black race than all the hypocritical mouthings of acquicsccnce in emancipation which could becollected in a 6months hunt from Richmond to the Rio Grande. They have ratified itwith a construction that it merely abolishes the infitmy of buying, selling, and owning human beings; and under the exceptional clause (“ except as a punishment for crime”) reconstructed NCarolina is now sell in black men into slavery for petty larceny, an reconstructed SCarolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana are fettering the contract system with so many subtle formalities. forfeitures, and conditions, that a modern labor contract is much like an oldfashioned slave penal trap to hold the freedman to his work and cheat him of his wages. It is also true that in equivocal and guarded language they have recalled the secession ordinance and repudiate the rebel debt. But who can have faithin a generation of vipers? The next Legislatures may ree nact secession and reaffirm the debt, and I am determined for one to accept no bonds for their good behavior which they are at liberty either to cancel or steal. But the oaths! the oaths! They have sworn oaths to be faithful to the Constitution and to support the laws. Yes, In friend, they have piled Pelion upon Ossa in the shape of oaths; but, alas! they have taken all these upon their souls; and those who witnessed their perjured Sens&Reps, their perjured officers, military, naval, and civil, their perjured judges, and their injured curs of low degree, rushtn from the Bible which they had kissed to the reel congress and the confederate camp, will require more irreversible guarantees from the returning prodigals than those which end with “ so help me God l” Confidence is said to be a plant of slow growth, and if there is any kind of confidence which should be longer than the American aloe in blossoming, it is confidence in any oath which these convicted oath breakers can take. I have pursued this investigation thus far into the animus of the inhabitants of the disfranchised States by the intuitions of common sense, with the expectation that this process would guide us at least to the conclusion that the burden of proof in this case rests most signally upon those who claim that they are ripe for our embrace and for the immediate readmission of their Representatives to this floor. I was intending next to adopt a more systematic method of investigation with the hope of showing that the intuitions of common sense and the process of inductive investigation mutually mortify and vindicate the same general conclusions. [was intending to examine the southern animus as evinced, 1st, by their general, local, and municipal elections; 2nd, by the laws and ordinances which they have passed respecting the freedmen; 3rd, by the testimony of the special agent appointed by the President to investigate their loyalty; 4th, by correspondence from the infected region; and 5th, by the statements loyal citizens from the renovated States; and affirm that from all these distinct and independent sources of information the evidence is complete and overwhelming that southern loyalty consists in submission to necessity, and that their implacable animosity to the Federal Government, and to those great measures which have been inaugurated for liberating and enfranchising the slave, is merely biding e time when, by the return to these Halls of Its full complement of Sens&Reps, the misfortunes of the field may be redeemed in the forum. But as the whole body of laws and ordinances have not yet reached us, the materials for an exhaustive examination are not yet complete, and I must defer to some future period of the debate the results of such an investigation. I can assure gentlemen that when the results of such an investigation are brought to the intelligence and conscience of the North, no man can live who votes for the unconditional admission of these unregenerate and implacable foes to any participation in our legislation here. I am thankful that my feeble voice has been permit, ted at this early day to sound the alarm. I have thus, Mr. Chairman, defined my view of the relation of these insurgent States, as determined by public law and by the constitution, to this Government. I have indicated without vindicating the constitutional muniments which will be required to defend the cause we have won when “public enemy” shall be joined with us in executing our sacred trust. In doing this I have stated some of the principles which will government in this momentous crisis of my countrys history. Guided be them, I shall enter the dark and portentous c end which is still lowering before us without fear, with great hepe, but with no certainty. Upon the God of nations and the invincible strength of northern free men we must still rely to make our deliverance sure.