Mr. COWAN. That is sufficient for my purpose. I do not wish to enter into any personal controversy with the Senator. He has aright to do with his 5 eeches as he pleases before they are sent to the country. I have no complaint whatever to make of that; but I think it would be well in all cases where a controversy has arisen as to the identical words of a Senator, he should leave his speech to be published according to the notes of the reporter. If I misunderstood the Senfrom Massachusetts yesterday, I of course was willing to make any retraction or apology which was necessary in order to set him right. I thought I did not misunderstand him, and being positive in my opinion at that time I asserted that he had made use of that word which implied treachery on the part of the President. I say it is enough, though, that he admits that that speech has undergone supervision in some of its parts. There would have been no dispute if the President had not been attacked esterday, if his appointees had not been attac ed. It was that attack which I met, and it was that error, as I conceived it, which I desired to correct. But, sir, this is not the 1st time, it is not the only time, that these attacks have been made. It is well known to the country that ever since the President announced that he was opposed to the imposition of negro suffrage upon these uthern States, but was willing to leave that question to the States themselves, there has been a systematic and continuous warfare upon him; and it is upon thatquestion that the party is divided, if it be divided at all. My honorablefriend thinks it is not divided; and as it is not necessary to speculate on this point just at this time, I will simply say that we shall all be wiser about it after next fall. What is party fealty, Mr. President? What is the criterion as to whether a man is a good party man or as to whether he is a bad party man; whether he betrays his party or whether he is faithful to it? Is it that he always votes with the majority upon ever question that is submitted to the Senate? Ii certainly do not i of his speeches, is today a Democrat. understand that to be the rule; and if it is the rude, I am free to so I am not a party man and never can be made one under any circumstances, and I think it would be a sorry day for the country and for the Senate if men were to become so slavish as to do that thing. If this is a free country, and if it is to be governed upon the great principles of liberty of which we hear so much, thought and o inion must be free; men must be as free to dissent as they are to agree, and as free to agree as they are to refuse. What, then, does a man agree to when he belongs to a party? As I understand it, when a national convention meets it establishes certain principles, and the members of the party, as gentlemen, agree to stand upon those principles and abide by them. This is not positive. A man may change his mind even upon these principles; and when he does it, and honestl avows it, he honestly avows himself out of the party. But as to every other thing, not embraced in that platform, and as to all other thin to which he never assented I never heard that any gentleman was bound to lay down his private opinions and yield them to a majority. A majority may be right; it may be oftener right than a minority. but we have no evidence of it heretofore in the history of the world. Now, I think it would not be very dilficult for me to demonstrate that the honorable Senfrom Massachusetts, according to the tenor Why? The last half hour of the s cech he has just made was nothing but a verication of Democratic predictions. I am a Union man; I have always been a Union man; and I was a Union man because I had faith in the Union; and I not only bad faith in the Union, butI bad faith in the people of the Union. I not only bad faith in the people of the Union North, but I bad faith in the people of the Union South and I have today. What was the burden of the last half hour of the Senators speech 7 It was to show that union is impossible. What were we told, at the outstart of the war by the Democrats? They said, “You are all wrong in making war; you cannot preserve the Union by war; you will only widen the breach, and you will only make it more difficult than ever to compromise your differences.” What was said by the Union men? They said, “The southern people are misled by factionists; they have not lied a fair opportunity of determining in this matter; a large majority of them have always been in favor of the Union, and always opposed to its disruption; if the are propery supported and properly treate, and the factionists are put down and the conspirators routed in every direction, the people Wilfeomo back to their allegiance if we treat them as we ought to treat our fellow citizens and men with whom we expect to live in union and harmony they will behave very well, and everything will go on just as it did before." What was asserted in the Chicago plat form of 1864, of which the honorable Senator complains? That the war was a failure. A failure in what way? That the war was a failure because it could not restore the Union. The men who made the Chicago platform, I suppose, were just as honest as the honor able Senator himself, and I suppose the had quite as much stake in the niou. his is another thing, I reret to hear, to have 1/2 the people in e out to be traitors. If I thought i lived in a community where 1/2 the people were traitors, or where 1/2 the people could not be trusted with the administration of the Government. I would leave it. What did the men who met at Chi cago in 1864 say? They said the war was a failure. They did not mean to say that it was a failure because it did not kill anybody, because it was not full of great battles, because it did not cover the earth with blood and slaughter and desolation. They did not mean to say thatbut they meant to say “You cannot reconcile your differences with the southern States in that way, and so far it is a failure.” What did the Union meavuyi“ No; it is auto failr if I are; just wait until the war is over and then we will heal our differences, and we will animus before; everybody will be under the dominion of the Constitution and the laws.” That was what Union men said, and it was upon that theory that the war was conducted. What then? The war is overthe southern people submit, and submit to whom? Not to the onorable Senfrom Massachusetts, or to the Senate of the U.S., or to the POTUS or to anybody else. Nobody asked them to do so; they had no right to do so; but they submit to the constitution and the laws. If there is a rebel in the South today you have his neck in your halter. What more do you want? “Terms” do you say? What right has an officer of the law, when a resisting elon yields himself, to talk to him about “termsT The felon, the vilest though.he may be, covered with crimes of the deepest dye, ins a right to say to the otheer, “ who imposes terms? I am under the law." These men are under the law; they have come back and done precisely what all wise and good men I think, said they would. They regret their olly. They have suffered and atoned for it. Talk about punishin ! Was there ever a people so punished on earth efore? I ask Senators in all candor and sincerity is there a man on the earth who would be willing to inflict any further punishment upon the peo: ple as people? Is it, not the law and the rule of history and of polities that war urges the peeplo? What man ever attempted, and succeeded in the attempt, to punish a conquered people? Nobody. No just man of good sense ever tried it, and no one ever tried it but what failed. Then the rebellion is put down and we ati tempt to restore the Union. The honorable Senfrom Massachusetts gets up and the whole burden of his speech here is to prove that the Union cannot be restored, that the southern people are just as bad as ever, that they are just as rebellious as ever, and that, in fact. the rebellion exists there just the same as it ever did, except that it is not carrying muskets, or standin behind cannon, or riding a troo ers horse. T tis the argumentsjow, I ask imwherein that differs from the Chicago platform of 1864. How far is be away really in opinion from his Democratic friends who were in favor of that platform?Icannot see it, I must confess; and, sir, what is more, I am unwillin to verify that remarkable passage in that p atform. I did not believe it at the time it was made; I do not believe it now. I believe with my friendfrom Wisconsin [Mr. DOOLHTLE] that the Union will restore, and that it will restore immediately, and that all that is necessary to restore it is for a few men to forget their animosities, to turn their attention in a charitable direction instead of that of crimination. If it will not restore, why are we sitting here? If it is impossible to reconcile this difference between the loyal and the rebellious States, if it is impossible that the hearts of these people can ever come into union with us, what do we expect to come from it? Hold them as vussals, as conquered people? What benefit shall we derive from that, and how long will you hold them? You will hold them precisely as long as on have force to holdt em and no longer. this certainly not to be expected that men of our race would submit to any domination of any kind imposed upon them longer than that. Mr. President, the doctrine that the rebel States are in that condition, that their people are in that condition, is disunionism; instead of reconstruction it is obstruction I believe that was the word used by the Senfrom Wisconsin. Impregnate the people with that idea, satisfy them of its truth, and the Union is gone beyond a peradventure, because Gentlemen will remember that a Union is not a thing of force, a Union is not a thing to be imposed upon a people. A Union imposed upon a people is called by another name; it is a yoke, an that yoke will be thrown oh"when ever the 1st and fitting opporhlnity occurs; and any speech, any utterance made with the intent of establishing that fact today is disunion, and it is of the same kind with and will have the same result as those speeches had and were intended to have at the outstart of the rebellion, in which we were told, “Union is impossible; you cannot restore it by war.” It is in the same spirit and will be followed by the same result as the declaration of the Chi ca O platform of 1864that the war was a failure.