Mr. SHELLABA tGER. Permit me to express my profound gratitude for this indulgence, on which I will not long trespass. 1. If under this clause you may exclude a senator duly elected and qualifie in clery other respect and sense than that he comes from and is elected by disloyal States, then you yield the whole argument, and accord to this Government all the powers of selfpreservation which I am insisting upon. The difference is that you find the power of selfprotection under a clause by which each House is compelled to judge separately of the election and qualification of its members; and hence you occupy a position where you may have 24 States in the Union, in the Senate; 34 in the Union, in the House and Heaven knows how many in the Union for electing a President. 2. If you reply, I will reject these 23 rebel Senators, not because their States can elect none, but because they are “rebels, ” in the case on at; the reply is vain. When may son, lide 1, Davis, and Breckinridge last took their seats in your Senate, who knew, or could have proved, that they came there to embarrass and destroy your Government? Could either have been excluded from any known or ascertainable personal disqualification? No Mr. Chairman, there is no escape. If the U.S. has no power to decide, as a great and sovereign people acting through their Government, what shall be a “State” in her high Union, and cannot determine when, bu of the wreck and ruin of old States, have been formed new republican States, based upon the only foundations upon which a republican State of this Union can e built, that of the general consent and loyalty of its people, then indeed is your Government not so much as “a rope of sand.” It is a monster compelled by the organic law of its life to terminate that life by self slaughter. But, sir, such is not the law of its life. I have already shown that the President has discarded such conclusions. I now invoke the authority of the highest court of the Republic, and by thatI show that it has decided this question a so. I state the effect of this decision in the language of a distinguished law author (see I ishop, Crim. Law, sec. 183.) He says: “It has been settled by adjudication that it is for the President and the 2 Hausa of Conzress to decide whether a particular government within a State is republican or not; and to recognize it if it is, and to refuse to recognize it if it is not and the adjudication of the matter by them is conclusive and binds the courts on the nation. It is not thercforo for any class of personsin a State which has ceasedto havea government to set up a government of their own.” The language of the court is, (7 Howard, 42 and 43:) “Under this article of the constitution it rests with Congress to decide which government" of the 2 set? in RhdIsland “is the established one, for as the U.S. guarantics to each State a republican government, oiigress must necessarily determine what government is established in a State before it can decide whether it is republican or not. When the Sens&Reps of a State areadmitted into the councils of the Union the authority of the government under which theyare appointed is recognized by the proper constitutional authority and its decision is binding on every other Dept of the Government. Undoubtedly a military government established a! the permanentgovernment of the State. would not be arepublican government, and it would be the duty of Congressto overthrow it.” Mr. Chairman, here I must close. If it is asked me now, granti your position that these States in revolt cease to have any powers of government in the Union, still have not new ones been reorganized safe and fit to resume these high powers? I answer, sir, the question, “is it safe, and are they fit, ” are the stupendous facts now on trial by the American Congress. It was the whole end of the feeble argument which I have concluded to vindicate my Governmcpts Iiower to take jurisdiction of this inquest and hold this trial. But if I am demanded by what standard of fitness, and what guarantees for safety, congress shall decide these great facts now on trial, it will serve all the purposes of this argument and this hour to rep y that in the true and sense and high spirit of the memorable words oft is POTUS I find a fitting answer. He says: "No State can be regarded as thoroughly organized, which hasnot adopted irreversible guarantee for the rights of the freedmen.” Mr. Chairman, let this noble utterance “irreversible guarantees for the rights" of Americon citizens of every race am condilimibe written with pen of iron and point of diamond in your constitution. Let it thus be made “irreversible” indeed, by the action of the State, in the only way it can be made irreversible; and then, to establish this and every other guarantee of the constitution upon the only sure foundation of a free republic the equality of the people and of the Statesmake, by the same organic law, every elector in the union absolute by equal in his right of representation in that renovated Union, and I am content. Let the revolted States base their State governments upon a general arne public cearne loyalty of the people and come to us under the guarantees of this renewed Union, and we hail their coming and the hour that brings them. If you ask again, “Suppose such cuernl loyalty should never reappear, shall tiey be dependencies forever I” Sir, convince me that the case is then with deepest sorrow suppOSflhle I answer FOREVER.