Mr. ALLISON. Mr. Speaker, when the question of the reorganization of these States, known as Housebiiine . 543, was under consideration a few days ago in this House, I voted with the distinguished Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. STEVENs, who at the last session reported the bill from the Reconstruction Committee, in favor of 2nding the previous question and against the reference of the bill to the JtCommee upon that subject, for the reason that I. it to be the duty of this Congress at the Present session to Present to the country some plan whereby the insurrectionary States could be restored upon the basis of loyalty to this Government. We have been told that that bill, by its reference to the committee, has been consigned to “the tomb of the Capulets.” Therefore, Mr. Speaker, I rejoice that this day there is another bill affecting, temporarily at least, this question of reorganization. For one, I am in favor of this bill, either as reported by the committee or with any reasonable modification that may be made to it in this House securing the adoption of a general plan of reorganization upon the basis of loyalty and justice. There is, in my judgment, necessity for im: mediate action on this general question; and I think the action of the House today has shown manifest progress. By our legislation today' we have declared to the country and to the people of these ten States that the legislative body of this nation, rePresenting its sovereignty, repudiates and ignores the action of the POTUS in establishing governments for those ten States. We have declared by our action today that this Congress has supreme control over this question; and we have brushed away by a single vote the question whether or not these are States within the meaning of the Constitution and entitled to any or all of the privileges and rights of a State. We have taken full and complete control of the State of Louisiana by the bill passed to day, and decided that Louisiana can exercise no functions whatever except as authorized by act of Congress. I have had no difficulty for yself upon this question of the status of the Febellious States, and have always believed that they were under the complete dominion of Congress and subject to its sovereign will and power. Now, sir, the POTUS has a plan of reorganization. His plan has been before the country, and has been repudiated by the people of the loyal States of this nation, as it has been indorsed by the rebels who now control these ten States. It is a plan whereby the rebels are to hold supremacy. Opposed to it is the plan of the people of this country, who desire us to declare by our action here that those governments shall be placed in the hands of loyal men. If we do not, by our action here and now, place the control of those States in the hands of loyal men we shall be derelict to our duty, and shall have forfeited the pledges which we made to our constituents during the last year, and upon which they acted at the polls, deciding by unprecedented majorities against the policy of the President and in favor of the policy that “loyal men should govern a Preserved republic.” I do not quite agree with the Gentfrom Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKs] wherein he tells us that for 2 years and a half we cannot restore these States upon a loyal basis against the will of the President, much less do I believe that we have within 2 or 3 days reached the happy moment when the President will place himself in accord with the views of Congress and the people upon this momentous question.. I have no faith, Mr. Speaker, that the President has any intention of yielding, in fact, one iota of the plan he has marked out for the reorganization of the States in rebellion. As I said before, his plan is to place the rebels in supreme power there, and anything which will contribute to that object will meet his approval, and whatever will defeat it will not be sanctioned by him, but opposed with all the power he possesses. But let him pursue that plan as he will, if we have the wisdom and the nerve to enact laws, as we are authorized to do, placing the power and control in the hands of the loyal men, the President is powerless unless he refuses to execute these laws in good faith; and if he chooses the latter, we can then, if not before, “take into consideration the state of the country, ” as mildly exPressed by the Gentfrom Massachusetts, [Mr. BANKs] I know of but one way to surely and certainly place this control in the hands of loyal men, namely, to treat as utterly void the governments organized by the President in those States. I am not aware that Congress has in any manner recognized these governments. But it has acted as though they were usurpin foro without authority or sanction of aw. We have certainly this day, in most emphatic terms, so declared in relation to the existing pretended government of Louisiana. I so voted today and shall continue so to vote as often as opportunity is Presented. This being done, we have only to authorize the loyal men of those States, without distinction of race or color, to organize new governments upon the basis of loyalty and justice. This should be done without limitation and without qualification. I want no property qualification, no 3. of intelligence in the enjoyment of the elective franchise. Let intelligence follow, as it surely will, the enjoyment of this great privilege of voting for those who shall govern. f we thus place the ballot in the hands of the loyal men I believe they have within themselves the power to control and direct affairs in all those States. Especially will this be so if leading and influential rebels are denied suffrage, even for a limited time. I have no fear but that now there can be found intelligence enough among the blacks to prudently and properly exercise the franchise. I believe the hope of restoration of republican governments in those States rests in the masses of the people, the uneducated, the poor, and now powerless masses. Certainly not in the aristocratic few, who, though vanquished by our arms, are still wedded to the idea that the strong should govern the weak at their own pleasure and will without the consent of the governed. Therefore I believe to stop short of manhood suffrage in our legislation is to trifle with the great subject, and render us ridiculous in the eyes of all those who respect popular government based on the will. judgment of the people. Mr. Speaker, I am not aware that there is now any party in this country that arrays itself directly against this principle of manhood suffrage. The leaders of the Opposition out of this House, if not in it, recognize the justness of the principle. The leading journal of the Democratic party in the West urges its adoption as the only feasible solution of our national difficulties; and even the NewYork World, in a recent article, recognizes its justice and the policy of adopting it in a modified form, and in the debate today I heard no one of the Opposition oppose the Louisiana bill because it provides for suffrage without reference to color. If this Congress shall adopt it as an indispensable condition of restoration, I venture to predict that no party in this country would be found assailing it, unless possibly a few of our Kentucky friends on this floor might see in its adoption the overthrow of free government. But no one will be alarmed at their position, as that State is always slow to adopt views consistent with our advancing civilization. I believe this, and such other conditions as the judgment of this may indicate, should at once be Presented to the people of the rebel States, in order that they may know what we expect of them, and that they may no longer rest under the delusion that restoration will follow their clinging to the repudiated theories of an Executive who has abandoned the principles upon which he was elected and betrayed the party that placed him in power. To them anything is better than unrest and uncertainty; like the criminal in the box, no moments are to them so long as those between the verdict of the jury and the sentence of the Court. Mr. Speaker, I have but one word to add in reference to the bill before the House. It is denounced as a measure of despotism, placing in the hands of the military absolute power over 8 or ten million people. I admit that it is a bill strong in its provisions. I am for one as desirous of Preserving the sacred rights of the citizen as any other man in this House can be. I believe the privilege of the writ of habeascorpus should be held sacred and inviolate as far as it can be. It has been held sacred for too many centuries to be trifled with lightly at this time. But, Mr. Speaker, we are told, and from the overwhelming evidence adduced we are compelled to believe, that in these ten insurgent States life, liberty, and property are unsafe. The civil governments organized there manifest their hostility to this Government and to loyalty as much now as during the war. It is therefore the bounden duty of the Federal Government, at all cost, to protect the life, liberty, and oof its citizens; and until we can do that by the organization of loyal civil governments we are recreant to our duty, to them, and to ourselves if we do not place over them the strong hand of military power. The concurrent testimony, so far as I have been able to read the letters and examine the reports, is that in those States neither the life, liberty, nor property of loyal men is safe. Now, if that be true, inasmuch as they have no civil governments in those States recognized by the lawmaking power of the nation, we have the right, and it is our duty, to place over them temporary military governments. Gentlemen who are supporters of the President need not be so much alarmed at this military rule in the southern States. Until the 1st day of August, 1866, all of those States were virtually controlied by the military power of this Government. They do not know that long after the surrender of the rebel army in 1865, along through the early part of 1866, even up to August, the generals of our Army were issuing orders contravening the enactments of the Legislatures of these southern States, exPressly declaring by general orders that the processes and mandates of this government should be obeyed as against the laws of those States and the judgments of their courts. GenlGrant himself, I believe, on the 1st of July, 1866, issued a general order to all his military commanders in those States to arrest and hold men who had been charged with crime in all cases where the civil courts either neglected or refused to punish them. GenlSickles in 1866, in SCarolina, and General Terry, in Virginia, each set aside statutes of those States by general orders, which orders were indorsed at the time by the President, and that long after the pretended governments were organized by the President and in full operation. This military law is no new thing to these rebel States. They have only been relieved from it 5 or 6 months, and these have been sad months to the Union men of that country. Who. in this House, on this side or the other, believes that if military law had been in force. in NewOrleans on the 30th of July, 1866, they would have had that scene of wholesale murder that transpired on that day? Who believes that had it not been for the telegraphic dispatch sent by AndrewJohnson to Lieutenant Governor Voorhees on the 28th of July, those murders would have been committed by rebel officers? By that dispatch he declared that the military power of the Government should be used for the purpose of enforcing the decrees and mandates of the rebel civil authorities in that city, and with that encouragement those murders were committed. Now, I desire to say that it is because of the interference of the POTUS with the military law which exists in those States that this bill is rendered necessary. In my judgment if we had today an Executive who was desirous of enforcing the laws of the U.S. to protect loyal men in those States, instead of defending the rebel element, this bill would not be needed. Those people are yet in a state of. o: rebellion at It is true, they have laid down their arms; but they have no civil government that is worthy of recognition anywhere as sueh. As was said by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. othe POTUS himself has declared that those governments are of no binding force upon the people of the country until they are recognized by the lawmaking power of the country, the Congress of the U.S. such assent has not yet been given, and I trust it will never be given, to a single one of these governments organized in the interest of the rebellion. Now, Mr. Speaker, believing as I do that this measure is essential to the Preservation of the Union men of these States, and believing that their lives, property, and liberties cannot be secured except through a military law, I am for this bill. But I say now frankly to the distinguished Gentfrom Pennsylvania, who has charge of it, that I hope something may be devised and added to it whereby the loyal people in the southern States may divest themselves of this military law by organizing civil governments that shall be republican in form and in fact, and that shall recognize the manhood of all men in these States. Let there be such an enabling act as will secure to loyalty and loyal men the control and direction of affairs, and then relieve them from the temporary power of the military authority of this. as provided in the bill. Mr. Speaker, we have but a few days more in which to pass this bill or any measure affecting this subject and have it become a law over the apprehended veto of the President. Hence, I regret that I have occupied even so much of the time of the House as I have upon this subect, It is imporiant, in my judgment, that this should pass, because if it does not I do not see how it is possible for us consistently to pass any measure before the beginning of the 2nd session of the ensuing Congress, which will be in December next. We ought not to legislate upon a matter of such vital importance to the country with any of the loyal States unrepresented on this floor. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that we should now have such legislation as will protect these people, not only temporarily, but such as will give them at least an opportunity of returning again to the Union with all the rights of rePresentation in both Houses. Let us discharge our duty here fearlessly and firmly, and leave the consequences, whatever they may be, to those who would embarrass restoration upon the principles of liberty and justice, in order that rebels may yet for a time hold sway over conquered States. I now yield a few minutes of, my time to the Gentfrom Maine, [Mr. BLAINE.