Mr. BINGHAM. My friendfrom Pennsylvania says, “and have it vetoed.” I am not fearful of any veto at the other end of the have nue. I believe no veto can defeat the final passe e of either of the measures reported to the I House. nor can a veto defeat the final triumph of this constitutional amendment before the people. The success of the amendment here depends upon no veto. It does not O to the President for his sanction. Touching, however, the other question, the veto of the bill, even with the provision of the 3rd section added to it, I do not believe for a moment, that the President will veto it, and for the reasons suggested, which I have not time to enu merate now, by the Gentfrom Massachusetts in the citations he made from the Presidents proclamation of the 29th of May last and the just deductions he drew therefrom. I can vote for the amendment with the 3rd section in as readil as without it. It raises no question of power; itimposes no unjust disability. It involves a question of policy, not of power. The sovereignty of the nation can unquestionably disfranchise the persons referred to, not only until 1870, but until 70 times 70 shall have passed over them, if it pleases God to allow them so long to live upon the earth. The question upon the 3rd section, and the only question, is, what do we gain by put ting it in the constitutional amendment?If thereby we endanger the adoption of the amendment in the Senate, or its final ratification by the requisite number of States, we should omit it. It has been said that the 3rd section is incapable of execution if adopted. I beg leave to say to the House that in my opinion an amendment that is not to be executed to the full, and which is incapable of full execution, ought not to be put into the Constitution. My honorable colleague from the Columbns district, [Mr. Susuamnosn] in m judgment, suggested, in the few remarks which he made yesterday, the only method by which the Government of the U.S. can enforce the 1st clause of that section, and that is by making a registry law for congressiona districts, and the election of Representatives to Congress all over the country, and appointing election Officers to conduct the same. The 1st clause only of the 3rd section can in that way be executed; but is there anybody here who proOses to send Federal election officers into assachuse tts or NewYork to control the elections of Representatives to Congress? The amendment, sir, is of universal application, and if adopted, it is to be enforced in every State in the Union. Ihere arevoters within the operation of this section in every State. I have no objection to their disfranchisement, but are you going to enforce the provision if adopted? If not, why retain it? Is it to be retained simply to furnish demagogues a pretext for raising the howl that we exclude rebels for 4 years only that we may control the next residential election? Honest, intelligent, and reflecting men will se out such a suggestion, but the calculating and the careless or thoughtless may accept and act upon it to the hurt, the lasting hurt, of the sacred cause this day in your hands. How, I ask, can the last clause of this 3rd section be enforced? That clause of the section excludes until 1870 all rebels from voting for electors for President and VEEP I venture to say that by the very letter and inteudment of the Constitution of our country the great seal of a State, duly organized and exercising its functions within this {Tuiontouching the appointment of electors for President and VEEP, is final and conclusive upon Congress, except when the certificate shows that the electors were apointed on a day other than that rescribed y the Constitution or the laws. The Constitution has provided that these electors shall be apointe by each State in such manner as the legislatnre thereof may direct; that the Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the U.S., and that the electors shall certify their action. If the State and the electors certificates show that all these provisions have been complied with, Congress cannot go behind them and inquire who voted for the electors. If, on the contrary, the certificate from any State discloses that the electors did not meet on the day prescribed by law, as was the fact in the Wisconsin case, to which the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. BANKS] referred, of course the Congress could reject the vote from that State, but where the certificates are regular, where they show a due appointment of electors, that the electors were chosen on the day prescribed by law, and met and voted for President and VEEP on the day prescribed bylaw, Congress cannot go behind the certificates; neither can the 2 Houses of Congress, in joint convention or separately, investigate the question. The appointment of electors for President and VEEP is the act of a State and not of individuals. “ Each State shall appoint, " says the Constitution; therefore the not can be evidenced only by the certificate of the State officials, under its great seal, which imports absolute verity. How couldoCorgress say the appointment was not the act of the State against the certificate and seal of the State? The remarks of some gentlemen to the effect that under the Constitution we could enforce the 1st clause of the section by inquiring into the election of members of the House or of the Senate, do not apply to the last clause, because the express language of the Constitution is that “each House shal be the judge of the elections and returns” as well as the “qualifications of its own members.” There is no like grant in the Constitution that each House or both Houses in joint convention may inquire into the appointment of electors; therefore the 2nd clause of the 3rd section of the amendment is useless. giventure to say that clause is useless unless, indeed, by implication Congress is to declare the express text of the Constitution as I have cited it repealed by the proposed amendment when adopted, and that by virtue of it congress will prescribe by law the mode and manner of appointing electors for President and VEEP, in the face of the existing provision of the Constitution that “each State shall appoint the electors in such manner as theLegislature thereof may direct.” Who will sa, if this amendment is adopted, that the State legislatures may not direct the manner and each State appoint elect ors? To what, then, are we reduced? This amendment does not disqualify any rebel or aider of the rebellion from voting at all the State elections for all State officers, nor does it disqualify them from being appointed residential electors. It amounts, therefore, to t is: though it be adopted, and made part of the Constitution, yet all persons "who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, ” may vote at all the State elections for State officers, and, being largely in the majority in every insurrectionary State, may elect the State Legislature, which may appoint electors for President and VEEP, and from aught in the amendment may appoint rebels as such electors. It seems to me, sir, that it must by this time be apparent to members of the House that this clause of the amendment is neverto be executed until that part of the text of your “Constitution is stricken out; or in other words, that it will require another amendment to the Constitution to enforce this clause if adopted. I trust, therefore, that when the vote comes to be taken on the ending motion to strike out which is offered) by way of instruction to the motion to recommit, it will be adopted, and that afterward the House will, if it deems it important, put such a provision as to the election of Representatives to Congress as vit has the lawful right to do in the bill of disfranchisement. Mr. Speaker, there is another section which simply prohibits the U.S or any State of this Union from ever assuming or paying any part of the rebel debt or makng compensation for emancipated slaves. I do not believe that there is a man on this floor who can answer to his constituency for withholding his vote from that proposition. It involves the future fidelity oft e.uation. It is a declaration in solemn form, if accepted by the people, that the resources of this great country shall be used in the future, not to liquidate debts contracted in aid of rebellion, not to pay for emanncipatd slaves, but to maintain inviolate the plighted faith of the nation to all the world and especially to its dead and its living defenders. Mr. Speaker, I trust that this amendment, with or without the 3rd section, will pass this House. I trust that the disfranchisemeni bill, with or without additions, will pass this House. I trust that the enabling act for the restoration of the States that have been in rebellion will, with amendment, pass this House; so that the day may soon come when Tennessee loyal Tennessee, loyal in the very heart of the rebellion Q her mountains and plains blasted by the ravages of war and stained with the blood of her faithful children fallen in the great struggle for the maintenance of the Union having already conformed her constitution and laws to every provision of this amendment, will at once upon its submission by Congress irrevocably ratify it, and be without further delay represented in Congress by her loyal Representatives and Senators, duly elected and duly qualified and ready to take the oath of office prescribed by existin law. Let t t great examplebe set by Tennessee and it will be worth a 100,000 votes to the loyal people in the free North. Let this be done and it will be hailed as the har binger of that day for which all good men pra, when the fallen pillars of the Republic shn l be restored without violence or the noise of words or the sound of the hammer, each to its original place in the sacred temple of our national liberties, therebygiving assurance to all the world that for the defense of the Republic it was not in vain that a million and a l nlf of men, the very elect of the earth, rushed to arms; that the republic still.lives, and will live forevermore, the sanctuary of an inviolable justice, the refuge of liberty, and the imerishahle monument of the nations dead, from the humblest soldier who perished on the march, or went down amid the thunder and tempest of the dread conflict, up through all the shining roll of heroes, and patriots, and martyrs, to the incorruptible and immortal Commander in Chief, who fell by an assassins hand in the capital, and thus died that his country might live.