Mr. HOWE. of Wisconsin proceeded to address the senate. Without concluding, he yielded the floor for an executive session. [His speech will be published in full in the Appendix. Reconstruction. June 6 and 6, 1866. Mr. HOWE said: Mr. President: At some time during this debate I purposed to state to the Senate my apology for:he vote I am going to give. perhaps the Senate would as lief listen to it this afternoon, or at least as lief allow me to state it this afternoon as at any time. I am going to vote for the constitutional amendment now pending. I shall vote for it regretfully, but not reluctantly. I shall vote for it regretfully, because it does not meet the emergency as I hoped the emergency would be met; but I hall not vote for it reluctantly, because it seems to me just now to be the only way in which the emergency can be met at all. Mr. President, in January last. I submitted to the Senate a resolution which contained an embodiment of my oWn idea of the duty de volved upon Congress in this juncture. By that resolution I proposed to employ the legislative power of t nation to organize provisional vernments for each of those communities whiich had destroyed, each for itself, the only gOVernment which the Constitution of the U.S. permits to a State of the American Union. I‘hat resolution was made the occasion of considerable debate, but never yet has attained to the honor of a reference to a committee. Perhaps it is the only instance on record of a resolution being offered to this body without sufficient merit to secure a.reference. And since that resolution seemsdestined to remain here and to haunt the Senate Chain ber without the poor right of burial in a stand ing or a special committee, and since I myself this afternoon am about to part company with it, and to embrace the idea embodied in the report of the committee of 15, I desire to say once more, for the satisfaction of all who may hereafter meet the ghost of my poor res olution stalking about among the archives of the Senate Chamber, that in myjudgment, after havin been intimate with it for a very long time, it is a perfectly honest ghost, and I desire to say more, that after considering carefully and diligently each one of the lans which have been submitted here time at r time rather ghostly, it seems to me, all of them my own plan is still my favorite. Iwant to say one thing more: that, instructed as I am now by adebate of more than 4 months’ duration, a debate which has employed the best intellect of the country here and elsewhere, the single idea submitted in that resolution is, in my judgment, the only plan of which it can be truly said that it is entirely consistentwith itself. If itbe objected to it, that it is not consistentwith the Constitution, then I am bound to say to the Senate that no plan yet submitted here or acted upon elsewhere is consistent with the Constitution. If that resolution‘ cannot be defended upon constitutional grounds, neither can the proposition of the Senfrom Nevada or the plan now submitted by the committee of 15 be defended. And no plan is so utterly defenseless as that of the President himself. They tell us that these States are still in the Union, and that my resolution would drive them out of the Union. Not at all, sir, the furthest from it possible. We do not look to statutes to see what is or is not within the Union. The bound aries of the Union are defined by treaties. Louisiana is in the Union, because by treaty with France we secured her to the Union. Texas is within the Union, because by treaty with Mexico we secured her to the Union. And those States, if you please to call them so, these communities, as I call them, will remain in the Union until by treaty with some Power outside or organized inside we consent to let them go out of the Union. It is said that such a resolution as I proposed would effect the very object at whicli) the rebellion was aimed. What was that? They aimed, if I understopd their purpose, to throw off utterly and altogether the authority of the U.S. Their proclamation was that within their respective limits the U.S. should exercise no control whatever. The resolution which Isubmitted to the Senate asserted, on the other hand, that the U.S. within those respective limits should exert the sole control for the time being. Is there no difference between the 2 proositions ‘I We called them traitors because the denied that the U.S. had any authority within their limits. Is it traitorous to say that the U.S. has more power than it had before they raised the standard of rebellion? But if it be not disloyal to the U.S. to assert that stretch of authority on its part it is said it is disloyal to the States; that it tramples upon the rights of the States. How does it trample upon the rights of States? I admit, of course, that the qiuthority of this Government is limited. I admit that we can exercise no authority but what is dele ted to us in the Constitution. I admit that a l the rest of the authority belongin to Govefnment is reserved to the States. “fe have no quarrel and no disute upon these points. I admit that the rightof representation is a right which is given by the Constitution to the several States. But I desire to say once more to the Senate that that right of representatiOn is not a right given to all States. Nobody claims it. for any State outside of the American Union and I say it belongs to no State inside of teAmerican Union unless it conforms to the conditions which the Constitution imposes upon every State. When those conditions are set aside and ab'ured, then that right falls. It can he claims by no State inside of the Union unless it be conceded to the State 1st by the congress of the U.S. It is the lack of that concession which prevents Colorado from having representation here today. She claims to be a State. She has adopted her constitution. She has sent here her representatives. The 2 Houses have agreed by a majority of their votes to admit them. But the President has vetoed the bill, and so there is upon the statute book no law authorizing them to send representatives here, and the are not received. But doesthat exclude Colors ofrom the Union, or does it trample upon the right of a State? That right has never been conceded to her by Congress yet, and she does not insist upon the exercise of it until it be conceded. But you tell me this right has been conceded once by Congress to Louisiana, to Mississippi, and to Alabama. Yes, Mr. President, it was conceded once tothose communities and to each of the others which have been in rebellion. How, then? Answer me, whatis the consequence of that? When the right and the character of a State was conceded by an act of congress to the State of Alabama or the State 0 Mississippi, did the U.S. stipu late forever thereafter to exercise none of the powers which she had before exercised in those limits under any circumstances whatever? When Congress 1st conceded the right to Ala hams to send her representatives ere, was that a right which continued to her under all circumstances whatever beyond the power of forfeiture? If so, you must concede that that right remained during the very heat and strife of the war. If she could not forfeit that; if it was a continual, perpetual right, your doors would have been bound to swin open at the knock of her representatives, if sesent them here when the war was at its height, and you were protected against having representatives from your direst and deadliest enemies in these I Halls only by the simple circumstance that they were a little too chivalrous or not sufficiently imudent to send them here to claim the right. t will not be asserted that that right cannot be forfeited. No Senator on this floor who really loves the authority of this Government and means to abide by it and uphold it will pretend that Alabama, while this war was w“aging, could send her representatives here. Oh, ” but you say, “ why not let her send them here if they were loyal?” Why, sir. Alabama, while she was disloyal, would not choose loyal representatives, but if she did choose loyal representatives her representatives could not come this side of her lines without the permission of your Army. It was an offense against the laws of the U.S. for any man, no matter what were his personal dispositions, to come through those lines without the permission of the Government. There was a wall built up between everybody on that side and on this; not merely Congress, but your Military boundaries were closed against every man, let.his personal dispositions be what they might, coming from the rebellious districts. But, Mr. President, I say that this right conceded to those States was not an absolute, unconditional, continuing right. It is a right to be exercised only under certain conditions. Every State claiming the right to send representatives here must show, 1st, the authority of Congress to do it; 2nd ly, must show that they have a government, administering their own local affairs, which is republican in form; 3rd ly, it must be a State which has no engagements and no treaties either with another State or with any foreign Power; for that is expressly prohibited by the Constitution to all States; and 4th ly, it must have a government, every officer of which, execu e, legislative, and judicial, must be under an oath to support the Constitution of the U.S.; because the Constitution expressly forbids that any authority of government shall be wielded in any State by officers who are not under such an oath. I insist that whenevern State violates either of these conditions it forfeits in law, and congress may declare a forfeiture in fact, of the right to make its own laws, and of the right to participate in making our laws. Congress may declare that forfeiture in fact, because if ou have not the authority to declare that fo eit ure you cannot enforce these clauses of the Constitution. If the State of Mississippi sees fit to set up a government which is not republican but monarchical in form, to vest all the local power in the hands of a single individual for life, and in his heirs, and if you cannot interfere with the exercise of that authority by such a tribunal, by such a form of government, and strip him of it by an act of Congress, that clause of the Constitution is a dead letter. There is no other remedy to cure such a wrong as that. And so if they make treaties with other States or with foreign Powers; and so if they refuse to let their officers take the oath to support the Constitution of the U.S., unless you have the power to resume the function which you delegated to her as a State, you cannot enforce those 3 commandments of the Constitution. Sir, I admit it is hard to degrade a State to a Territory; I admit it is a harsh remedy to take the prerogatives of a State from a great community; but it is not so harsh after all as to take their lives; and when by the express words of your statute they forfeited their lives and you remit them that, is it worth while to talk of the harshness of taking those prerogatives of government from them? But you say that although this right of local government is forfeited by the disloyal major lty, it still lives in the loyal minority. I should say it was a very harsh and unjust remedy to to c wantouly the prerogatives of a State from a loyal minority, simply because the majorit about them were disToyal and traitorons. t has been said, where you find ten loyal men in a State there is the State, and you must let it be and exist. Mr. President, there is some plausibility in that. I meet it by asking wher you can, in anyone of these communities, ting the local power in the hands of ten loyal men. Nay, I ask you where, in anyone of these communities, outside of Tennessee, and perhaps Arkansas, you can find ten loyal men exercising any portion of that local authority? Loyalty is not tolerated in these local governments. Talk to the American Congress about stripping loyal men of authority in SCarolina or elewherel Loyal men have no authority there, they have had no authority from the beginning of this struggle. Talk about the harshness to the loyal men of taking the prerogatives of States from these communities! I do not see the hardship to loyal men. Every particle of local authority vested by the Constitution in a State had been secured to the hands of traitors, and by the exercise of that power the had forced whatever of loyalty there was in the community into an unholy and unwill in subserviency to the cause of rebellion. Is it harsh to loyal men to take power from the bands which use it thus? I do not conceive it to be so. When we take power from or deny power to the majority in these rebellious States, we simply deny it to the worst enemies the loyal men in these communities have or can have; and when we find that power in the hands of their dire'st enemies, to wrest it from them, it seems to me, is not only the highest duty which we owe to them, but for it we have the clearest warrant of the Constitution. I do not agree with the Senfrom Ver mont [Mr. POLAND] that the framers of the constitution never contemplated such an emergency as this, and therefore never provided for it. I say, in the express letter of the Constitution on have the authority to do just what I ask to have done. I will read it. After enumerating certain express powers which Congress may exercise, the Constitution declares that it shall have power“To make all laws whichshall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powerand all other powersvested bythis Constitution in the Governmentof the U.S or in any deptor officer thereof.” If the power which that resolution asserte is not given there you cannot frame a clause which would clothe Congress with that power more clearly. Mr. President, upon this question I have said all, perhaps more than I ought to have said. The question has passed from the consideration of Congress. There were difficulties out side of the Constitution in the way of the exercise of that authority, no matter how clearly it resided in the Congress of the U.S. When Congress met here the POTUS himself had for months been busy with the work that he called reconstruction. He had exercised, himself, the very authority which I claimed for Congress. He had abolished every one of those governments by a word of his mouth, and had one just what I asked Congress to do established provisional governments. He had taken steps to super sede those which he called provisional governments with others which he called State governments, but which are today only provisional governments, nothing more nor less. It has seemed good to the committee of 15 not to disturb unnecessarily what the President had done, but to take his handiwork and to work it into some complete plan of reconstruction. Hence, it seems to have been thought advisable by them to let these organizations stand or stagger as they might, to do what they could with the work of home government, and to take the question from that point and settle if they could some terms upon which the other right the right of representation, should be conceded to emby congress. They have finally submitted or there 15 submitted to the Senate, a JtResolution for an Amendment of the Constitution of the U.S. Allow me briefly to run overits prop positions. It 1st prooses to declare that “all persons born in the U.S., and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the U.S and of the States wherein they reside.” That is the 1st reposition. Is there any objection to it? 'Ilhe Senfrom Indiana [I Mr. HENDRICKS] yesterday, I think, assailed this proposition as one calculated to degrade the great rightof American citizenship, a right which he seemed to think should be held exclusively to the use and behoof of the nobler and loftier races of the world. It degrades, does it, sir, the character of American citizenship to admit all men to it who are born and reared upon American soil? Mr. President, I dissent from that idea altogether, and I was surprised to hear it fall from the lips of the Senfrom Indiana, of all men in the world. I then ht he was a Democrat. I thought he boaste himself the champion of equal rights. I thought that was the bread and the meat and the drink of his political creed. I did not think he belonged to that class of nobility that measure their exaltation by the number of negroes they have under their heels. I did not suppose he felt it necessary to stand upon the necks of human beings in order to secure his patent of nobility; and I was surprised to hear this sentiment tall from his lips. I differ from it so widely and so radically as this, that I say there is no one reposition in the proposed amendment, and)nothing in the Constitution as it stands, which will do so much to elevate the character and the dignity of Amer ican citizenship as that simple proposition. Nay, sir, I go urther, and I tell you you will never have occasion to boast but you will always have occasion to blush for American citizenship until the time shall come when you can say to all the world that American institutions do not raise a man that is not worthy to be an American citizen and is not clothed with its anoply. I will vote for this proposition, and I shall not fear that American citizenship will be degraded by incorporating this clause in the Constitution. It proposes further to say that No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of cit zcns of the U.S.: nor shall any State de prive any person of life, liberty or property without due processof law; nor deny to any personwithin its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. Sir, does anyone object to putting that prop oaition into the Constitution? Does anyone on this floor desire to reserve to any State the right to abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens“! Do you do it in the State in which you reside, sir, [Mr. Haxnnlcss in the chair] and whose legislation and institutions on have done so much to mold? Is it done in any of the States represented here? I cannot deny it for all of them' but for many of them I do happen to know that no such abridgment of privileges or immunities is tolerated. Is it necessary, however, to incorporate such an amendment into your Constitution? Do you find in any of these communities seeking to participate in the legislation of the U.S. an appetite so diseased as seeks to abridge these privileges and these immunities, which seeks to deny to all classes of its citizens the protectiom of equal laws? Yesi Mr. President, I am sorr to say, we do fin just such an appetite, audyit is necessary to amend your Constitution in this year of our Lord in order to prevent the ratification of that diseased appetite. It is known to the wide world now that but for the authority which has been exerted on the part of the U.S. most of these communities which now seek the right to articipate in our legislation would have denied to a large portion of their respective lainest and most necessary I is of citizens lip. The right to hold land en they had bought it and paid for it would have been denied them; the right to collect their wages by the processes of the law when they had earned their wages; the right to appear in the courts as suitors for any wrong done them or any right denied them; the right to give testimony in any court, even when thy facts might be within their knowledge all these rights would have been denied in most if not all of these communities but for the fact, for whichI have once before rendered and new again remder thanks to the POTUS, that he sat his face against these provisions or most of them, and said he would not tolerate them nor allow them to be sanctioned in anyone of these communities. Most of these pretenses have been abandoned in most of these communities; but, sir, these are not the only rights that can be denied; these are not the only particulars in which onequallaws can be imosed. I have taken conszderable pains to 100' over the actual legislation which has taken place in these several communities with reference to their several constituencies. I could, it seemsto me, interest the Senate for u.long time by reading from that legislation, but I shall not delay the Senate longer than to call its attention to a single in stance. I read not long since a statute enacted by the Legislature of F orida for the education of her colored people. I read it in a Florida newspaper. The paperboasted itself that Flor ida was the 1st State to step forward and attempt the work of educatin the children of her colored population. An now, sir, I ask the attention of the Senate to the provision which that legislature made for the education of their colored population. The make provision for the education of their white children also, and everybody who has any property there is taxed for the education of the white children. Black and white are taxed alike for that purpose; but for the education of colored children a fund is raised only from colored men. It amounts to one dollar a head upon all colored males between the ages of 21 and 55 years. There were in 1860between 12,,000 312,400 colored males between the ages of 20 and 55 in Florida, so that that fund would yield about 12,000 dollars dedicated to the work of educatin the colored children of Florida not a magnificent endowment, one would think. But how is it to be expended? 1st, there is to bea super intendent of colored schools for the State to be paid out ofit, and he is to receive a salary of $12,000. That reduces it essentially. Next, there is to be an asst superintendent of colored schools for each county at $2001; year. There are in the State of Florida, I believe, 39 counties, which would give $7, 800to the asst uperintendents. Add that to the salary of the State superintendent, and it takes $9, 800 from the school fund to pay the super intendeuts, leaving $2, 200 to pay the teachers. But the fund is not left quite so destitute as that; they require each one of the teachers to pay 5 dollars to the fund to get a license to teach. They are to be examined, their fitness ascertained, and ifperinission is given them to teach they are to pay 5 dollars, and that goes to the fund. That swells it; when that license is purchased they can set up a school. Into that school, however, it is worthy of remark that no child can go without permission of the superintendent or his asst, and no child can stay a day without the permission of the superintendent or his asst, and the teacher who has paid 5 dollars for the permission to teach cannot hold that permission a day longer than the superintendent or asst superintendent sees fit to allow, for the statute expressly authorizes the superintendent or as sistant superinteiulent to vacate or nnnul the certificate whenever he shall see lit for incom petency or “ other good causc” any cause which seems good to the superintendent or asst superintendent. l There, Mr. President, I have submitted to you one of the statutes in one of these States as you will have them to be, touching one of, the great interests not only of this colored pop !ulation but of the State itself, and I ask you, any of you today, if in view of one such facts as that you dare hesitate to put in the Constitution of the U.S. a positive inhibition upon exercising this power of local government to sanction such a crime as l have just portrayed. Again, sir, we proposeto change the basis of representation in todifferent States. We propose to base it still upon numbers; but it IS proosed to say that if in.nny State the right of suffrage is denied to any portion of its male inhabitants over the age of 21 years, then a certain portion of the inhabitants of that State shall be excluded from the numbers counted in the basis of representation. Is that objected to? Yes. Is it not just? Will you tell mewhat reason thereis why when 3 million people inhabiting these States are denied the rightto vote for Representatives, other 3 millions should have a double representation in the Congress of the U.S.? To all the people who are allowed to choose Representatives in those States we give by this amendment just the representation that we give to the same number of people in any other State. The effect of it simply is to say that those people who are not allowed to choose Representatives shall not be represented. They cannot be represented; it is a physical impos sibility. It is no use to talk about 3 million colored people bein represented, when not one of them is consu ted 1n tllechoice of Representatives. The Representatives chosen for those men are representing some other men, not them. I am sorry to have to put that clause into our Constitution, as I am sorry for the necessity which calls upon us to put the preceding clause into the Constitution. I wish' there was no community and no State in the U.S. that was not prepared to say with my friendfrom Nevada that all men may be represented in the Congress of the U.S and shall be represented and shall choose their own Representatives. That is the better doctrine; that is the true doctrine. I would much prefer, myself, to unite with the people of the U.S. in saying that hercatter no man shall be excluded from the right to vote, than to unite with them in saying that hereafter some men may be excluded from the right of representation. Sir, to the debate which we have had on this question of the right of suffrage I have listened with a great deal of interest. I trust I have derived some instruction from it, but after all it is not so much as I think would have come to me but for the fact that since I have 1st known polities at all, I think I have known that no State can deny toiauy large portion of its adult male poulation the right to vote, the right to an equa voice in the making of its laws and the choice of its officers, without danger to that State, the whole community, as well as great wrong to the individuals excluded. I know it is said that these colored people who have just been released from slavery down there in these communities are not fit to vote. I admit it. Who is fit tovote? Only the man who always knows how to vote right, and who always will vote right, is really fit to vote; and, tried by that standard, how many of us are qualified to vote? These peolple, it is said, are very ignorant, very debase, utterly uncultured and untutored. Yes, Mr. President, I believe that is so. Who made them so? The very men who you insist shall have the exclusive right of voting there is it more danger ous to be an ignorant man than to make an ignorant man? Tell me that. Is he a more dangerous member of the State who simply is ignorant, than he who having the power to command otherwise makesmen ignorant 7 The meninwhosehandsyouwantto ileup authority are the men who have impose this ignorance upon that black poulation down there. You say they are degraded. The degradation is not natural to them; it is imposed upon them, and you know it; and the men who have done it you want to crown. God knows there are no ple more unfit to exercise the right of suffrage than they are, except the men who made them such as they are, and those men are still more unfit. But, Mr. President, I beg leave to say to you that ignorance is not the worst quality that you have to contend with in the State. The man who does not know how to vote is not so unfit to vote, after all. as the man who knows how to vote and will not vote as his convictions dictate. He is the dangerous man. He is the man that imperils all your laws. He is the worst enemy in republican States and in all Stata. He is the man against whom you have most to guard. The ignorant man necessarily has no predetermination to vote wrong; he is just as willing to vote right as wrong; and he can be instructed to vote right just as readily as to vote wronfilif you take the same ains to instruct him in c right that you do to instruct him in the wrong, provided he is honest; and honesty dwells wrth ignorance just as readily, and, thank God, just as lovingly, as it does with culture, and you will find it there as often. As I said before, I would much refer to unite with the people of the U.S. in laying the command upon all men to permit all men to vote than to concur in laying the command on any portion of our fellow men to go without the right. If, however, these communities upon whom this provision, it is supposed, wilFwork most disadvantageousl,0 not like it, the remedy is plain and simp e in their own hands. They have only to put the ballot into the hands of these men, allow them to choose Representatives, and Representatives will come here representing the whole of their poulation.. but again, sir, it is proposed to say that no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and VEEP, or hold any office, in short, under the U.S. who has ever taken an oath to support the Constitution of the U.S and then violated that oath and become a traitor to the Government of the U.S. That resses hard. That is going.to curtail the rights and the privileges of some of the men in these rebellious States. I ask the Senate to pause upon this reposition. I ask the Senate to consider this proosition carefully before they assent to it. It declares that such a man as JeffersonDavis, or Henry A. Wise, or John Slidell, or James M. Mason shall not hereafter hold office under the government of the U.S. unless 2/3rds of Congress shall hereafter concede that privileges to him. It is a retty harsh thing to say. I eel it keenly;I eel it sensitively. It is precisely what the President, I am told, has said about me and about men who think as I do. It is what the SecyTreasury has said about men who think as I do, that we shall not hold office, offices which they have the control of and can exclude us from. I have all along thought this harsh. I have thought it was especially harsh to be told by the SecyTreasury, who is particularly anxious and has called upon us to remit Our test oath so that he can employ traitors in the service of the Government of the U.S., that men cannot hold office under him who were guilty of no offense but thinking as I do. I have never considered myself criminal for anything which I think, for any vote which I have given, for any word which I have spoken. Doutless I am somewhat guilty; but a man so charitable and tolerant as the SecyTreasury, a man whose charity is so broad that it covers all this rebellion and the guilt by which it is accompanied, on ht to have charity enough to forgive such political sins as mine. Sir, do not make this declaration unlessyou think it is just. I shall vote for it, because I feel as the Senfrom Kansas [Mr. LANE] said the other day he felt, that men who have forfeited their necks to the halter can very well afford to commute by refraining from taking office for a short time. I do not think the Government of the U.S. can be accused of a great want of magnanimity when it does no more than to take traitors down from the scaffold, even if it does neglect to confer office and di nity upon them for the time being, and so I sha I vote for this proposition. But again, we proposeto declare that the obligations of the U.S. incurred in suppressing this rebellion shall be met as honest men meet all their obligations. I will not argue that proposition to the Senate. I do not know that it is likely to be opposed. We propose to say, furthermore, that the debt which has been incurred in the effort to overthrow the Government of the U.S shall not be paid; nor shall the U.S. ever be taxed to pay the value of the slaves we have made free, and were compelled to“make free, to save the life of the nation. Upon the features of this amendment I propose to spend no further time. It is of no value, we are told, unless the people adopt it. That is true. Will the people of the several States assent to this amendment of the Constitution? I do not know. I am not endowed with the ift of prophecy. I cannot tell. It ought: to come a part of your Constitution; that I know; and i am very much in the habit of thinking that what ought to be done will be done. But what alternative is there? These communities have no representatives upon this floor; they wish to have them; we want them to have representation here. They ought to have them. Let them assent to these most reasonable, most just, and most necessary propositions, and representation will be conceded to them. There is no alternative that I know of except that presented in what is called the President’s policy.