The SPEAKer if he will protect me from interruption, if there should be.disposition on the part of gentlemen to reply during the prog ress of my remarks to anything I may say. And as I do not desire to follow the example of the attorney who persisted in arguing his case after the jury had brought in a verdict, I will take occasion to say that in my judgment some aspects of this great question of reconstruction have been virtually settled, so far at least as to remove them from the arena of, profitable discussion at this time. By various expressions of.sentiment, through the Ere.ss, through this body, in legislative assem all over the land, and especially through the verdict rendered last fall at the polls, I think I am quite justified in saying that the people have themselves already decided several points of this great controversy. One of the points embraced in that decision I think is this: that they are not willing to accept as a basis of adjustment and restoration what has been put forward as the policy of the POTUS In other words, they are not willing that the States lately in insurrection shall resume their former portion of political power as members of this Union, and to give admission to their representatives in the 2 Houses of Congress, without some provision for the future or without specific authority of law. The President had put this forward as his view of what was just and proper to be done in this case, providing only that the representatives they might send should be loyal men. I concurred in that opinion; and I say frankly that I am still of the opinion that if this had been done at an early stage of the controversy, promptly, cheerfully, generously by the party which ruled the destinies of this country at that time, it would have restored peace and healed to a great extent all the troubles of the body politic. But because I believed and still believe that to have been the best policy then, I do not feel bound to maintain that it is the best policy now. A physician may prescribe a gargle for a sore throat; and if his prescription is thrown out of the window the sore throat may develop into an inflammation or into a raging and consuming fever; but he would be regarded as wanting in sound judgment and in common sense if for the sake of consistency he should feel bound to prescribe nothing but gargles during the whole progress of the disease. I shall therefore dismiss from consideration as impracticable and out of the question this mode of settling the controversy which divides and distracts the nation. And in the next place, although they have not pronounced decisively upon any specific plan of adjustment, I think the people have decided more nearly than they have decided upon anything else that the constitutional amendment adopted by Congress at its last session and submitted to the several States for ratification affords, on the whole, the wisest and the most satisfactory basis of adjustment of which this A. ". in its present attitude is susceptible. nd finally, I think the people have decided that they would rather trust to Congress to devise some mode of settling this question, some mode of restoring those States which were lately in rebellion to the Union, than trust to the executive dept of the government. They regard it as a matter for the legislative power rather than for the President alone. o. But in saying this I do not mean to imply that they have committed themselves in advance to anything and everything which congress may see fit to do. While they have expressed a general preference for the constitutional amendment, and a general confidence in Congress rather than the Executive, I think they have trusted not so much to any particular plan of adjustment as to the presumed wisdom and patriotism and justice and good sense which the men whom they have deputed to act here as their Representatives will bring to the consideration and settlement of the question. They will therefore require that whatever we may do here shall be characterized by wisdom, by patriotism, and by that practical good sense which should mark everything we attempt for the public good; and if we are to throw aside the amendment as a basis of adjustment, as the very men who proposed and pressed it seem disposed now to do, they will require at our hands something much wiser, more effectual, and more practical in its place. The distinguished Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEveNs] has submitted a bill by which he proposes to settle the question now at issue before the country. That bill is before us for consideration, and it contains 3 leading cardinal principles. The 1st is that the States I speak of the bill as it stands now after modification and amendment that the State governments now existing in the South, in those States which had been previously in rebellion, are to be deprived of all legal authority; their acts are to be pronounced null and void; and it is proposed that in place of the governments which exist in those States today we shall, suspending the privilege of the writ of habeascorpus, extend martial law over all that territory. In the next place the bill proposes that this Congress shall authorize the election of dele ates to conventions in each of those States, 1st prescribing universal suffrage as the basis on which they shall be elected; that those conventions shall form constitutions, Congress prescribing certain principles, and provisions which shall be incorporated into any constitution which those conventions may frame; these constitutions thus formed shall then be submitted to the people of those States for ratification, and if ratified, to be then brought here and submitted to the approval of congress, which they must receive before the governments thus formed are to have validity and practical authority to enact laws for the government of those States. And in the 3rd place, the bill provides that if the Legislatures of those States, after their constitutions shall have been thus formed, adopted, and approved shall at any time disregard, abrogate, or annui any of the principles which the bill prescribes for adoption in those constitutions, then the State so acting shall forfeit its representation in Congress. There is pending here a substitute offered by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. AsHLEY] to the bill of the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr..] which differs from it in only one respect; I mean in matter of general principle. That substitute declares that all the acts and laws of the existing State governments shall be null and void; but it provides for them no substitute whatever during the interim which must elapse before the provisions of the law we propose to enact for the formation of new governments shall have been carried into effect. Now, sir, I take it we have to inquire, while we are examining the provisions of this bill, 1st, whether we have the power to pass it, and whether, if so, it is wise that we should pass it. What are these governments now existing in the southern States which we propose thus to ". They are governments having actual force and effect within the territory subject to their jurisdiction. They are defacto governments. They originated, as all gentlemen here know, by the act of the people of those States, under the lead and guidance, and, if you chose to say so, under the authority and direction of the POTUS It is proposed to annul these government partly because of their origin, because they dithus originate in the acts of the Executive, and partly because the governments thus established do not protect the rights, liberties, and property of their citizens as we think they ought to do. Now, sir, I shall not enter upon the question whether the President had power to do what he did in inducing the southern States to form these governments, for the question has already been fully discussed. I discussed it myself at the last session and I do not wish to reopen it now. I thought then, and still believe, that the President did not transcend the authority with which he is clothed, in setting in motion the machinery of government in those States and in authorizing their people to enact laws for their own protection. I have no doubt that if Congress had been in session when the contingency arose it would have had equal authority in the premises, and that it might have authorized the people of those States to take steps for the reorganization of their governments. But as it was not in session, and as the necessity for government, was pressing, the President deemed it within his legitimate authority to take such steps as the emergency required. He did not prescribe arbitrarily, it must be remem bered, qualifications of suffrage in the formation of new governments; he merely fell back upon the laws in force on that subject, and recognized by the State government and by the national Government alike, before the rebellion began. And if it be urged that he prescribed conditions that he required them to ratify the amendment abolishing slavery, to repudiate the rebel debt, and to nullify their ordinances of secession before he would recognize the governments thus established it is fair also to remember that no one complains of these requirements; that the people themselves do not complain, and that those here who do object to his making those requirements concede that in themselves they were perfectly just and right. They object only to the President's authority to make them. But if the requirements themselves were just, and if the people upon whom they were made do not object, certainly we may cure any defect on the score of origin by declaring them valid, as the Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEVENs] in the bill as reported proposed to do. We may have the power, strictly speaking we may possibly have the right, to abolish and destroy them. But I certainly do not deem it wise so to do solely on account of their origin, solely on account of an alleged lack of power on the part of the President to authorize the people to form and establish them. It is usual all over the world to recognize defocto governments and respect their authority without inquiring too closely into the rigid legality of their origin. And we should, in my judgment, adopt and act upon this rule, to. there is something in their character to forbid it. How is it here? Is it wise, would it under existing circumstances be conducive to the public peace and the public welfare to sweep away these local governments which have now for nearly 2 years been discharging, more or less perfectly, the functions of government for the people of these southern States? I take it for granted that every one who hears me will concede that it is an absolute necessity that every community should have at all times an organized government of some kind for the enactment and enforcement of law. Any government is always better than no government. Despotism is always better than anarchy. The government of the King of Dahomey is better for the people of Dahomey than no government, no authority, no control whatever would be. Now, the substitute offered by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. AsHLEY] proposes to abolish all the governments in these southern States, to declare all the laws they have enacted to be absolutely null and void, and to leave them for a certain time absolutely without government or law of any kind.