Mr. LAWRENCE, of Ohio. In the Present position of the bill under consideration an amendment I am aware is not in order. But I desire to submit for consideration some amendments, and if they shall be found prac: ticable and desirable they can be offered if opportunity shall be given hereafter. I may remark the bill does not propose any plan of reorganizing State governments in the late rebel States. It emphatically asserts, what is not seriously d.o. now, that the existing State governments in ten of the rebel States were set up without authority and in violation of the Constitution, and are therefore of course illegal. It provides for the military protection of the people in these States. The experience of nearly 2 years, and the concurrent testimony of all who have the means of knowing, abundantly prove the necessity of this military protection. Unless the loyal population of these States is to be left to the merciless rule of the rebels, who employ the color of authority they exercise under.but defacto State governments to opPress all who are loyal without furnishing them any protection against murder and all the wrongs that rebels can inflict on loyal men, we cannot, dare not refuse to pass this bill. But this bill does not touch the question of reorganizing legal State governments. such governments can be established in several modes, if Congress would ratify the existing State governments that would give them validity. But there are objections to this. It is always dangerous to approve what has been illegally done. These . governments are in the hands of rebels, and have signally failed to accomplish the purpose of all government to protect life, liberty, and property; and beside they are not republican in form. Congress might pass an “enabling act” Prescribing the mode of organizing State governments, author.izing the appointment of provisional governors, with a provisional or temporary government somewhat similar to a territorial government. The territorial laws enable the people to form State governments; but with the appointing wer in the hands of such a President as An rew Johnson, the provisional governors would all be men whose sympathies and powers would be exercised in the interest of rebels against loyal men, against a State government republican in form. We cannot trust the President. An enabling act is therefore not so practicable as it would be if the President himself adhered to the principles which he professed when he was elected. The people may voluntarily organize a State government in the exercise of the right of pe. tition, and they may ask Congress to approve and ratify such government. This was done in the case of WestVirginia and of Tennessee. But until such voluntary governments can be formed there ought to be; if practicable, a civil government in some form, with the administration of justice as well as that military jurisdiction which the condition of the rebel States demands, and which on constitutional grounds is justified by that condition and by the state of war which yet exists in those States not fla grant war, but nevertheless a state of war the period recognized by courts as nonflagrante, sed nondum cessante bello. This bill does not authorize any form of civil government, provisional or otherwise. It does indeed provide that the military authorities “may if. civil tribunals to take juris: diction of and to try offenders.” This, of course, permits the exercise of the jurisdiction not only of the national courts, but of those of the local illegal State governments. I will not say it is a recognition of the rightfulness of that exercise of jurisdiction, but it is open to the objection that it may be construed into a recognition of the right to exercise it. For myself, I am ready to set aside by law all these illegal governments. They have rejected all fair terms of reconstruction; they have rejected the constitutional amendments we have tendered them; they are engines of opPression against all loyal men; they are not republican in form or in practice. Let them not only be ignored as legal governments but set aside because they are illegal. And inas much as the force of circumstances will not permit us to pass “enabling acts” that would [. faithfully carried into effect, we may properly confer upon the national courts?o, existing in the rebel States the power to exercise all necessary jurisdiction in all cases where judicial authority may be requisite. This juris diction can be conferred on existing national courts just as fully as it is conferred on courts created in the Territories. This will give to all the people the protection of a judiciary under national authority. This bill provides that each district shall have assigned to it an officer of the regular Army who might be called, but is not, a military or provisional governor. He will be the executive authority, just as An drew Johnson was military governor of Tennessee when its military necessities required such an officer there. With this military and judicial authority in operation the people can by voluntary action, as in the case of Tennessee, form a State government in each State and submit it to Congress for its ratification and approval. And such governments, when properly organized and in loyal hands, and, like Tennessee, accepting the proper terms of reconstruction, can by the action of Congress be ratified, and the States restored to their proper, practical relations in the Union. The amendments I have to suggest will complete this bill, and give that civil jurisdiction which this bill does not. All this is authorized by the Constitution in that clause which makes it the duty of Congress to guaranty to every State a oform of . Congress is the sole judge of the means necessary to accomplish this end. The ten unreconstructed rebel States have no lawful State governments, and it is the duty of Congress now to take the steps necessary to create new State governments. And now, Mr. Speaker, with a view to have the consideration of the House on certain modifications and additions to the bill, I sug . the amendments I send to the Clerk's esk: