Mr. HOWE. “A half crazy old gentleman.” Sir, he is a gentleman. So much truth there is in what my colleague affirms of him. He is somewhat aged;I think a little older than my colleague and myself, but not so much older that either of us can put on airs to his discom fiture; but as for his being a crazy man, that statement must be discounted upon full 100%., for he is not at all crazy. An honester, a more excellent,:1.more sincere man does not live anywhere thanGenlPaine. So much for him. Then my colleague quotes the ] anesville Ga zette to the effect that I had denounced the action of the last State convention as cowardly. Mr. President, I cannot plead to that indictment very well. I do not know whether the Janesville Gazette so quoted me or not. And that is not the only embarrassment I labor under. I do notjust now know whether I did say so or not. Being upon the point I will take this occasion to say that I did think the action of the lastState convention was not characterized by that courage which had characterized eve step of the Union party up to that hour, an which I hoped would characterize every one of its steps until it should cease to exist; but I am not in the habit of chargin cowardice upon individuals, and I do not think I ever c urged cowardice upon that body. Mr. President, my colleague next charges me with having on repeated occasions gone out of my way to assail his course in that convention. I think upon thatcharge I can venture to plead the general issue and go to trial upon shortno tice. I do not believe I ever spent a moment of my time or of my breath in assailing his course in that convention. I remember that in the very 1st remarks I ever made publicly in reference to that convention I did distinctly say to my friends that we hadno time to spend in useless complaints about the course of my colleague. So I thou ht; so I felt; and I do not recollect nor do I believe I ever called in question his course in that convention publicly. did regret his course in that convention most sincerel, and he knows it; and he knows that to him 1st made that regret known. I do not know that he knows this fact that I am now about to state, but I know it, that but for the fact that I knew or was informed that my colleague was going to attend that convention for the purpose of giving the advice upon which the convention acted, I should not have been at Madison, where the convention gvas held, myself; but Idid go there to see and to remon strate with him. That purpose accomplished, I had no further connection with the commution. But, Mr. President, my colleague was not content with charging me with the espousal of the doctrine of negro suffrage as a method for the cure of all political disorders in every art of the Union, but he charges me now with av ing surrendered that which he affects to tell the Senate was a cardinal principle with me. I fondly hope, sir, that my colleague is mistaken when he cherishes the idea that I have given up any cardinal principle or pet of mine, whether it be negro suffrage or otherwise. The acuaintance that lie and I have had together ghould have taught him that I do not readily surrender cardinal theories or cardinal ideas. I do not know when I have surrendered one. But ifI have, let me tell my colleague as I tell the Senate, that this is not one of them. I believe today that the ballot in the hands of all guiltle ss men is the best security for the public “A half crazy old gentlemen 7 peace and the best security for individual right and justice that law has ever devised. The world is 6,000 years old. In every narter and section ofit, you have tried to gate on without doin justice, but wherever you trie it you have miserably failed. There is no other way given under heaven or among men whereby national life can be saved and secured but jus tice and equal rights. If on think there is, try it on for another 6,000 years, and then tell me. Mr. President, my colleague taunts me and the party with which I act that if we or those with whom I act in Wisconsin had been guided by our own feelings and convictions, if he had not beneficently and beni nly stood over us, the guardian angel of the nion party in the State of Wisconsin, and saved us in spite of ourselves from the rocks on which we seemed determined to rush, we should have had no, Union majority in the State of Wisconsin. That is an assertion; not exactly a prediction, because it does not relate to what is to take place hereafter; but it is an assertion relating to what has transpired heretofore, and the truth of which there are no present means of ascertaining, and so I must content myself with opposing my opinion to that of my colleague, and telling him that he is, in my judgment, terribly mistaken when he flatters himself that it was to his sage counsels that the Union party owes its control of the State of Wiscousin. Again, Mr. President, my colleague tells me and I thought he seemed rather to congratu late himself and to hu himself, so to speak, on the fact that the t eor of State suicide has passed away forever. should be glad to know that the fact of State suicide had passed away forever; but my colleague cannot emol ish a theory by an assertion. I suppose the simple fact to which my colleague 1nd reference was to that rather antiquated fact that a rent while ago I cannot just now tell how ong ago, but in the early part of this session; it seems to me I was a much younger man then than I am now, though just as wise I did proposeto the Senate a JtResolution declaring it to be the duty of Congress to organize territorial governments for the communities between us and the Gulf which had destroyed or abdicated the government of American States. I suppose it is to the idea contained in that resolution that my colleague alludes when he refers to the theory of State suicide; and if that is so I think he is quite too early in congratulating himself that that theory has passed away forever. It is very true that the Senate and the HoRep have not acted upon that theory, but it is equally true that the POTUS, whose steps my colleague follows exactly, and whose doctrines he espouses instantly and always here, has adopted that theory and has acted upon it. 4 The facts are undeniable, patent to the whole world, that ever form of local government which has existe over every one of these communities from 1861 down to the present time has been treated by the President precisely as if it owed its life, as well as its authority and its vigqr, to him. Whenever he saw fit to take that i e he has seemed to suppose that he might take it; whenever he saw fit to clasp his hands tighter upon the throat of anyone of those communities their breath must stop, and theycould only breathe with his permission and only act by his consent. Thus it was that he not. only, in the 1st instance, as I have before remarked, actually wiped out of existence with a single wave of his hand every vestige of local government which he found there when their armies surrendered, but it was thus and thus, alone that he went on to rebuild governments after gmodel of his own, fashioned by his own with to rebuild governments in the place of those displaced. It was thus, and thus alone, that he has from time to time in every stage of their history, from the time their armies surrendered down to this moment, interfered and Stopped the functions of each or every one of the depts of those governments which he built himself and ought to warrant, when ever he thought proper to do so. One of 2 things is true, either he has handled those governments as territorial governments existing by virtue of Federal authority, and only federal authority, wielded by the Executive and not by the Legislature, or he has been guilty of usurping the functions of State governments, such as no predecessor of his ever attempted, and such as no predecessor of his ever could attempt, and no successor of his ever can attempt without subjecting himself to the pains and penalties of impeachment. Mr. President, I touch now upon a question which concerns not merely the existence of arties here today, but takes hold of the foundations upon which your Government rests. You must stand there. No President can go into aState and dissipate a Legislature without committing an acfof revolution, and you know it. No President can go into a State and by his own word and his own authority depose even a justice of the peace without commit ting a revolutionary act, and you know it. If you concede that authority to this President or any other, you surrender every single right and prerogative of a State not merely to the nation as represented by its representatives, but to the nation represented in the person of a single individual as its Executive. Sir, if the Senate and the HoRep have ignored the theory of State suicide, the President is true to it. I have occupied, sir, more ofyour time than I meant to do, and more than I think was absolutely necessary for a personal explanation. There is one other point that is not exactly in the character of a personal explanation; that is to say it does not tend to explain my personal conduct, though it may have some bearing on the personal conduct of my colleague. There is one comment of that kind that I feel calledu on to make. Judging from the whole drift of the remarks made by my colleague after I came into the Senate for, as I have said, I was not here when he began I was led to the conclusion that it was the end and aim of his effort to convince somebody, if not himself, that he had been, alter all, and all this time. acting in the interest of the Union party which sent him here, and acting for the protection and preservation of that party whose representatives in the State of Wisconsm asked him to leave here last winter. That that has not been the aim of my colleague, I cannot positively affirm; but if it has been, either he or his constituents in the State of Wisconsin have made a very great mistake. It is very certain that his constituents in Wisconsin, those tried and true men who sent him here and I beg leave right here to say, byway ofinterpolation, and in the hearing of my colleague, just as true today as they ever were have not understood him as acting in the interests and for the safety and security of the Union party; and it is equally certain that that other constituency in Wisconsin, who opposed his coming here, have made the very same mistake; for, by all the evidence the could give on any oint in issue, they do testiy that they conceive im, instead of being the saviour of the Union party, to be precisely the genius raised up in these evil times to destroy the Union party; and so they hail him with open public acclaim everywhere. Sir, who is mistaken upon this point? The patent fact is I am not talkin of the motive or sincerity of my colleague; am not questioning that, and never have that my colleague came here the accredited representative, the chosen agent of the Union party of Wisconsin, and here he met a majority of this body accredited by the same party in different States. I simply appeal to the personal knowledge of every man that surrounds me to know whether, for the last 4 or 6 months, my colleague has acted with that party, counseled with it, accorded with it, aided it, or done anythin else in the wide world but to employ him se, so far asI can judge, to the utmost extent of his capabilities, in pulling it down and utterly demolishing it. That is a question which his own personal observation will enable every Senator of any part on this floor to answer satisfactorily to himse f, and, I think, sutisfactoril to me. Mr. President, I must say one thing more. I was impressed with the belief I be eI do my colleavue no injustice by the convictionthathe had allowed these resolutions to lie upon your table from the time they were presented until this time, while he was doing such work here as seemed to him fit and proper for him to do, whether in the interest of the Union party or of the State of Wisconsin or of the POTUS, I shall not stop to discuss; but having allowed these res olutions to lie upon the table until this time without comment, it did seem to me as if he had sought this very late hour, when all work here is accomplished, when there is nothing more to be done in the sight of the President or of the Senate, to state is account and be prepared to meet his constituents. Whether that was his view or purpose or not I cannot definitely state till I have more carefully considered not merely what I did bear but what I did not hear of his remarks. If that was his view, I want to do one thing more and close. My colleague and myself came here the rep ‘resentatives of the same party, and I am going back to Wisconsin believing that I myself am still the representative of that party, true to what I anderstand to be their convictions; and I want to say here to the Senate, for the encouragement 0 you all, that I believe in the State of Wisconsin there has been a more deliberate and more systematic effort to demoralize the party which sent my colleague and myself here than has been put forth in any State of the Union, but at the same time it is my roud satisfaction to believe that there is now new in the Union or upon the face of the earth a constituency that stand more solid, more compact, more resolute more unflinching, more determined to adhere to the end, wherever that end may be or whenever it may come. This is the constituency which sent me here and to which I am about to return. RELIEF OF DRAFTED MEN.