Mr. ROUSSEAU. I have heard with great, pleasure the explanations of the gentlemen as to the inte rotation I placed upon their language, but must still insist, with all kindness to them, that the record of that matter going to my people is to this effect and no other, that they are cut off from being heard here in reference to their claims, as I understand it. The Gentfrom NewYork [Mr. Coxxuso put in a reason in that report, and suggest to my friendfrom Ohio [Mr. Dunno] that there was no distinction as to the claims re erred to between a loyal man and a disloyal one, if they lived in a acceded State. That, however, is explained, and I am he py to hear both the gentlemen say that they will regard us as loyal, and that they do not wantto make any distinction between us because we happened to be one side of the Ohio river and others happened to be on the other. I am glad to have e explanation, and I thank the gentlemen for the kind feelings they have expressed toward the loyal element of the southern States. Now, Mr. Speaker, a few more words and I have done. I was going on to say a while ago that we had at the beginnin of the war a well defined platform upon which we stood; we had a distinctive object in view; we at the South had an object in view that we never, never lost sight of; and all the abuse and denunciation heaped upon us, the charges of being “abolitionists” and “Lincoln hirelings” and “Hes sians, ” were not sufficient to move us. We stood true to the Government upon the plat form which I have read here today. But now, when we have got through with the war, we come here and find gentlemen in this Hull, Union men, insisting that the Union shall be considered as broken up and that the southern States are either out of the Union or dead and for what? Why sir, that the Republican party may live! The Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. Srsvsus] distinctly said a few days ago that we must amend the Constitution and either take away representation from the southern States or allow the colored population to vote, and then no alliance between men of the South and all the copperheads on the face of the earth could tone the Republican party! Sir, was it for this that we fought this war? Was it for this that we have endured all we of the South have gone through in struggling for the Union? They tell us now that the Tnion is lost. but they console us by telling us that the Republican party still livesl Was that what we fought for? Was it for that that we divided father against son, and brother against brother on the battle field? I again ask, how many of the southern people would have fought and how many of the north ern people would have fought on such anissne? Nobody nobody, except perhaps the party itself, and I expect onlyt eir leaders would have done it. [A voice “They never fight. ]I have nothing tosay aboutthem. I have nothing to say against the Republican party. But I insist upon it that we ought not to have had one platform at the by inning of the war and another one at the en: that we ought not to have had one platform in the weak nessof the nation and another oncin its stren h; that we ought not to have had one platform whon the life of the nation was threatened and men aced, and another when its enemies are overthrown and the rebellion has gone down to its ingloiious grave forever. The right of secession was denied by all the Union men in the U.S. All the loyal men in the U.S. denied that such a thing was legal; and now, when we have put down the force which was to accomplish the secession and maintain the acts that we said were nullities, still it is said that notwithstanding all this secession took place. I repeat to day the question of the Gentfrom NewYork, [ Mr. Ramosnfl and ask at what hour, on what day, by what act, or in what way these States ever seceded. Sir, my venerable friendfrom Pennsylvania Mr. STEVENS] and his doctrine upon this subJect remind me of a doctor I once heard of, and I mean no offense to the gentleman when I say he was a quack doctor, and I mean no disrespect to the doctor. [Laughter] He was visitin a patient one day who had the pleurisy and when he was leaving, the patient asked him as patients usually do, what he might eat. Well, said he, “you may take a litt e rice, and tea and toast.” After the doctorlcft the patient became veryhungry, and it seemed to him he would die if he did not have some roast shoat. Finally he told his wife he must have roast shoot and she got him some and accidentally he got better and was convalescent when the doctor came a in. The doctor was surprised, and asked him how he came to be so well, and he told the doctor, “I thought I should die if I did not have some roast shoat, and my wife got me some, and I ate it and am better.” The actor took out his little memorandum book and wrote down, “roast shoat good for the pleurisy, ” and went his way. A few days after another of the doctors patients had the leu risy, and when the doctor had prescribe for him, he was asked, “ What may I eat?” “ Well, " said he, " anything you like, but if you have a fancy for it, roast shoat is a very good thing.” He went away and a day or two after the man unfortunately died. The doctor came back and inquired how the atient was, and bein in formed of his deat, said “Why, I thong t he was getting better." “No, ” said the mans wife “he would have roast shoat, and I gave it to imand it killed him. ” The doctor opened his book and where he had written “ roast about good for the pleurisy ” he added the word “sometimes.” [Lau hter.] and so it is here. It was declared in the dieginning of the war that secession was impossible, but they now add, like the quack doctor, the word “sometimes.” Unfortunately the position that Jefferson Da vis and his followers occupied is now occu ied by professed Union men on this floor. these gentlemen insist that the insurrectionary States are out of the Union, as JeffersonDavis has insisted for the last 5 years. Precisely when and how they got out of the Union these gentlemen do not say, but Davis does. He says they seceded by the action of the people in convention assembled; but long after that action, and even now, it was and is Ield to be annllity by every gentleman on this floor, and every State in the Union now asserts the same thing, except, perhaps, one or two. Taxes have been levied upon them as States in the Union by the Congress, these very gentlemen aproving that action. In the apportionment ill their right to representation has been acknowledged, and in various other ways they have been recognized as beingin the Union throughout the war; and I wish to know, sir, if these States are in the Union for the purposes of taxation and the bearingof burdens, but not for representation. such seems to be the position occupied by the gentlemen, and to which the Union party are utterly opposed. The doctrine of the Union party, asI understand it, has been, and is, and Will continue to be, that every loyal man, legally elected to the Congress by the people of an insurrectionary State has the right to take his seat and represent his people. The rebellion bein suppressed in terebel States, the people O those States “return to the place and r1 hts they had before.” This is hel and laid own by Puffendorf, who uses the following language involume two, page 237: "A whole nation when it hath, either by its own strength or by the assistanceof friends and allies. Shaken off an enemysyoke.without doubt recover cth its liberty and ancient slate: and if whatthey any part of were before possessedof remains still in the enemys bands, they have just pretensionsto at tomptto recover it aslong as a war is kept on foot and apence is not concluded. But if a 3rd commonwealth rescue a nation by war that was over powered and enslaved by enemies, in its own name rindfor its own advantage, the nation only changeth its master but is asfar fromliberty asever. An wo may so the same of a part of any nation. But if a part of the people berecoveredby the people they were sonictime divided ortornfrom orby their allies, the scam incorporatewith the old body and return to the place and rights they had before." This is the patriotic and common sense view of the matter, and during the war I never heard another exressed. he rebellion but caused a suspension, an interruption of the authority of t a General Government in the rebellious States, not by actual secession, but by a refusal on the part of the State authorities to recognize their relations with the Government, and levying war against it. By this action the people of those States, in the language of Pufllgiodgkf, were, “for some time, ” separated from the Government and people of the loyal States. But the separation was not able alone, for it was against the ara mount law 0% the land. Between loyal an disloyal men, two issues were thus presented. The rebels claimed the legal right to secede, to w“ithdraw from the Union. Loyal men said Nol not at all; there is no such right;” and in the whole U.S. there was not one loyal man who did not deny the legal right to secede. “ This was one issue. Then said the rebels, We will maintain our asserted secession by force of arms." “All right, ” said the loyal men, “we will try that issue;” and we went to war. This was the other issue. As I before said, in one of these ways secession had to be accomlished, or not at all. ether the acts of secession of the insurrectionary States were legal or illegal, was a question of very little importance if the rebels could command the force to maintain them. It took over 4 years to decide this question, during which time we waged a blood and des olating civilWar, unknown before in the history of the world. That war is over, the rebellion is suppressed, and the Government of our fath ers, t ank God, is ours still, if we will have it. The acts of secession being void, and the rebellion suppressed, the suspension and interruption of the relations between those States and the General Government having ceased, what more was needed to give us the old condition of things? Why, that the government machinery of those States, under the general Government and within the Union, should be put in operation as of yore, and that the people there should obey the laws of the land, and send loyal men to the Congress of the U.S. to represent them. All this they have done, and it was for this only we have wageda 4 years war. All that the loyal men of the nation have ever demanded has been obedience to the law; with the motives for such obedience we have nothing to do. It may be from love of the Government, or it may be from fear, or it may be prompted by a mercenary patriotism which robs the people whileit pretends intense devotion to the Jovernment and with the latter sort of patriots, the country is filled, and the further you get from the seat of war and its dangers, from its desolation, suffering, and death, the more numerous they are. They would barter blood at a cheap rate, so it is not their own, and fill their pockots, unheeding the groans and tears and estitution of the unfortunate victims of the war. At the beginning of the rebellion and during the war we demanded that the rebels should lay down their arms and submit to a common Government, and we demanded nothing more. They contemptuonsly and persistently refused to do that, but by force of arms we have compelled them to do so and now, sir, after this war, in which there was nnexumpled ill feeling, bitterness, and hate, we find in little more than hulfa yearun disturbed pence and an approach to harmony and returning amity that one year a of the most sanguine patriot did not hope for. liu constitutions and laws of those States which the rebel officials, after committing treason, ran an ay and left behind them, have been taken up and put in use again by loyal men. As this was al we asked during the war, shall we not accept this now that the war is over? such was the wish and policy of that martyred patriot, Abraham Lincoln time and again he called upon the people of the disloyal States to do that very thing. That was all he asked, and he spoke the voice of the nation. Why shall we demand more now? If Mr. Lincoln were living today he would say that the return and submission O those people to their allegiance entitle them to representation in the councils of the nation, and to all the rights and dignitypf States within the Union. the nation demands this, and that was the opinion and practice of the party in power during the war, as instanced in the cases of Andrew ] ohnsim, Senator, and Horace Maynard, Rep Representative, of Tennessee, as well as of others; and the Union party will not follow these gentlemen into the advocacy of the pestilent political heresy of secession, or the equally obnox ious one of expulsion of States from the Union. The Union party are opposed to the whole thing, and we Wlll appeal to the constituents of these gentlemen, we will appeal to the loyal people of the nation, to occupy, and to force their Representatives to occupy, the patriotic ground upon which this war was begun, prose cuted, and triumphantly terminated; the ound occupied by Lincoln and Johnson while Mr. Lincoln lived, and the same held today by AndrewJohnson, “the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws.” I know, Mr. Speaker, how this appeal will be responded to. even 10thsof the people of the U.S. would come today to the support of the President in this policy, and all the politicians on earth cannot prevent it. I They want and will have a united, a homo. nious, and a prosperous nation, and they will not permit one ha f the nation to rule and trample upon the other half on an pretext whatever. While the Union party Iioldsto this position it will be triumphant, when it abandons it it will fail and ought to fail. {end of insert from Appendix.}