Mr. ROGERS. Mr. Speaker, in the remarks Iointend to submit to the House upon this imquestion I shall confine myself to the egal proposition involved, I know, as has been well remarked by the honorable gentleman who has just taken his seat, we have gone through a scene of great excitement to get our rights to be heard, and sir, I know the frailities of human nature are such that all of us say many things in the heat of extempore debate we would not say upon mature reflec. o H otion. And let me say, however much we may be excited in the heat of debate, and however much we may desire to be heard, or whatever we may say for the purpose of what we believe, we say it in no disrespect to any person who disagrees with us politically on the other side of the House. e ask no more in reference to propositions before the House than that a reasonable time will be allowed to the members on each side to discuss a question so new and important in its character for a limited period. This bill cannot be legally passed by us for 3 reasons. 1st, there is no authority given by the Constitution for the legislative branch of this Government to interfere with the executive or the judicial branches; for when our fathers framed the Government, they so constituted it that it should consist of 3 separate and distinct jurisdictions and powers, to place the checks and balances in such equipoise that there would be no infringement.by the other. The 3 objections to which this billis liable are: 1st, it is an expostfacto law; 2nd, it is a bill of attainder; and 3rd, it deprives the citizen in the investigation of his case of the estimable right of trial by a jury, a right descended to us from Magna Charta of England, sacred to every American as the palladium of our liberties. This bill proposes to punish because it is nothing more nor less than punishment by preventing a ".from exercising a calling which he had a legitimate right to follow at the time the offense was committed, for being engaged in armed hostility to the U.S or for other acts named, unless the penalty attached to the offender at the time they were committed, cannot be now used as an excuse for adding to the punishment thus provided for. The SCOTUS, in 2 cases in which that question was presented, have just clearly and unequivocally decided and demonstrated that such an act is unconstitutional. In the cases to which I refer the court go into a thorough investigation of the question of expostfacto law jaof attainder, and they decide that the refusal to take the test oath by a person who was engaged in armed rebellion and was a member of the legislative branch of the confederate government during the time that the rebellion was oing on in the South, could not exclude him from the exercise of his calling as attorney or counselor, upon the simple ground, plainly stated, that it was inflicting upon him a new p. by depriving him of a right, taking from him a privilege which had been lodged in him by the 8 and laws of his country. The court, in the case of exparte Gar land, say: “The statute is directed against parties who have offended in any of the particulars embracedby these clauses. And its object is to exclude them from the profession of the law, or at least from its practice in the courts of the U.S., As the oath prescribed cannot be taken by theseparties, the act, as against them, operates as a legislative decree of perpetual exclusion. And exclusion from any of the professions or any of the ordinary avocations of life or past conduct can be regarded in no other light than as punishment for such conduct. The exaction of the oath is parties upon the mode provided for ascertaining the whom the act is intended to operate, and instead of lessening, increases its objectionable character. All enactments of this kind partake of the nature of bills of pains and o;and are subject to the constitutional inhibition, against the passage of bills of attainder, under which general d“Ine tnhe etxhceluysiaorne iwnchliucdhed the statute adj udges it imposes a punishment for some of the acts specified which were not punishable, or may not have been punishable at the time they were committed; and for other of the acts it adds, a new punishment to then prescribed, and that it is thus brought within the further inhibition of the Constitution against the passage of an expostfacto law. In the case 9: mings against The State of Missouri, just decideCdu, wme have had occasion to consider at length the meaning of a bill of attainder and of an expostfacto law in the clauses of the Constitution forbidding their passage by the States, and it is unncessary to repeat here what we there said. A like prohibition is in the Constitution against enactments of ctohnistakinined by Congress; and the argument presented in that case against certain clauses of the constitution of Missouri is equally applicable to the act of Congress under consideration in this case.” An attorney or counselor is not an officer of the U.S. It it not an office created by act of Congress which continues its powers upon the will of its creator. Attorneys and counselors are not appointed in the manner prescribed by the Constitution for the election and appointment of oThey are officers of the court, admitted as such by its order. Their admission and removal are judicial acts, and such acts, cannot be controlled by congress without the destruction of that branch of the Government. (Ex parte Garland, page 93.) Will anybody in this House dispute the proposition that this is a punishment for the offense which is laid down in the bill, of which offense it claims the persons who may make application, or who have already made application, have been guilty. It deprives them of the exercise of a profession and business which may be their sole dependence, because many men have nothing but their legal practice to depend upon for subsistence. It would therefore be a punishment of a most serious character, indeed much more so to many than a mere fine that might be imposed by a court or even confinement in a jail upon indictment and conviction. There is another ground on which this act is objectionable. It is a bill of attainder, because it assumes to pronounce upon the guilt of the person making application to be admitted to practice without judicial trial. What is a bill of attainder? It is nothing more nor less than the conviction of a party without the ordinary form of judicial trial which the Constitution of the U.S. has thrown around him as security for his life property, and personal liberty. This bill, f say, lodges in the court the right to convict a man and to remove him from office for the high crime of felony, treason, or other offense, as stated in this bill, without allowing him the right of trial by a jury of his countrymen to have the question of his guilt or innocence fairly and legitimately passed upon. Now, sir, the Supreme Court has, in the Missouri case,the test oath in Missouri is unconstitutional, because it allows a man to be convicted upon his own testimony, upon testimony unknown to the common law, upon testimony unknown to republicanism and liberty, upon testimony not to be submitted to a jury, but to be submitted merely to those holding the power by the bill to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the party. The court says, in this Garland case: “The attorney and counselor being, by the solemn judicial act of the court, clothed with his office, does not hold it as a matter of grace and favor. The right which it confers upon him to appear for suitors, and to argue causes, is something more than a mere indulgence, revocable at the pleasure of the court, or at the command of the Legislature. It is a right of which he can only be o: by the judgment of the court for moral or professional delinquency. “The Legislature may undoubtedly prescribe qualifications for the office, with which he must conform, as it may, where it has exclusive jurisdiction, prescribe qualifications for the pursuit of any of ordinary the avocations of life. But to constitute a qualification the condition or thing prescribed must, be attainable in, theory, at least, by every one. That which from the nature of things, or the past condition or conduct of the parties, cannot be attained by every citizen, does not fall within the definition of the term. To all those by whom it is unattainable it is a disqualification which operates as a perpetual bar to the office. The question in this case is not as to the power of Congress to prescribe qualifications, but whether that power has been exercised as a means for the infliction of punishment, against the prohibition of the Constitution.,, That this result cannot be effected indirectly by a State under the form of cre ating qualifications we have held in the case of Cum mings vs. The State of Missouri, and the reasoning by which that conclusion was reached applies equally to similar action on the part of Congress.” In the case of Cummings, lately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court, the court say: “No State shall pass any bill of attainder, expostfacto law, or law impairing the obligation of conacts. “A bill of attainder is a legislative act which inflicts punishment without a judicial trial. “If the punishment be less tuan death the act, is termed a bill of pains and penalties. Within the meaning of the Constitution bills o, f attainder include bills of pains and penalties. In these eases the legislative body, in addition to its legitimate functions, exercises the powers and office of judo; it assumes, in the language of the text books, judiciary magistracy; it pronounces upon the guilt of the trial; without any of the forms or safeguards of it determines the sufficiency of the proofs produced, whether conformable to the rules of evidence or otherwise; and it fixes the degree of punishment in accordance with its own motions of the enormity of the offense. “‘Bills of this sort, ”says Mr. Justice Story, “have bree been llimono, st usually passed in England in times of or gross subserviency to the Crown, or of riolent political excitement periods in which all nations are most liable (as well the free as the enslaved) to forget their duties, and to trample upon the rights and liberties of others.’ ” Commentaries, section 1, 344.3: & “The purpose of the law maker in the case supposed would be openly, avowed; in the case existing istamiseo, nly disguised. The legal result inust be the for what cannot be doneo cannot be done indirectly. The Constitution deals with substance, not shadows. Its inhibition, was leveled, at the thing, not the name. It intended that the rights of the citizen should be secure against deprivation for past conduct by legislative enactment, under any form, however disguised. If the inhibition can be evaded by the form of the enactment, its insertion in the fundamental law wasa vain and futile proceeding. “We proceedto consider the 2nd clauseof what Mr. Chief Justice Marshall terms a bill of rights for the people of each State the clause which inhibits the E.of an expostfacto law. “By an expostfacto law is meant, one which imposes a punishment for an act which was not punishable at the time it was committed, or imposes additional punishment to changes that then prescribed, or the rules of evidence, by which less or different testimony is sufficient to convict than was on required.” “The objectionable character of these clauses will be more apparent if we put them into the ordinary form of a legislative act. Thus, if instead of the general provisions in provided the constitution the convention had as follows: Be it enacted, That all persons who have been in armed hostility to shall, upon the U.S. conviction thereof, not only be punished as the laws provided at the time the offensescharged were committed, but shall also be thereafter rendered incapable of holding any of the offices, trusts, and positions, and of exercising any of the pursuits mentioned in the 3rd article of the constitution of missouri, no one would have any doubt of the nature of the enactment. It would be an expostfacto law, and void; for it would add a new punishment for an old offense.” And, sir, I deny the right of any tribunal of this country to degrade and break down a man's character and reputation, destroying his ofor future happiness, by convicting imof a high crime like murder or treason, without allowing him to have his liberty, his reputation, and his life submitted to that trib une which the Constitution has ordained, as the Magna Charta of England did, to decide upon the guilt or innocence of the party. As I before said, this bill is unconstitutional upon another ground: upon the ground that these people who have been pardoned, either by general amnesty or by special grant, have had their guilt entirely wiped out. And from the earliest period of English jurisprudence down to this time the courts have gone so far as to decide that even to call a man who has been engaged in rebellion a “traitor” after he has been pardoned, either by general amnesty or by special act, would be an actionable offense. The court in this case of Garland go over the ground of the power of the President to pardon. They say: “The Constitution provides that the President 'shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offensesagainst the U.S., except in cases of impeachment.” Article 2, section 2. “The power thus conferred is unlimited, with the exception stated. It extends to every offenseknown to the law, and may be exercised at any time after its commission, either before legal proceedings are taken, or during their pendency, or after convietion and judgment. This power of the President is subject not to legislative control. Congresscan neither limit the effectof his pardon or exclude from its exercise any class of offenders. The benign prerogative of inergy reposed in him cannot be fettered by any legislative restrictions. “Such being the case, the inquiry arises as to the effect and operation of a pardon, and on this point all the authorities concur. A pardon reaches both the punishment Wo?o for the offense and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full it releases, the punishment and blots out of the guilt, existence so that in the eyeof the law the offender is as innocent as if he had nevercommitted the offense. If granted before conviction it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction it removes the penalties and disabilities and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity. “ There is only this limitation to its operation: it does not restore offices forfeited, or property or interests vested in others in consequence oftion, the convic and jufPlagrmdeonnt;. H.a[4w Blackstonoe k, 402; 6. Bacon2, ch. 37, secs. “The pardon produced by the petitioner is a full pardom “for all offensesby him committed arising from participation, direct or implied, in lion, ’ the rebel and is subject to certain conditions which have been complied with. The effect of this pardon is to relieve the petitioner from all penalties and disabilities attached to the offenseof treason, committed by his participation in the rebellion. So far as that offense is concerned he is thus placed beyond the reach of punishment of any. But to exclude him, by reason ofing that offense, from continu in the enjoyment of a previously acquired right is to enforce a punishment for that offense, not withstanding the pardon. If such exclusion can be ceoffveecrtiendg by the exaction of an expurgatory oath the offense, the pardon may be avoided, and that accomplished indirectly which cannot be reached by direct legislation. It is not within the constitutional power of Congressthus to inflict punishment beyond the reach of executive clemency.” Are gentlemen to pay no respect to the decisions of the Supreme Court? Do they want to ride over what seems to be the only star left to guide the downtrodden people of this country to a safe and secure resting place of liberty? When the Supreme Court is stricken down, when that tribunal cannot in an impar tial manner exercise the constitutional functions imposed upon it, then liberty can no longer live here, and we shall lose that constitution and Government which our fathers made and cemented by their blood, and those principles which they laid down as the guarantees and safeguards of our liberties will be dead and gone. We know, as was well said by the court, that in times of excitement and passion reason appears to have flown and common sense to have gone, and nothing but partisan passion, usurpation, and despotism to take their place. But in these times, the only security which the citizens of this country can have for themselves, their property, and their families is by appealing to this august tribunal, which is unfettered by partisan feelings in its decisions, given in a legitimate and constitutional manner, to protect and defend them from impending ruin. As a matter of policy the precedent which has been established for the courts of this country to admit such perons to practice in them as they please, should be continued, for it is older than the memory of man. You may look back through the jurisprudence of England in her darkest and her brightest days, before and after the Restoration, trace the course of our own system of jurisprudence down to this day, go back for 1000years, and it will not be found that the attempt was ever made by legislation to deprive a court of the right which is necessary to enable it to exercise its proper power of appointing those persons who are to act as the attorneys and counselors of parties who have writs for its decision. Why, then, at this time undertake to interfere with this right of the courts? Why not submit these constitutional questions to the SCOTUS? What has that court done to merit the punishment thus proposed to be inflicted upon them? Why should they be held up before the eyes of the civilized world as traitors and disunionists? The justice who delivered the 2 able opinions I have quoted was the appointee of the }. Lincoln, whose memory is revered by you all, was a native of Illinois, and never was the resident of any insurgent State. He is a trueenan one who loves the Constitution of his country. He and a majority of that court are determined to stand by and sustain the immortal principles of fundamental jurisprudence and the organic law, which provide the only safeguards for human liberty.