Mr. SHELLABARGER. I am only pausin in order to get another start. [.] I will now, Mr. Speaker, proceed to give the substance of the bill. It is as follows: Its 1st section requires the President, with the assent of the Senate, to appoint a citizen of Louisiana, who never in any way favored secession or rebellion, and who. '. an oath in the U.S. Senate to that effect, provisional governor, to hold his office until a successor shall be elected next June. Its 2nd section requires the President and Senate, in the same way and from the same description of loyal citizens, to appoint a legislative council of 9, a majority being a quo rum, who remain in office and in session until June next; and this legislative council make the laws of the State. And the Governor, with the assent of this council, appoint from strictly defined loyal men all the other State officers known to the Present law; who also hold office until the election of successors in June. Its 3rd section requires the Governor to see that all laws of State and U.S. are executed, and that archives and State property are taken possession of Its 4th section requires that the electors qualified to vote by the terms of the act shall, on the 1st Tuesday of June, next, elect from them who have ever been truly loyal, as defined by the bill, all these officers of the State so as above stated appointed in the 1st instance. Its 5th section makes them alone electors, without distinction of race, who are male cit:izens of the U.S., 21 years old, and one year resident.of Louisiano, who have never voluntarily favored rebellion or secession; but it permits them who have never in any manner favored rebellion otherwise than as private soldiers in civilized modes of war, and that not voluntarily, after 4th March, 1864, to prove these facts in a U.S. court by the evidence of persons who have ever been loyal. And on such proof and subscribing on the court records an oath to that effect such private soldier is entitled to a certificate entitling him to vote. The 7th section requires the SecyWar to cause a complete registration of such electors to be made, and a week before each general election published, and this to be done byTqu.alified electors. 8th section authorizes these same electors upon the 3rd Tuesday of October, 1867, unless Congress should otherwise provide, to elect from persons eligible for C.ernor a convention to frame a permanent constitution for Louisiana, which must contain the 3 irreversible provisions: 1. That the U.S shall enforce the perpetual union of the States; 2. That no distinction in the rights of men shall be permitted on account of race; and 3. That no rebel debt nor pension nor gra tuity shall be paid by the State. And this constitution may be Presented to Congress for approval and admission of representation, but on such terms as Congress may Prescribe. The 11th section requires all the laws passed by any provisional Legislature to be, as soon as possible, Presented to Congress for approval; and makes them void from date of;receipt of the disapproval at supreme court of Louisiana. The 10th section creates the militia out of them who are electors, requires them to be organized and equipped; and, during the provisional government, puts them under the para mount control of the U.S. commander for Louisiana. The 6th section makes every act of disloy alty primafacie voluntary; and to avoid the resulting disqualification to vote or hold office permits it to be shown by testimony of them who have always borne true allegiance to the U.S. that it was involuntary. The 13th section keeps in force, until modified or repealed, all the Present laws of Louisiana which are not inconsistent with this act nor with the Constitution nor any other law of the U.S. And the 9th section provides that when ever from any cause the civil authority shall fail promptly to enforce, in favor of all men, the criminal and other laws of both State and U.S., including all election laws there, the U.S. military forces (to be stationed by the President in Louisiana for the purpose under a U.S. officer not be ow brigadier general) shall arrest and hold offenders until prosecuted by civil courts; and shall, so far as requisite to insure full execution of the laws, give support and aid to the civil authorities. such is the exact substance of this entire bill. I wish to state a few things with regard, 1st to the legal right, and 2nd in relation to the duty of Congress to pass this or some similar bill. I shall confine what I say touching the power of Congress to pass the bill principally to our power to employ the military forces for the E. of enforcing order and law, as this bill and the one reported by the Reconstruction Committee do; because, as the greater includes the less, if it shall appear that we can use the military force as provided by the bill, a fortiori we can the civil authority also. Are, then, this State of Louisiana and its people in that condition and state of fact which under our Government make it legal to control them by military force? As I said the other day, this is a question of law dependent for its answer upon a state of. fact. That of fact is exactly this: is there in Louisiana such a remaining state of hostility, insubordination, and rebellion to and against the authority of the U.S. as that the courts cannot or will not redress personal grievances nor protect the loyal people? Now, before inquiring how this fact is, let me allude to some general principles of public and of constitutional law obelong to and control the powers of our own and all other free Governments in those conditions of society which I shall seek to show are now upon Louisiana. And 1st of all it must be ever remembered that the laws of nations, including the laws of war, are part of both our Constitution and of our common law as one of the family of civilized nations. This is so exPressly written in our Constitution (article one, section 8, clause 11) where it assumes that, in absence of any statute or constitution, an act in violation of the law of nations will be an “offense;” and that all that Congress need be empowered to do is “to define and punish “ these “offenses.” Chancellor Kent, the foremost jurist of this age, in the opening sentence of the greatest upon the law produced in our age, declares that “When the U.S. ceased to be a part of the British empire, and assumed the character of an independent nation, they became subject to that system of rules which reason, morality, and custom among the civilized nations of Europe, as their public law.” Next, it must be borne in mind that the great body of the citizens of Louisiana have for 4 years been engaged in the most fierce, huge, and bloody war for the destruction of the government which is known to human history, and that most of their arms bearing white men are today prisoners of war. Next, it must be remembered that the fla grant war is only just ended, and that not by any voluntary surrender or upon professions of changed views, of purposes, or of sorrow; but only by reason of a crushing defeat in war. These things being kept in mind, let us approach this inquiry: whether over this people, in such condition, the U.S. may exert military and other police force for the enforcement of the law, when the fact is found to be that the spirit of the rebellion remains so strong and insubordinate as to prevent the courts from enforcing the law and from protecting the lives, property, and other rights of the friends and citizens of the Government. Now, Mr. Speaker, to ask such a question in an assembly of men supposed to be above idiocy seems like an insult, and to answer it is like mockery. Why, sir, in the name of all the gods at once, has it come to that? Must a government which can expend 4 billions of treasure, an ocean of tears such as would almost float your navies, of blood that would turn all your rivers into crimson, lives that would people and enrich an empire, must a Government that can do all this for the crushing out of a rebellion against its life stop short at the moment of overthrow of idol. armies and let every man, woman, and child in 1/2 of the Republic and who would not fight it be either assassinated or banished on account of their invincible love of country, and all this be suffered because the rebel assassin is not doing his work while drawn up in the lines of armies or in martial array? Why, sir, is it so that there can be norebellion, no absence of public safety, except when war is flagrant and armies are in the field and the glare of battle lights up your valleys? Neither reason nor law nor history permits but one answer to this. There is no J. ment, and there can be no Government long which applies such a rule to the defense of its citizens and its own life in time of great public danger and disorder. When they were arranging in your country the terms of your Constitution upon this subject they were enacting in France the terms of her constitution under which the state of siege might be declared in which the empire of the law is suspended; and this is arranged to be exactly like your own when invasion or rebellion brings “imminent peril to the public security.” And under these terms of French statutes the emperor, as well as the governors of provinces and commanders of posts, have been permitted to declare a state of siege as well where there was no flagrant war as where there was. With a provision in the English Constitution that the privileges of this writ of habeascorpus shall ever be had by all the people, the Parliament has suspended the writ “when for whatever cause the ordinary administration of jus tice has been arrested in any part of GreatBritain.” (Wheaton, 520.), And English history is full of examples of the enforcement of martial law in times of profound peace, of which we have had an ople. believe, within a few months in Ireland. I allude to these foreign examples only to show what all good and free Governments deem to be requi site for the Preservation of government. But the powers of your own Government in this oare not to be learned alone from the practices of other Governments, but are settled by your own authorities. Now, what by your own authority is that state of public danger in which this writ may be suspended in the U.S.? Must war be actually flagrant? or is it enough that the courts are so obstructed by a foreign or a domestic enemy of the U.S. as that they cannot protect the citizens nor over come the unfriendly force which hinders the execution of the laws?. It is most manifestly, as well in the latter as in the former state of insurrection and danger, that the U.S. may suspend the writ. This is virtually and almost exPressly declared by Chief Justice Mar shall in exparte Ballman, (4 Cranch, 75.) Let it be remembered that this case arose out of an arrest and suspension of the writ during Burr's conspiracy in 1807. Then there was no war, no battles, no armies, and it is today a matter unsettled by your history whether there was even any conspiracy unfriendly to your Government. And yet, in that state of things, not only did Mr. Jefferson seek to suspend the writ, not only did the Senate unanimously order the writ suspended, (in which the House did not, however, concur,) but it was in, and as to, that state of the country that Chief Justice Mar shall uses the following words: “If at any time the public safet the suspension of the powers vestedby this act [Ju diciary act.of in the courts of the U.S., it is for the Legislature to say so. The question deendson political considerations, onwhich the Legisature is to Pressed thisdceocuidretc.anUnotnillytsheeeiltesgdisultaytiavnedwmillusbte obey the laws.” Now, I do not allude to this language, nor to this alleged conspiracy of Burr, to say that the country was in fact in such a state of danger as to demand the suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeascorpus, nor to show that Judge Mar shall so decided. But I do allude to it to show that nobody then pretended that an actual conflict of arms or array of armies was requisite to authorize the writ to be suspended by Congress. I allude to it to show that both Jefferson and the entire Senate did deem that to be a time when the writ should be suspended. But especially and above all I allude to this language of Mar shall to show that he deemed the country even then to be in such a state of danger, though there was neither a flagrant war or rebellion, nor any battles, nor armies, nor possibly even conspirators as that it was then competent for the Legislature to “say that the public safety required the suspension of the powers wested in the courts.” Mr. Lawrence in his Notes to Wheaton (page 517) quotes with apparent approval the following words from a speech by Mr. Bayard, in U.S. Senate of 28th January, 1862: “But I deny, unless you mean to abrogate the Constitution entirely, that such Piocanapply to any portion of the territory of the U.S. in which the laws are not suspended in consequence of its being in the possession of either a foreign enemy, domesticor or in consequenceof the courts not being openfor the redressof personal grievances.” Now, neither Mr. Lawrence nor Mr. Bayard can be accused of showing an excess of favor to a liberal use of war powers against this rebellion; and yet here these men exPressly admit that this military power may be exer should relouire cised even where the country is not in the open or armed possession of a domestic or foreign enemy, and where the laws are suspended only “in consequence of the courts not being open for the redress of personal grievances.” And, sir, I cannot for want of time stop here to show what I think is most evident indeed, that there is another principle of public and constitutional law upon which can be most securely rested the power of the U.S. to enforce, in Louisiana, through its military forces, law, order, and civil government, subject all the while to the controlling duty and obligation to make all this exercise of tem porary power only provisional and in aid of the duty to guaranty as soon as may be to Louisiana a republican government. That principle is that the people of Louisi ana have just been conquered in war, and as such can be governed by military force so long as the conqueror may find the military power necessary to completely subdue and overcome the rebellious spirit of the people. In California, as conqueror, you established a civil goverment, imposed duties on imports and tonnage, and exercised all necessary control over the people, and all this organized and enforced by pure military command; and yet of these mil: itary governments so established over what had then by conquest come to be your own territory the SCOTUS say, Cross et al. vs. Harrison, (16 Howard, 190,) that “No one can doubt that theseordersof the President, and the action of our Army and Navy commanders in California in according accordancewith them, were to the law of arms.” I am not saying that we may continue military sway over them of Louisiana and omit to restore and guaranty to them a republican government as long or to the same extent that we could over a mere Territory; but I do say that if the U.S. has the right to overthrow a rebellion by war at all, its war powers cannot be arrested and at an end the moment that arms are wrested from the public enemy and organized war is crushed, but continues until all such hostility to the U.S. is annihilated as is too strong to be controlled by courts and constables. If this be not so, then it is absolutely self evident that the U.S. has no power to put down rebellion at all, for then the Government is obliged to cease exerting the only power that is sufficient to attain the ends of the war before the actual resistance of the rebellion to the law is ended. And the rebellion is thus permitted to assert its constitutional rights in such a way as to destroy the Constitution. But, sir, this is not all. In his message vetoing the Freedmen's Bureau bill the President sustained that veto by the argument that that bill would remain operative for one year. And yet this law commits the absolute and complete control of all subjects relating to refugees and freedmen to the Army, under control of the War Dept. Here, then, the control of civil affairs and the enforcement of law are, by a law approved by the President, continued in force for more than one year after flagrant war is ended. I will now in the few minutes that I have left say a few words in regard to the condition of Louisiana, and let us see if there is that state of subordination that requires and justifies this law and the interposition of the military authority of this Government. I will not run through, as I cannot, the horrid details of what has occurred and what is being brought before the country from 10,000 sources of reliable testimony. It is enough that I should point to one single, strange, and starth ng fact, which taken by itself is utterly overwhelming and conclusive, and that is, that on the 30th day of July last at high noon, by prearranged plan the proof of prearrangement being absolutely conclusive and overwhelming the police, with officers and citizens of NewOrleans organized, a part of them constituting what was called the Hayes brigade, for the purpose of slaughter, and did then and there, with shouts and hur. rahs for JeffersonDavis and AndrewJohnson mingling with their infernal orgies, execute some 200 murders in the streets. The names of a majority, if not all, of those murderers are known to the people of NewOrleans. The names are in the reports before this House; and yet with these facts before the authorities of the State, and written down in its history, not even an attempt has been made at prosecution against a single one of the offenders, the only prosecution that has been attempted being against the victims of the wrong. Gentlemen on the other side get up here and tell us the courts are open. Ah, gentlemen, the courts are, indeed, open there, but under rebel control, in rebel sympathy for the E. of protecting and I declaim not now. but talk cautiously by the book rather of protecting and shielding than for the punishment of crime when that crime is of a political character and is committed against the loyal people of Louisiana. Here the hammer fell]