Mr. President, if the honorable Senator means that the Congress of the U.S. can impose as a forfeiture upon a community for rebellion the loss of their political rights, I deny it in toto; and I deny further that the Congress of the U.S. can impose for any offense any punishment whatever upon anybody. It is expressly provided in the Constitution that no ill of attainder shall be passed and no expostfacto law made; and what for? For the very purpose of preventing that. What did the Parliament of England do after a rebellion? It sat down and put the names of leading traitors into an act of Parliament, Parliament being the judge, being clothed with the judicial authority, and by an act of Parliament imposed the penalties of treason upon all those named in it. hat was a bill of attainder. It was called a bill of attainder when the blood of the persons chared with crimes was corrn ted, when they conl not inherit, when nobody could inherit through them. If it imposed any less punishment it was called a bill of pains and penaltics; and if this Congress were to pass a bill)by which any State in this Union or the people of any State were do rived of any of their rights as a punishment, that would be, properly speaking, a bill of pains and penalties. The SCOTUS have decide that, as the greater includes the less, bills of attain der being forbidden, bills of pains and penalties are also forbidden. The Constitution provides again that no expostfacto law, no law shall be passed which imposes a punishment upon an offense which was not the punishment due to the offense when it was committed. I know on do not like the law. The law has been the bugbear all the we. After a war of 4 or 5 cars, to ct back to the Constitution and the law is did cult. Of course none ofyou want the law; you do not appeal to the law; you appeal to the committee of 15; you appeal to a constitutional amendment; on apeal to some new regulation that is to be may e. Why not appeal to the law? If a deprivation of political rights can be imposed upon a communit, where is the law for it, where is it found? 1; is not found in our Constitution; it is not found in the history of the country; it is not found anywhere here; and this is a Government of written law.