Mr. Speaker, understand, as I doubt not the do generally understand, the magnitude of the ruin which has been caused by the rebellion, and they will comprehend the labors and the difficultieswhich attend the reconstruction of those old relations ofloyalty and fidelity to the constitution which once characterized these States. Sir, for one, I have never lost my faith in the wisdom and discretion of the able committee to whom, at the outset of this Congress, this most important subject was committed. For one, I have not doubted that as soon as it could be accomplished, within as short a compass of time as the nature of the subject and the extent of the labors devolved upon them would permit, they would present to t llS House some scheme upon which the loyal people of the country might unite to effect a perfect restoration of peace and harmony throughout the U.S. To the scheme which they have presented for that purpose, with the exception of one feature contained in it, and upon which I will presently remark. I am prepared, after due deliberation, to give my cordial assent and approval. The exception to which I refer is the provision of the 3rd section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. With regard to the 1st section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution, I cannot conceive that any loyal man can hold any other view upon that subject than that which is indicated in the preposed amendment. The constitution of the bU.S. apportioned Representatives and direct taxes among the several States according to their respective numbers and ordained that those numbers should be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons including those held to service for a term of years and Indians not taxed, 3/5ths of all other persons. So stood the constitution at the commencement of the rebellion. By that instrument 3/5ths of the class of persons known as slaves were counted in the enumeration which fixed the basis of representation in thisHouse. How stands the Constitution now? Why, sir, the literal application of the Constitution to the present state of affairs makes this late slave population of the rebel States count in the reiresentation in this body, not as 3/5ths, but as 5 5ths. Will any man say that that was contemilated by the framers of the Constitution? Will any man say that it was within the intention of the framers of that in strument that the late slaves in this country should, by an unforeseen state of public affairs, under a provision which enacted that they should count in the basis of representation as 3/5ths, come to count as 5 5ths, while at home they are counted politically as nothing? Yet this is what is proposed by those who oppose this amendment. It seems to me no man can maintain that proposition upon any principle of justice or soun political reasoning. What number of representutives will this bring into this Chamber from the rebel States by way of increase over the former number that came here under the terms of the Constitution? About 13 members. Is it not preposter ous that after all the trials, the sacrifices, the sufferings, and the hardships caused by this great war for the Union the result of the success of the Go rnment should be the increase of representation in this House on the part of those who made the rebellion, “by adding 13 mcmbers which they had not before the war? Is there a man here who dare go before the northern people and tell them that they are to be rewarded for the losses and sufferings which they have sustained by having 13 additional members admitted into this body from the rebel States. I want to see the northern constituency that will send a Representative here who declares in plain terms that that is just and that he is in favor of it. I ow, I ask gentlemen on the other side of the House why that should be done. If you say that this large class of persons have been transformed from their late condition of chat tels to a condition in which they constitute a art of the element of the political fabric, then I can conceive that having added that much in population to the thinking, voting men of the southern States, it would be just and pro: that that addition should be represented in this body. But. we all know that such is not the case. In those States themselves the late slaves do not enter into the basis of local Representation. In SCarolina they do not enter into the basis of representation in the Legislature of that State and anybody who will read the new constitution of SCarolina will see that snchis the case. Would it not be a most unprecedented thi that when this population are not permit where they reside to enter into the basis of representation in their own State, we should receive it as an element of representation here; that when they will not count them in apportioning their own legislative districts, we are to count them as 5 5ths (no longer as 3/5ths, for that is out of the question as soon as you make a new apportionment? I am not going to dwell upon that proposition. I believe it to be a proposition which the people of this cOuntry will understand without much discussion.ion have only to enunciate that proposition in plain terms in order to secure or it the unqualified rebuke of every man who sustained the Government during the war for the Union. With regard to the 2nd section of the prosed amendment to the Constitution, it simply rings into the Constitution what is found in the bill of rights of every State of the Union. As I understand it, it is but incorporating in the Constitution of the U.S. the principle of the civil rights bill which has lately become a law, and that, not as the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. FINCK suggested, because in the estimation of this House that law cannot be sustained as constitutional, but in order, as was justly said by the Gentfrom Ohio who last addresse the House, [Mr. GARFIELD] that that provision so necessary for the equal administration of tlpe law, so just in its operation, so necessary or the protection of the fundamental rights of citizenship, shall be forever incorporated in the Constitution of the U.S. But, sir, that subject has already been fully discussed, I have upon another occasion expressed my views upon it, and I do not propose to detain the House with any further remarks of my own upon it. pass now to the 3rd section of the proposed amendment, and here, sir, I am constrained to say that I do not believe it to be either lproperor exedient to retain this section of the propose amendment. 1 do not believe it for the reason which is contained in the preamble of one of the bills reported by the committee, the “bill to providh for the restoration to the States lately in insurrection of their full political rights.” The preamble of that bill, as reported by the committee, reads as follows: Whereas it is expedient that the States lately in insurrection should. at the earliest day consistent with the future peace and safct of the Union, be rstored to full participation in a 1 political rights. I am opposed to the 3rd section of the proposed amendment because Iarn in favor of the preamble of the bill. I am opposed to it because it looks to me like offering to the people of the States lately in rebellion peace and restoration with one hand, while you snatch it from them with the other. I am opposed to it because I thinkit will kee this country, which we seek to pacify and to bring back to its old state of allegiance, in a state of constant tur moil and disaffection f it does not rekindle afresh the fires of civilWar. Sir, I suppose the object of the present promme to be to indicate a plan which has for its object the immediate, not the prospective, restoration of the people of these States to the privileges they have 0st. Immediate, if the safety of the country will permit. If the safety of the country will not, upon any conditions, admit of it. then, sir, we had better dismiss the whole subject. If the safety of the count will admit of it, then let us name those conditions. That, sir, is what the committee in my understanding, have attempted to 0; but among the conditions which they have named is this one, which in my judgment, is not necessary or expedient, and which a pears to me to be impolitic and fraught with dangerous consequences. Sir, with what propriety, let me as this House, can we present an offer to the peopleof the South to return to their alle giance, and to unite with us once more in the maintenance in good faith of the Constitution, if, while we propose as a condition the ratification of an amendment to the Constitution, and as another condition the ineligibility of the leaders of the rebellion to Federal office, we say to them at the same time that, although you comply with these conditions, although you agree to adopt this amendment, although you agree that representation shall be based upon the numbers which constitute a part of the body politic, although on agree that some example shall be made of this great iniquity by excluding from Federal office those who were ringleaders in it, ct you shall not be restored to the right of representation or to any participation in public affairs until the year 1870? Now, sir, I am opposed to that; I think that it imperils the whole measure under consideration; and when I say that, I do not speak so much of the fate of that measure in this House as I speak of its fate in the count at large. I do not believe that the people 3 the loyal States will subscribe to either the necessity or the expediency of, the 3rd section of the proposed amendment to the Constitution. I believe, sir, that the masses of the loyal people of this country, those who made the greatest sacrifices to save it, are in favor of the resto ration of these political rights to the southern people just as soon as the can be restored with safety; and I think that they regard as theonly security and only safety which you can exact or obtain, the reform of the principle of representation, or rather the propera justment of the Constitution as regards representation to the new state of things. That is the point to which the loyal millions of this country turn their eyes for futureence and security. They know that if, instead) of reducing the representation of the southern States in this House to a standard of just equality with ourselves, you leave the Constitution as it is to operate upon an unforeseen state of affairs, and give 13 new Representatives to the lately disloyal States in this House 11 on a basis which they repudiate at home, there will be no peace and no security in the future for this. Government. The inequality of representation worked by the result of the war in the emancipation of the slaves must be remedied. Representation must be based upon a populution which is counted as a part of the body politic and which forms an element of government. This must be done by an amendment of the Constitution, the original provisions of which are inapplicable to the altered condition of public affairs. The loyal people who have preserved the Government demand this amendment to the Constitution. In my judgment, they will never, if they can prevent it, suffer this Government to belong without this amendment to the constitution, because it would be a most unjust and cruel return for all the sacrifices which they have made, to deny them this measure of jus tice. But, sir, they do not, in my judgment, demand as a further price of security that the rehabilitation of the southern people, with all the rights of free men, shall be postponed until 1870. I agree that it is just antlexpedient and properthat you should fasten a badge of shame upon this great crime of rebellion by rendering ineligible to Office under the U.S. those who have been leaders in the insurrection against the Government. But, sir, this 3rd section goes much further than this. It declares that the masses of the people in the lately insurrectionary States because it is idle to talk of the people in connection with the infinitesimal number of Union men in those States shall be disfranchised. We know that the masses of the people there, with exceptions too small to be counted, did support the rebellion, and supported it with their whole heart. The supported it in the field; they supported it y the payment of taxes; they supported it by speech and by votes; they supported it in every village and by every fireside. Everybody knows that. We cannot deny it. There is no use in attempting to conceal the fact and in dealing With a great subject like this it is better to look facts in the face and treat them as facts. The 3rd section of the proposed amendment disfranchises until 1870 this whole people, while the measure itself is presented to us as a measure of universal pacication as well as a measure for future security. I do not believe, sir, that this feature of the measure which is proposed will meet the approval of our constituents. I believe that what the constituencies of the States now represented in conas demand is, not prospect e ive reconstruction, but immediate reconstruction with conditions that will secure the public safety. As I have already said, the great condition of public safety and security is the readjustment of the Constitution upon the subject of representation, that article of1 the Constitution which relates to the subject of representation having been pushed by the war from the original sp ere of its operation, and which will, without amendment, O crate in a manner never contemplated by the rumors of the Constitution and with a degree of injustice to which the loyal States cannot consent to submit, and to which they will not submit if it can be prevented. What will continue to be the condition of the country if you adopt this feature of the proposed plan? Continual distraction, continued agitation, continued bickerings, contin ued opposition to the law, and it will be well for the country if a new insurrection shall not spring from its bosom. Here the hammer fell.]