Mr. RVMlrL.SOWN11,sooxf.l] own. Mr. Speaker, it is apparent that this House is not prepared to seize upon the fulfmeasure of the opportunity now presented for a full, just, and final settlement of the grave questions involved in the restoration of the insurgent States to their practicul relations with the Government of the U.S. I fear that that comprehensive statesmanship which cures for posterity as well as for itself will not leave its impress upon the measure we are now considerin. My fear does not arise from any apprehension that we are likely to go too for an make our legislation too searching and far reaching. such a result is rarely accomplished by men. Radical ideas are always, in a greater or less degrec, weighed down and impeded in their on war march by the possessors 0 that element of timidity which we are accustomed to call conservatism. No great reform is ever accomplished with the aid of those who, for the time being, denominate themselves conservatives. such persons always insist upon having things as they are, and continuing them in that state forever. There is not enough of this element in this Congress to preventa. chan c in the existing state of affairs; gut there is so eient to prevent such a change being made as would secure to this Republic a future of rest. We will stop short of the point of absolute safety; but we nevertheless will accomplish a great work, which time will carry (in an complete. This Government needs the active support in the insurgent States of all its true friends. Every man in those States who is a friend to the Government of the U.S. ought to be intrusted with the ballot in its defense. A majorit of the people of those States who engage in the robe 'on are as hostile to the Government now as they were at an period of the war. The Union men are in u. opeless minority lll most of those States, and will so remain for many years unless some means are devised to re'enforce them by extending the right of suffrage to the great column of loyal citizens ready at any moment to act with the white Unionists in a common political defense of themselves and of the Government. Many of the loyal whites of the South are anxious to be thus re'enforced. Some of them have told me that they hoped Congress would put something into its legislation for the restoration of the insu ent States which would enable them to raise no issue of impartial suffrage in their several States. b on being so informed I proposed the followuig amendment to the bill now under consideration: That whenever the above recited amendment shall have become part of the Constitution of the U.S and any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the same, and shall have modified ils constitution itnd laws in conformity therewith, the Sens&Reps from such State, if found duly elected and qualified. mu, ing after have token the required oaths of office. e admitted into Congress as such: Provided. That if any State. after ratifying said amendment and conforming its constitution and laws therewith shall establish an equal and just system of suffrage for all male citizens Within its jurirdiction who are not less than 21 years of age. the Sens&Reps from such State shall he admitted as aforesaid without liping required to await tne action of other States on said nmendment: 4i“(11, 117!”ftllfllfllflhTchrn|tnothing in this section contnim dshall be so construedas to require the disfrnncliiscmontof any loyal person who is now entitled to vote. This amendment has been examined by several of the earnest Union men of the South now in this city, and has received their approval. They assert that it will afford them an opportunity to raise the issue of impartial suffrage. with a fair prospect of success, in several of the insurrectionary States, and avow that a failure to secure such suffrage will seal the doom of the true loyalists of the southern States. Hence I urge that if the pleadings of justice are not sumcient to secure the adoption of this amendment let us at least yield to the promptings of expediency and give this means of defense to those who desire it. But, sir, not only do the white loyalists of the South need the Bltl of the votes of every loyal man in the South, but the Republic also needs them. The destructive doctrine of excesssion is not dead, nor is it even sleeping. It is as firmly rooted in the minds of those who waged war to enforce it as it was before the 1st gun was fired in the late great civilWar. They have not yielded one iota of the claim they made of the right of a State to secede, and we need votes as well as theories to over come and crush out the life of this mischievous heresy. The doctrine of the unity of the republic needs the vote of every friend in the southern States. Why, sir. even the President himself does not regard this question as finally decided by the conflict of arms. In his last annual message the following singular passage occur:. " It is manifest that treason.most flagrant in its character, hiis been committed. Persons who are charged with its commission should have fair and impartial trials in the highest civil tribunals of the country in order that the Constitution and thqlnws a be i'ullyvindicated: the truth clearly established an affirmed that treason is a crime, that traitors should be punished and the offense made infamous; dainedia.lalyt the sometime, that the questionma bein settled.finally and forever. that no tats of its own will has the rightto renounce its place in the Union." This suggestion is enough to cause every secessionist in the country to rejoice, for it merely changes the venue from “sovereign conventions of the States to the courts. in so for us this passage affirms the existence of the crime of treason and pronounces in favor of its punishment, it is well enough. but when it fol ows this with the declaration that treason trials are desirable not alone for the punishment of trpi tors but also “that the question may be judicially settled, finally and forever, that no State of its own will has the right to renounce its place in the Union, " it becomes freighted with an amount of mischief which never should have found place in a.President's message. The right of a State to renounce its place in the Union never had any existence, and is, therefore, not:1.question for judicial determination. The iower of a State to renounce its place in the nion was a question for armies to decide. Finally and forever it has been decided by the tribunal to which it was referred unless it be unsettled by casting it into the jurisdiction of the courts, as is suggested in the passage which I have quoted from the message of the President. lfn State has a right to “renounce its place in the Union” the citizens of the State have a right. to accept its decision and follow its for tunes. This hypotheticul proposition involves the very life otpthe nation, the unity of the Republic. If it may be determined judicially disaster must result, no matter on which side the decision may stand. lf the “right to re nounce" be affirmed, then there is no treason and the Union is dissolved. If it be denied, another trial may reverse the judgment, so that certainty of result would have disunion alone for a handmaid, for a decree of dissolution would be the ouly one not subject to reversal. The unity of this Republic needs not to be judicially pronounced. It is the Republic. Courts have nothing to do with it. It would be a crime against sic people for judges to r mitits discussion, and judicial treason for thZm to assume jurisdiction over it. Armies alone can discuss it. Battles alone can decide it. All other tribunals must accept the unity of the nation as a fact about which hangs no uncertainty, and concerning which there must be no disutation. The people settled this question which they ordained the Government, and left no pretense for President or judge or legislator to meddle with it. From “ we, the people of the U.S., ” comes the high command to Executive, court, and Congress to accept without doubting, to defend without fal tering, to enforce by all the powers embodied in the Constitution, including the grand and unlimited powers of the right. of self preservation, the sovereign unity which constitutes us a nation. All true friends of the country must regret that. the President permitted this serpent to nestle itself in his message. The certainty of a proper determination of the question by the SCOTUS as now constituted is no u ology for the presence of the mischievous tiing. The deoth of ndges and the mutations 0t paities are unsn e ire servers of judicial decrees. The tenure o of fice of ajudge, although it be for life, is too short wherewith to measure the life of a nation. The purity and patriotism of particular judges are no sure guarantees that the some bright uslities will always abide with the court, for judges die but courts do not. Patriots of to day may he succeeded by conspirators lo mor row: but the court remains. Treason lurked in this Hall. It may at sometime he enrobed on the bench of the Supreme Court. These considerations all show how grave would be the blunder of submittin as a question for the decision of any court ta“right of a State to renounce its place in the Union, ” and that the question cannot be “settled finally and forever” by casting it into the ever changing stream of judicial opinion. Perhaps the convention of Georgia believed the “right of a State to renounce its place in the Union” a question for judicial decision, and therefore repealed the ordinance of secession which plunged that State into war instead of, declarin it null and void. Doubtless Jeff. Davis, should he ever be brought to trial, would like to have his case crowned with a judicial affirmance of the right of a.State to renounce its place in the Union, and thereby win for him sel and for the South that which armies and bottle and all the woes of war could not secure for them the disintegration of this RepubllC Courts can be changed, destroyed, and cre ated by Congress and the President. The future may find an outgoing Congress and a retirin President turning in the last few months of their power upon the Supreme Court, and changing its organization or adding to the number of its members, and in this way securing a majority to pronounce the right of the States to retire from the Union. Under cover of this decision the southern States may again pass their ordinances of secession, organize a provisional government, and elect the retiring POTUS president of the rebel government. Let the treacherous congress go one step further, and allow the people of this District to decide with which government they will cast their lot. Let the traitor ous court make one more decision in a manufactored ease and declare this action of congress and the people of this District valid. fhis done, and you find before the arrival of the day for the inauguration of the President elect of the U.S. the Republic' dissolved by decree of court, a new Government in possession of your capital, and ruin and anarchy a portioned to your people. This is isunion made easy; and yetit is not. more unlikely to happen, if you once acknowledge the right of the courts to pass upon the great question of national unity, than was the recent igantic rebellion. Once admit that the right of a State to secede from the Union is a debatable question to be determined by the courts, and you will have done more toward the destruction of this Government than was ever done by armed treason on the field of battle. Let this power he conceded to the courts, and to them will traitors hereafter direct their corps of suppers and miners for the destruction of the Government. No need of armies will traitors feel if judges can do this work. In the solemn stillness of the hall of the Supreme Court may that dread work then be done which could not be accomplished amid the most terrific thunders of the recent awful struggle between treason and the Republic. The black gown may be more potent than the gray uniform. The manuscript of a judge may most fearfully demonstrate the saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. Mr. Speaker. I do not charge the President with a purpose to bring upon the nation the evils which must inevitably follow a practical application of the doctrine of his message to the affairs of the country. He evidently expects but one result, a denial of the right of a State of its own will to renounce its place in the Union. The danger does not lie in the intention of the President but in the doctrine itself. Calhoun did not regard his theory of State rights as one which would end in war whenever a State should attempt to put it in practice. We know how fearfully he was mistaken. 4 years of desolating war, 300,000 graves of loyal men, 100s of 1,000s of widows and orphans, untold numbers of desolate hearth circles, sor rows and heart pangs which can only be made known by the unfoldings of that day which shall number the crimes and woes of the human race, all stand as witnesses now, or will, in the coming times, of the wickedness which lurked in the theory of Calhoun. His theory provided the rallying pointfor that band of conspirntors and army of traitors which covered this land with the woes of war. His criminality is measured by the direful results of his teachings, and not by his intentions. His the ory was that a State possessed the right to peacefully retire from the Union. He asserted the right and did not seem to realize that if it should be disputed the issue joined could only be tried by the tribunal of war. His disciples affirmed it. It was disputed. The issue was tried by armies and resolved in favor of the indissolublo unity of the Republic. Shall we now permit an appeal from this decision to the courts of the nation? Is not the question settled? Where is this thing to end? When shall we know that we are a nation? Sir, in the suggestion of the President, that this question can go to the courts, lurks all of s the mischief which resulted from the theory of Calhoun. Itwill form the central idea around which defeated rebels will rally in the future. However pure the President’s intentions may have been when he penned the passage to which I have referred, he has officially an nounced an idea which portends a troublous future unless we now erect barriers which it will not be able to surmount. I have indicated the avenues through which this mischievous idea may weud its way to national disaster. It is not in our power to destroy the idea, but we may strip it of its power to accomlish evil. how shall we do this? Simply y extending the protective rebel power of the ballot to all citizens of the States who sympathized with and foughtfor the cause of the Republic. Give to al such the throbbing power of the ballot and on blast the hopes of secessionists, whether tiey rest on the power of arms or the subtle decisions of courts. Rectiforce the republic with the votes of those who wish it Wei, and it may laugh at the efforts of those who purpose evil. Have we courage to do this? I fear not. But that I am willing to do it and accept the consequences, whatever they may be to myself, I desire to have entered upon the records of this Congress. Mr. Speaker, I very well know that strong men dwarf in the presence of the proposition which I advocate. I know that many look forward to the fall elections and shiver in the presence of impartial sufliruge. That iron cased prejudice which frowns upon those who stand by the right in political action and even handed justice in national conduct will, I fear, prove too strong for the plea which I make. But in the face of this fact, l must assert that the political future of any number of members of this House is of small consequence when compared with the triumph of correct principles in the contest in which we are now engaged and toe security of the republic. lt is better for us to suffer individual defeat than national disaster. Sir, I beg the members of this House to remember that we are not acting for ourselves alone, but that on our action rests also the weal or woe of posterity. To us are commit ted the treasures of those who are to come after us; for what we possess we are'indebted to those who have preceded us. We have discovered wherein they were at fault. The exierience which we have, had it been possessed)1them, would have saved us from the bitter trials through which we have passed. whatever adjustment we may make of the great questions with which we are now dealing should be weighed in the balance of that impartial justice which preserves a just division between thought for ourselves and of care for those who in future time are to pass judgment on our action in the light of the experience it will provide for them. We will be recrcant to our dut if we leave any of the work which we should complete to pass from our hands unfinished to trouble posterity. We now have the power to break the last be e of the enemies of this Republic. Divide the political power of the insurgent States between those who carried them into rebellion and the race which the rebellion emancipated, and we will have broken the last link in that chain ofambition and.rejudice which bound the 'possessors of political power in the South into a common mass of" iostility to the Government of the U.S. This once accomplished and the people of those States will divide into parties so nearly equally balanced on all issues that there will be no longer danger to be feared from the doctrine of sedession in whatsoever form it may be presented, whether b State action or by judicial decree. We will e safe and pos terity will be safe; and here, in the language of J. Stuart Mill, “ I begverystrongly indeed topress upon the houso the duty of taking thesethingsinto seriousconsideration in the nameof that dutiful concernfor posterity which has beenvery strong in.cverynation that ever did n. thinu great and which has never left the minds 0 any such nation until, noin the case of itnhteoR'doemeraenpsituunddoearntdhceeeamsmpigrteo.ibt ewaansaatlrioena.d”y falling Whatever has beendone for mankind by the idea at posterit: whatever has been done for mankind by Main i opicconcernfor posterity: by a conscientioussenseof duty for posterit oven by. the less pure but still noble ambition of sin: hon tohrcisd by the m all this we owe to posterity.anifal it is our duty, to the bestof our limited ability to repay. All of the great deeds of the founders o nations and of those 2nd founders of nations. the great reformers; all that has been done for us by the authors or those laws and institutions to which free countriis are indebted for their freedom and well governed countriesfor their goodgovernments: all the heroic lives that have been i and the deaths which bavobeen died in defensea liberty and law, ivainst despotism and tyranny 1‘ '0m Marathon and Snlamis down to Leipsic an aterloo: all those traditions of wisdom and of Virtue which are enshrined in the history and literatur of the past: all the schools and universities by which the venture of a former time has been brought down to us and all that culture itself all that.we owe to the great masters of human thought, to the great masters of human emotion allthis is ours because 910;who preceded as have taken thought for pos en Sir, these golden sentences are worthy of England’s great thinker. They present to us a rule of conduct which, if followed, cannot lead to disaster. They breathe the spirit of the American people of the days when our Constitution was formed, when it was declared: “We, the people of the U.S. in order" "to secure the blessingsof liberty to ourselves nnd purposterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution tor the U.S.A." Mindful of posterity were they who made our Constitution; mistaken in somethings, it is true; but in none which we may not now corH rect, in none which we do not know needs correction. If we will but do our duty as well as we know it, banishing those things from our deliberations which are but personal to ourselves or our party, we will leave to posterity little ground to complain of us. We know that impartial suffrage in the insurgent States would leave, but little for posterity to quarrel over; but the fall elections lie between us and terity, and some fear the result of the former more than they consider the welfare of the latter. If we were posterity and posterity us, our duty relative to our present action would doubtless be modified, and the result would be greater wisdom than we are likely to manifest. We will stop short of what most of us know we ought to do. I do not expect my amendment to be adopted, and even it stops short of what onight to edonc. Loyal men, of whatever color, have more right to the ballot than have disloynl men, however white they may be. The Government needs friends at the polls rather than enemies, but the latter are more likely to get there in the rebel States than the former. If this be wisdom, the most made of it will be but little. Mr. Speaker, I will vote for the best thing we can get as evidenced by the last thing upon which We may be called to vote; but I this may not hope e the amendment of the Gentfrom Ohio, [Mr. BINGHAH] I 100 upon that as the eiiiboiinent of our greatest danger. The President is ppposed to the reconstruction policy of Congress. He is opposed to the exaction of any other conditions recedent to the full representation of the rebel States in congress than those which he has already imposed. Adopt the amendment of the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. BIXGHAM] and the door is thrown wide open to the full representation of the rebel States in Congress Without the least change having been made in the Constitution of the U.S. other than that abolishing sla very. Eve rebel State may adopt the present propose amendment of the Constitution, and thus become entitled to representation, and meet us with full delegations at the next session of this Congress, without a single change having in the mean time been made in the constitution. The power which defeated the election of a Senator in NewJcrscy may defeat the proposed amendment of the Constitution in enough of the northern States to prevent it becoming a part of the organic law of the republic. In view of this lpossible result I beg this House not to adopt the amendment of the Gentfrom Ohio. Better keep these grave questions within our own control than to turn out over to the tender mercies of executive” influence and onage; there may be more Scovels in the and Mr. Speaker, I have passed beyond the lim its of the time contemplated by me when I commenced these remarks. I can but hope that our present action will be as wise as I feel assured the ultimate result will be. We may determine those issues new or leave them to the future. We may be wise or foolish as we will, but the end will be what justice demands. We may advance or obstruct the solution of our national difficulties, but we cannot change the decrees of Him who ofone blood made all of the nations of the earth. “Equal and exact justice to all men" is the short road out of all our national troubles. We may take this or some more circuitous route; both will end at the same point. We have our election between a short journey and along one. We may reach the end by the former fresh and vigorous and strong, or we may arrive at it by the latter wearied and worn and ruined. I prefer the former; let those take the latter who choose“ and if such there be, and I must be dragged along with them, 1 will go, but I shall enter my protest at the starting oint and huriy through aswell as I may. Au now, Mr. Speaker, that my views are upon the records of this Congress, I loave them to the judgment of the future, content to abide by the decree whatever it may be.