Mr. SHELLABARGER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman knows, of course, that no law is expostfacto which is not both a criminal law and one punishing an act in a manner in which it was not punishable when it was done. But he forgetsw at has so abundantly appeared already in what I have said, that the high obligations of citizenship are not created by criminal laws, but arise out of that reciprocal, civil, and political contract of the common and international law which these denominate “allegiance, H the bond, ” “the ligament." He forgets that the obligations of these and the penalties which their viodation brings to the violator, all existed when these men discarded their allegiance, and that the forfeiture, on their part, of rights then accrued. For this Government now to accept and by law declare that forfeiture thus already accrued, is neither attaching new penalties to an act nor punishin crime, as such, at all. The obligations of citizenship are as old as the Government; as old as any Government. They arise not at all out of any criminal law. Their violation is a violation of civil and political obligations, and works a forfeiture oft he right to demand national protection and rights, as well where there is no law defining or punishing the act, either as treason or as any other crime; and also as well where the act of forfeiture is no defined crime (such as abandoning country to avoid (lefendin it) as where it is treason. When, through Mr. Webster, this Government withheld from Thresher the rights of an American citizen to demand the Governments protection, and thus forfeited the high est rights of the citizen, the Government did not thereby impose new or expostfactopunishment, because that no law existed prohibiting the acts (which worked the forfeiture) of gomg abroad and engaging in the L0 ez expe dition. Of course these forfeitures by act of law ought never be resorted to except where the abjuration of allegiance is open and notorious; and then should not be extended to forfeiture of property, but only, as in Ilireshers case, to Withholding political power and protection. But, sir, I go on. From the day of its birth to this hour our Government has by acts of Congress bot asserted and exercised this iden tical power for whichI argue. These acts bear date respectively April 14, 1802, and March 29, 1790, and were signed by Washington and Jefferson. These acts all expressly provide that no person roscribed by an of these State laws to which I have alluded shall ever be admitted tobecome citizens of the U.S. without the assent of the States. These acts of Congress are not pointed to as cases where the acts themselves 1st worked the forfeiture, for that was done by the State laws prescribing the traitors. But I do refer to them for the supremely important purpose of showing that it has stood for 77 years as an unquestioned and unreversedjudgment of the nation, that it is right and wise peretually to deprive, by mere act oflaw, and without trial or conviction for any offense, men who are open and notorious rebels of all such rights and powers of citizenship as the public safety requires to be withheld or forfeite; and this, too, as against natives of this country who have never left it. These laws were passed by the men who made your Constitution. They have remained upon your statute book, and have been enforced throughout every day of your national existence. Today they remain there, standing almost alone now, of all the statutes of our natal era, witnesses of that strange saga city, genius, and power which conceived and planned and reared the awful structures of the the pnblic, and which started that Republic down through the ages upon its career of power and grandeur. There stand these statutes yet, like sentinels with swords of flame at gate of Eden, guarding the entrance to our national fellowship and power; and like monuments, too, of the wisdom of the Governments authors. These monuments of the nations origin are now covered with the gray mosses of near 100 years, and 3 generations of the nations children have passed to the dead beneath their shade and still theystand there today, their foundations resting upon the granites, justice and law, upon which lie, in eternal repOSe, the deep foundations of the Republic itself and all over them, from base to summit, is written in characters as plain as those traced “ by the fingers of a man s hand over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the Kings palace, ” that truth, upon which all human government is founded, and upon which stands the government of God, that true allegiance and fidelity to Government is the only foundation of Government that can be; and that men fall from citizenship by the same “ sin by which fell the angels.” But, Mr. Speaker, I quit this presentation of the authorities by ointing my countrymen, and you, fellow members of this House, to the last and most terrible years of your life. In those fearful events which have been around you, and when good men had forgotten the partisan in the patriot, and when they were grasping with the awful energies of despair for the wisest and best means of national existence, you have again and again reenacted these principles of the Revolution; and your acts of congress bear the now immortal signature of your onored and lamented President. Oh, how lamented now! By mere acts of law you have confiscated lands; on have deprived of power to hold office; you have deprivedof the power to vote; and have wholly forfeited every quality of citizenship. The act of March 3, 1865, is an exercise of the very right of forfeiture without trial for which I argue. That act provides that"All personswho have deserted the military or naval serviceof the U.S. "And who do not report for duty within a prescribed time“shall be deemed and taken to have voluntarily reliii uished and forfeited the rights of citizenship, itndt eir right to becomecitizens: and such dese rters shall be forever incapable of holding nriyolliceof trust or profit underthe U.S.orof exercising any right of citizenship. Unless somebody shall hereafter appear in the world strong enough to show that to desert our armies is a higher offense against the duties of citizenship and a plainer relinquiahment and forfeiture of its rightslthan 4 years of war against the nations exrsteucc is, then this law will stand as a practical assertion, exercise, and application of all the national powers of self preservation for which I contend. Mr. Speaker, I here uit my great theme, recommending to my fetilow members and to this great people to complete the argument upon the elements and forces of which I have scarcely entered. But, sir evenin whatI have so poorly said, the right of this nation to enact a law to exclude from the high powers of the nation them who, by treason, have become its enemies, and not its citizens, is seen to be established, nay, sir, irresistibly established, by the very nature of all government; by the combined forces of reason, justice, and public virtue; by the very terms, nature, and origin of citizenship; by the paramount allegiance owed by the people to the Government of the U.S. as te“supreme law of the land;” by the precepts of the international law; by the usages of all other civilized nations, and y the unva rying practices of your own. Sir, if indeed it be so that all these are not enough to establish as among the powers of our great and beloved but most injured Government, the merest right of self defense, and if indeed the chiefarchitectsofthat ruine f states, which lies there before you yet, almost unallevi ated; if the chief actors of this crime, acrime whose infernal shades and glares are in all the long future, to at once darken an show all that is bad in human history; if all these chiefs of human infamy, with blood drops dripping from every fingers end, and from “each particular hair;” if these men, unrepentant, unaneled, “no reckoning made, " may stalk back, not to ordinary rights of citizenship merely, but to the higher, grander powers of electors of this mighty nation; nay, may come here into the very sanctuary of the nations life, and to libertys last retreat, and may come, too as the rulers of the Republic, and all this in defiance of all power in the Government to forbid it, then, sir, have the precepts of all reason, all law, all morality, all history, all experience, and all common justice been discarded in the making of your Government; and then I turn away from looking at my countrys future in anguish, in despair of the Republic. But, Mr. Speaker, it is not so. Your country and mine has the power to be, and the Republic will live.