Mr. SHELLABARGER. Mr. Speaker, some weeks ago I introduced a resolution, which was adopted by this bod referring to the ComJudiciary of this ease the inquiry whether it is competent, under the American Constitution, for Congress to declare by law the forfeiture of citizenship where that citizenship has been voluntarily abandoned by acts of disloy alty. Since that resolution was adopted the distinguished gentleman who occupies the chair of this House has been, I am glad to find, speaking, in the same direction in which that resolution points. Since that, again, one of the most distinguished lawyers of the House has introduced ii set of resolutions bearing upon the same subject, and expressing with more distinctness a plan for putting in application that power of the Government, if it h the powers of the Government. I am most glad, therefore, to find these and other evidences that the mind of the country is being directed now toward this important practical inquiry, as one, not all, of themeans that may be resorted to for the purpose of relieving us from these questions of terrible embarrassment by which our Government is surrounded. To that great question, I desire to direct the remarks which I am about to make. Mr. Speaker, your country, not yet 12 moons ago, went out from the presence of dangers so terrible and deadly as that their merest statement mocks at all the resources of human speech; and it went into a triumph and joy as indescribable as its recent sorrow was and new again the people stand appalled under the shadow of some huge calamity and before “grim visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front” men of stoutest heart start back aghast at the damned portent of civilWar which they deem they see grim and manifest before them, and they look into each others faces and inquire wh? In “the breach” between the POTUS and Congress touching the method of restoring the States in recent revolt to controlling power in the Union, and in the causes for that breach most men find the occasion for this alarm. I go not at all today into the consideration of these, and allude to them now only for the purpose of saying, as I do here and now, that if any faith can be placed in the sincerity or truth of the most solDemnutterances of the Congress and of the President then they do not differ, but do most precisely agree, upon at least one of the most, if not the most, important and decisive principles and means for the restoration of t iese States to power which can enter into that great work. ay. I go further, and solemnly aver herr upon the awful responsibilities of one of the legislators of this my country that if the President and Congress e one of have the constitutional right to employ this means to which I allude for the restoration of the States, and if they will in good faith unite to apply and put in force the principle which both solemnly profess to hold, then the work of restoration of these States will be, if not easy at least ultimately certain, and at once secured. The principle to which Iallude is, that in all these States the truly loyal alone shall have powers of government, either by the holding of.othee or y the exercise of the elective franchise, and that “the conse ious and responsible leaders of the rebellion” shall be tried, convicted, and executed. If, indeed, it be so that you may exclude from all powers of government, in the States recently in rebellion, those who really desire to destroy the Government, and if we may secure to the loyal people alone all contro of the States and their federal representation, then I see no reason why every State so governed would not be welcomed today to the embraces of the parent Government with an acclaim of joy almost like that which angels gave at Bethle hem. The avowals by the POTUS of his desire for this exclusion of rebels from all powers of government, and for their condign punishmen t, have been so frequent, O recent, and so explicit, that to doubt t ieir sin cerity would be to attribute to the President treachery to his professions and an infidelity to all the instincts of honor and manhood. and, 1st, I reexhibit to Congress and to the country a most explicit avowal of hisprinciples upon this subject, made by the resident at Nashville on the 9th of June, 1864, in accepting the nomination of the Union party for the Vice Presidency. The avowal is an emphatic and complete assertion of all the constitutional power, at least by State action, and also of the expedienc and duty of exercising the power, for which shall contend. It was upon this exlicit avowal that Mr. Johnson was elected. n his formal letter accepting the nomination he refers to this speech as one in which I indicated my acceptance of the distinguishedhouor conferred by that body, and defined the grounds upon which that acceptance was based, substantially saying what I now have to spy.” (See John sons Life, by Savage, 298.) o pledge to principle could be more solemn, therefore, than this one is. None could be more signally rat ified by a great people than was this in Mr. Johnsons election. In speaking of the convention to be convened to restore the government of Tennessee he uses the following language, which will be found in his Life, pages 296 and 296: “But in calling a convention to restorethe State, who shall restoreand reestablishit? Shall it be the manwho gave his influence and his means to destroy the Government? Is he to participate in the great. work ofreiirganization? Shall be who brought this misery upon the State be permitted to control its destinies? If so. then all the preciousblood ofoiir bravo soldiers and officersso freely poured out will have been wantonly spilled. All the glorious victories won by our noble armies will go for naught, and all the battle fields which have beensown doadherocsdurinir thorebellion will have beeninwniah a memorablein vain. Why all this carnageand devastation? It was that treason might be put down and traitors punished. Therefore, I say, that traitors sIfhould take a back seat in the work of restoration. Conthsteirtuetbioenb. but 5 men in Tennesseeloyal to the 10ml to freedom, loyal tojustice, these true and faith ii] men should control the work of reorganization and reformation absolutely. [Loud and prolonged applause. ] I say th nt the traitor has ceasedto he a citizen, and in Joining the rebellion has becomea public enemy. lle tort cited his right to vote with loyal men when he renouncedhis citizenship and sought to destroy our Government. We say to the honest and industrious foreigner who comesfrom England or Germany to dwell amongus and addto the wealth of the country, Beforeyou can be a citizen you must be here 5 years. Ifwe are so cautious about foreigners who voluntarily renounce their homesto live with us what should we say to the traitor who, although horn and reared among us, has raised a parricidal hand ngaints the Government which always protectedhim? Myjudgment is that he should besiibjectedto ase vere ordeal before he is restored to citizenship. A fellow who takes the oath mercly to save his property and denies the validity of his oath la a perJiired man and not to be trusted. Before those repeating rebelse an be trusted let them bring forth the fruits of repentanco." “Treason must be made odious, and traitors must, be punished and impover ished. Their great lantations must.be seized and divided into small arms and sold to honest and industrious men." Mr. Speaker, the argumentI now enter upon is all aimed to showthat “the traitor ceased, so far as his Government may so elect to treat him, to be a citizen” and “forfeited his right to vote" when, by persistent rebellion against his government, e “renounced his citizenship, ” and that he “ should be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is “ restored to citizenship, ” and that he should be required to bring forth the fruits of repentance before he shall be trusted.” and these are the solemnly “ defined grounds upon which Mr. Johnsons acceptance of the nomination was based.” (Life, 298.) These are not merely the excited utterances of a stump speech, but. were again carefully and solemnly repledged as principles in his letter to the resident of the convention that nominated im. Upon them he went to the American people. The people by an Overwhelming voice aproved them. hey cannot be now retreate from without both dishonor most shameless and foul and moral treason most deep and infamous. cannot and will not believe that the President means to retreat from them; or that he purposes to seek refuge from the scorn and indig nation of a betrayed and outraged people in the embraces of them whom he called t ie “perjured fellows who take the oath merely to save their property.” (See Life, 294.) Helms again and again repledged himself to this same thing since his election. In his recent speech to the Virginia delegation headed by Mr. aldwin, (late of the rebel congress) he used these words: “If there werebut 5,000 loyal men in a State, or a lessnumber. but sufficient to take charge of the political maehiner of the Shite. those 5,000 or the less number, are entitled to it it all thercstbootherwise inclined. Hookuponitasbeing fundamental that the exercise of political iower should be confined to loyal incii, and I regardt atas imlied in the doctrinesluid dow9th cse resolutions n in theoloquent addressby which theyhave been uccompaniod. In the recent speech of Colonel Stokes, of Tennessee, made to the Legislature of that State, he is represented to have made the following statement touching the present views of"the President upon this important question: As President Johnson said the other day before I left Washington, ltyou dont disfranchise the rebel! they will disfranchise you." such, then, are the views of the President. To say that they are not his views, or that they are put forth as mere lures to insnare a gener ous and couliding people into his support mere “springs to catch woodeock, ” which he deems neither constitutional nor capable of being practically applied and enforced, nor fit to be so applied is to attribute to him purposes and conduct which would be disgrace ul to the most vulgar political harlequin, but which, in the ruler of a great and generous peeple who have so honored and trusted him, would be utterly disusting and infamous. I will neither say nor believe this; and I therefore shall assume that the President deems it both practicable, constitutional, and fit to enact that the traitor “forfeited his right to vote with loyal men when he renounced his citizenship and sought to destroy the Government, ” an “that he shall be subjected to a severe ordeal before he is restored to citizenship.”I need not say that Congress has already indicated its belief in the same thing. It is obvious, then, that either they who hold the 2 political Depts of this Government are most false and insincere, or else they a recthat the disloyal should be sternly ex0 uded, by “severe ordeals, ” from Government until they “ bring forth fruits of repentence." I now proceed to inquire whether this which both Congress and the President favor is permitted by the Constitution and to guard myself, at the very threshold of these remarks, from misapprehension, 1 state, that should the Government he found to hold this alleged power of excluding them who have renounced their citizenship from the exercise of its powers, still I do not favor such exclusion avainst the mass of the common people, unless it shall appear that they continue incorrigibly disloyal, and insubordinate to our Government and laws. I only inquire now as to the power. The manner and extent of its employment willbe a matter for the high, solemn, and most cautious exercise of the wisdom and discretion of Congress; to be done with due regard to the nature of ours as a popular Government restin upon the will of the Yoyal citizens. but also With regard to the perpetuity and safety of the Republic. What makes the inquiry upon which I now enter, as to the right to exc ude the disloyal from citizenship and from voting, of such vital momentjust now is the sad fact that in atlenst ten of these States there is the highest reason to fear that more than half the white inhabitants desire the destruction of this nation. The people could not learn a fact, so utterly unnatural and appalling, until each household spelled it out, letter by letter, line by line, for itself. But the nation did learn it at nst, when every family had read it in the marble features of its own slain “ or there wasnot a housein which there wasnot one dead.” To again refuse to believe itas we did before, and to decline again to act upon it as true is only stark madness. For 4 years and a half that almost entire people strove for that destruction, with aferocity of will which made the purposes of Danton and Robespierre almost timid, and with a cruelty of execution which makes the “September slaughters of the prisons" almost mercy and now, when the grass has not yet cov ered the graves where slee the victims of this immense crime, and when, y no act, or speech, or sign. the great mass of the authors of it have even professed regrets for the past except regrets for the failure, and when they avow no new desires for the future, this nation must either accept this most unwelcome fact of General disloyalty or else the nation cannot live. Mr. Speaker, has the Constitution, now that actual war for the attainment of the nations destruction has been crushed out, deprived the Government of all power to accept this fact, and to provide against the imminent peril to the nation which it imports? To show that the Constitution has not is the work of this mv hour. To be fully and accurately apprehended, let me state now what I am about to maintain and what I shall not maintain. I do not think that the Federal Government has any power to exclude by law any civilized native of the U.S. from rights of national citizenslii who has not violated or renounced his allegiance to the U.S. I do not maintain that any citizen can, by any act of disloyalty or by discarding his alle giance, divest himself of the obligations of the allegiance which he owes his country; but, on the contrary, I hold that he cannot. I do not hold that the U.S. can regulate the enjoyment of the elective franchise in the organized States so as to rescribe who, of them who are citizens, shallp be permitted to vote. I think the 2nd section of the 1st article of the Constitution gives this power to the States. What I do maintain and shall strive to establish is, that the U.S. is a supreme nationality with the sovereign power usually held by nations to define the obligations of citizenship and demand the paramount allegiance of all its citizens in return for national protection; and that, in virtue of such sovereignty, the nation has the power by law to declare what ross, open, and palpable acts of abjuration and abandonment of the obligations of citizenship shall work a forfeiture of all the political rights and powers of citizenship, including the elective franchise; and may also prescribe what shall be deemed sufficient ovi deuce of a return to true faith and allegiance to his country such as to entitle him to demand the rights ofu citizen. To attain the establishment of these I now proceed. Burns is A RANGE. It is upon this sublime and simple law that I lay the foundations of my argument. Mr. Speaker, how strange has been the history of that laws ennnciation and enforcement in our country. Its absence from “the confederation” rendered that structure, which was reared in the storms of war, utterly weak and insecure, and at the end of the 8th year of its existence prostrated it in ruin. To remove in the new Constitution this cause of the fee bleness and ruin of the old, was the very end and purpose of the new ones formation. That high purpose they who made it engraved into its text in those vital words, “Shall be the supreme law of the land." and then they set the purpose out again in the tiara of stars with wtheh they bound the Constitutions brow, and made it read, “To form a more perfect Union.” This law, stated by Wheaten in the words, “The U.S. is a supreme Government, acting not only upon the sovereign members of the Union at directl upon the citizens, ” was thus made self evii em. as the very fonndation of the Government, both by the origin, the text, and the preamble of the constitutiou. It was afterward aflirmed by 1,000judgments of the highest courts of the States and of the nation. ft was reannonnced by the government itself in the terrible dialect of war in the suppression of 3 successive revolts against that upremacy in the States of Pennsylvania, SCarolina, and RhdIsland. It became impressed upon the Constitutions history by the meanings assigned to it by those who made it. The same thing was enforced by the subsequent arguments of its great expounders, among which stands one thereply to Hayne nnsur passed by the achievements of the human intel cct, and which has passed into undying history, the sole companion of its only peer, “the oration upon the Crown.” But, sir, after all these it was strangely, in Gods Orders, reserved to this Government to teach it to her children and the world in cm basis which startled the human race. his lesson, which they who made it had thus written all over the Constitution, which the Government had 3 times more indicated by the accents of war, which for 70 years the courts had been framing into decrees and men had been illustratin with the best eloquence of earth is compreended at last. But, Mr. Speaker, it was only comprehended when it was written in letters of mm led fire and blood the fires of a war which swept half a continent, and the blood of “ the mighty millions.” There it stands now, written, comprehended. It is the judgment of by far the most august court which ever sat for “high resolve, ” the court of the mighty people; and men coin prehend at last that this is a nation with right to live. surrsssssvnios A usivsiisu. incur as nn rr or NATIONS. The next element of my argument I brin from the highest sources of public law; an assert that “ the right of selfpreservation is not only a right with respect to other States, but a duty With respect to its own members, and the most solemn and important one which a State owestothem." (Wheaton 115.) “Every nation is obliged to perform the dutyof self preservation. (Vattcl, s. p. 6.) svsav union is ssrirtro 70 was units or sunr DEFENSE. Mr. Speaker, from the same high sources of authority, I allege that“Since a nution is obliged to preserve itself. it has a right to everything necessaryfor its preservation." “A nation has a right to everything thn toan ward olfiiuminent dnnizer and keep at nilistniice whatever is capable of causing its min; and from that very same reasonthat establishes its right, it has also the right to the things necessary 1 its“ preservation." Vam.s. p. U. [his right of self preservation necessarily it volves all other incidental rights as a int nusto giv effect to the principal cud."Wharton, 115. As we proceed we shall see that these prineiples, soevidently inherent in the very nature O sovereignty, are both held and employed by every independent State. cirizsssnir is s iuriorut, sun Nor A [TY and oirr. an" QUAL Let it be next thoroughly established and comprehended that in our Government there is, properly speaking, no State citizenship, and that, to adopt the languave of the case of Lynch vs. Clark, (1 Sanford IL, 583) citizenship is “ a national right or condition." liance llor Kent aflirms the authority of this case (2 Kents Commentaries, s. p. 30, note) when he says: j the question of citisenship as distinguished from alienn e is one of national and not of individual [State sovereignty." tats.” as 1 Judge McLean: may authonse a foreigner to hold real estate within its jurisdiction, but it hasno power to naturalize foreigners and gin them the rig its of citizens. such a right is opposed to the actsof Congresson the subioct of naturalization and subverswc of the Fedora powers. I regret that any countenance should be given from this bench to apractice like this in some of the States which has no warrant in the Constitution." 19Howard li0ve3r3y. citizen of the U.S. is n component memberof the nation. with rights and duties under the Constitution and laws of the U.S. which cannot be abridired by the laws of any State." “Every person who particular is a citizen oft c U.S. whether y birth or naturalization. holds his great franchise by the laws of the U.S and above the contro of nny partienlar Statc.I Opinion AttyGen Dates, of 29 November, 1862. By such authorities as these I show this other proposition of my argument, that by the very essence and nature of sovereignty it is and must be the nation, the supreme Government, that determines who shall be members of the nations body, its citizens, and whom it will admit to demand its protection and enjsy its powers. snnniz Ann atoms or crrizrssnir. In order that the legal consequences which flow from the fact that the nation bestows and controls citizenship may be completely under stood, it is best new to look at the nature of American citizenship. Although this is a subject of great difficulty in some of its aspects, yet it is in others of the very easiest and most obvious comprehension an statement. In speaking of what privileges and powers are inc uded in citizenship, Mr. Calhoun says: " But though we may not be able to say with procision what a citizen is, we may say with the utmost certainty what he is not. Ho is not an alien. Alien and citisen are correlative terms, and stand in contradistinction to each other. They, of course, cannot it) exist." The principle here alluded to by Mr. Calhoun, that he cannot be held to be a citizen who does not owe, or who docsnot recognize or render the obligations of a citizen, is more fully expressed by Vattel (s. p. 106) in these words: "If the body of society or he whorepresonts it [otbhleig Government r]dabthseolcuitteizlyenfa, itlhetoladtitsecrhmaragyetheir with draw himself." Now note what follows: “For, if oneof the contracting "ties does not observehis engagements, the other is no longer bound to fulfill his as the contract is reciprocalbetween society and its members. It is on thesame principle also i iiit socicty may expel a memberwho Violates its laws." Precisely the same thing in its legal effect is stated by the AttyGen of the U.S. in his opinion of the 29th November, 1862. His words are: “The duty of BllGRHIOG and the right to protection are correlative obligations.the one the price of the other and the constitute the bond between the individual and is country." Justice Blackstone says: “Allegiance is the tie or ligament which high everysubjectto betrue and faithful hi cover in return for protectionwhich is nffoed up. It cannot be necessary further to enforce a proposition which is asserted by plain and irresistible reason, by every authority of any value upon international law which is in existence, and which is denied by none. This proposition is, that the “ bond” which unites eve sovereign State with its citizens is the reeotion and rendering by the citizen of true loyalty, lbith, and allegiance to his Gavernment and the reciprocal protection due and rendered by his Government to that citizen as the price of that allegiance; and when such faith is not recognized or rendered, there is no bond of citizenship and none of its rights. About the truth of this position there can be neither sensible dispute or doubt. The only question which can be made, bearing directly upon this doctrine of public law, is as to how the citizen may show he discards his allegiance, and how the Government may assert its right to forfeit his citizenshi. This we shall presently come to and consider. “unions or cmzussnir rosurnames. I now assert another proposition which in principle is identical with an must result from?0 doctrine that “State laWs and State legisation cannot in the nature of things be longer permitted to define, abridge or enlarge the important irivilege of citizenship in the U.S. ” ltis this: they from whom the U.S. may constitutionally withhold or with draw the ordinary rights of national citizenship, such as the right of petition, of holding land, and of protection, cannot, except by the sellerance ot the Government of the U.S., have conferred upon them by the action of the States higher and more vital powers and rights of controllin the U.S. Government than would c derived by the possession of more righis of national citizenship. In other words, those, whether native or foreign, whom the nation may rightly decline to permit the States to endow With citizenship merely, cani not be endowed by the States except by mere sufferanee, as I have said, with the infinitely higher attributes of national sovereign gnt, which, by the elective franchise, selects all the rulers of the Republic. Judge Curtis (19 Howard B., 581) says truly that though "The enjoyment of the elective franchise is not essentialto citizenship there can be no doubt it is one of the chiefestattributesof citizenship under the American constitutions; ad the just and constitutional possessionof this rit is decisiveevidenceof national citizenship." I aver that they to whom the nation has rightly denied the rights of citizenship are thereby denied being deemed a part of the “people of the States” in the sense of the 2nd section of the 1st article of the constitution; and no State can make such men the electors and rulers of this nation unless, as is true in a few States, this be permitted by the mere sutlerance of the Government. I do not object to this sufferanee where loyal men are the recipients of it. Let us see how this is now by the great lights of the law. I 1st cite Story, (Constitution, section 1103) who, with irresistible force of reason, declares thataken joIyf aalllietnhsemn:ightts obfeciatidzment its t.eadtitnhdeiswerililmoifnaatseilny t1o0 State. the Union itself might be endangeredby the influx offoreigners hostileto its institutions. ignorant opfrjitvsile fgoerms.s, and incapableof a due estimation of its Surely, whether the elective franchise be a right of citizenship or not, there is no other right so fatally dan areas to be intrusted, “at the will of a single late, ” to men not citizens, and “hostile to our institutions, ” as the power of selecting all the officers of the nation a power which Judge Curtis well declares to be the “cliiefest attribute of citizenship.” Again, sir, Chancellor Kent, (Note c, s. 229, 1 vol. Comm.) after declaring that in Ohio the right of suffrage is limited to naturalized and natural born citizens, adds, “And so I think it ought to be in all sound policy; and the view taken of the subject in the above case (Spra ns vs. Houghton, 2 Seammon, 377) by one of the counse who argued the cause, is a masterly argument.” (See Mr. Butter fields aggnpient approved by Kent, in 2 Seammon, Again, Mr. Lawrence (in Wheaten, 910) says: "If theyfihc States]canadmit to the electivefrau chisethosewho urenot citizens, thereby neutralising the votes of citizens, not only the Federal owor O naturalization becomesa nullity, but in the latter case a minority of actual citizens by the aid of aliens maycontrol lhogovernment of the States.and.through the States the Government of the Union.” Once more I cite Mr. Calhoun, not merely because of the eminence of his learning and ability, but mainly because of the intrinsic force of what he says, and that it is said by one not too apt to restrict the powers of the States, nor to magnify those of the General Government. In the argument from which I have quoted (Wheaten, 905) he says: “To supposethat a State can make an alien a citizen of the State, or conferupon him the right of vot; ins. would involve the absurdityofgiving him udircct and immediate control over the action of the General Government. from which he has no right to claim protection and to which he has no right to present action. That the flill forceof the n surdity maybe clt it must be borne in mind that every Dept of the General Governmentis either directly or indirectly under the control of the voters in the sevural totes. Now, admit that a State may confer the "Bllt of voting on all aliens, and it will follow as a necessary consequence that we might have among our constituents persons who have not the right to claim th c protecion of the Government or to present it petition to i “ But a still greater diiliculty remains. Su usea war should he declared between the U.S and the country to which the aliens belong. They. as aliens would be liable to be seizedunder the laws of conrose. to have their goods confiscated, and theinse you sent out of the country. The principle that leadsto such consequences cannot be true." Surely Mr. Calhoun must be right. Surely the States cannot, if the nation should exercise its right to forbid it, authorize them to elect the American President and the American congress, who can neither petition the Government they elect, demand the protection of the Government they elect, be required to bear arms in favor of the Governmentw iich they elect be tried for treason against the Government they elect, nor remain, in time of war, in the country whose rulers the elect, and who are, by a law now in force, declared to be, in time of war, the enemies of the Government which they elect and required to be driven from the country. (Sec act of 6th July, 1798.) Mr. Speaker, whether a nation endowed, as we have now seen ours to be, withlthe high attributes of supreme sove ty a nationwith rightto life; with right to lpowers required to ward off danger to that life;. with exclusive right to confer, define, and control national citizenship; with right, if itso choose, to exclude aliens from becoming citizens, and from either electing our rulers or demanding our protection until this nation shall deem them fit to become such; whether such a nation may withdraw the power of electing our rulers from men who have turned enemies of the Government and discarded all the duties of citizenship is the momentous inquiry to which all I have said was directed. If it be so that our Government has not this power, then, indeed, is it a prodigy of the ideous, a paragon of deformity, a very mir acle of the monstrous, which has neither a peer nor proximate in the past of nations. Look at the spectacle. A supreme Government exclusively creating and controlling allegiance and citizenship; but with States in that government able to enact into supreme laws that all who have by acts of treason proved their purpose to destroy the Government shall elect its rulers, and that all who have not done this shall not vote for these rulersl You have a Government with exclusive power to decide whom it will permit to beer from Stateto State the right of abode, of holding land, and of exemption from unusual taxes, and yet with power in the States to declare that none but those whom the Union will not permit to have these lowest rights of citizenship shall elect all of the nation s an reme magistrates. You have a Congress able to make what the constitution declares to be “the supreme law of the land, ” but with power in the States to enact by law that none shall vote in electing that Congress but they who, by taking part in rebellion, have shown that they aim atthe question ls life. resume the destruction of both Cougre and its supreme laws. You have a nation bound to exhaust every dollar of its treasures and every drop of its loyal blood to defend the rights and avenge the wrongs of its citizens, and yet with no power in that nation to declare that Mason, in England and Slidell in France, and Suratt and Saunders, in Canada, have ceased to have the rights of citizens; and you are, therefore, bean to exhaust this treasure and blood for the defense of these. You have a nation in which, like in all others, the “bondH which unites the citizen to his country is the fact that he acknowledges and "renders allegiance to its laws; and yet you have that nation not only bound to protect them who defy and spurn their Government and its laws, but also bound to permit the disloyal States to enact into “su preme law" that none shall vote for President or Congress of the U.S. but such as have made war upon the U.S. Need I say that a doctrine leading to results like these is not false merely, but utterly shocking? nowsion rs or ClTlZENSHIP me roar aim. I shall pursue these suggestions no further, but shall assume that there is some way by which this Government can deprive men whom it deems unfit to be members of society of such rights of citizenship and of electors as is de manded by the uh ie safety. It will be sai that the only way within the Governments power to divest persons of the political powers of such citizens ip, and of the right to O col. the national officers, is to indict, try and execute them; and hence that no right can bedeelaredlbrfeited bye. mere act of national sovereignty. In other words, it is alleged that in cases where the guilt and disloyalty of vast communities of men are open, notorious, confessed, historical, and established by years of persistent, general, and universal war, still their Government is bound to regard them as inno cent, law abiding, and patriotic, and worth to rulethe nation unless they are tried by aJury and executed!. New, this assertion I meet with a flat denial; and I assert that it flies into the face of all law, common, constitutional and international; of all reason, ordinary and extraordinary, and of all history, our own and all other nations. Look at these. Take ourown recentand melan choly experience. We have 8 million eo ple, each of whom, with the exception of the omen and children, has made war upon his country and forfeited his rights of citizenship and li e. Unless secession be legal, then both the treason and forfeiture stand confessed by each one of themillions. Now, is it possible that each of these must be either convicted and executed, or else be permitted to be the rulers of this land? Is this great Government, indeed, SE impotent as this, that in matters of this stu pendous moment, shown to be absolutely vital to its existence, it can choose but one of 2 things, and either one of which 2 things carried eub, Iaffirm, would be fatal to the na If it must permit these 8 millions who waged 4 years of war for the nations death, and who may profess neither penitence, loyalty, or change of purpose, to ighest powers of Government under laws of disloyal States which exclude from government all the loyal men of the State, then that is national death. If, on the other hand, to prevent this you must try, convict, and execute these millions. thatis both national dishonor and death. It is no ese ape from this dilemma to say that I would convict them and then not execute them, but grant a partial pardon s aring life, but forfeiting franchises. That hot i proposes impossibilities and yields the case impossi bilities, because no nation ever did, or Will, or can, or ever ought to try and convict 1/3rd of its people; and it yields the case, because if a conditional and partial amnesty, which spares life but forfeits rights of citizen shi, can be granted after conviction, so it can be ore, when the guilt is open and confessed. (6 Opinions Attorneys General, 20; use Phil. R., 302.) I am not now to be under stoo as saying that a Gowrnment which as sumesto exclude dangerous men from citizenship, or from higher powers than citizenshi, as the elective franchise, deals with them in punishment of crime, or that in conceding to such men some rights of citizens, as that of residence, and depriving them of others, as that of votin, the Government is eitherpun ishing or pa oning crime as such. such acts are no more a punishment of crime than the exclusion of aliens from the rights of citizens is apunishment of crime. An to admit such in erous men to some rights of citizenship, is tgat of residing in the country, and of spar ng their lives, is no more an assumption of the Presidents pardoning power than to permit aliens to res e and own propertyiu the country IS a pardon. These very some considerations prevent such laws from being bills of attainder, or of pains and penalties. This I argue not, because it is self evident. You can no more punish and forfeit the property of an alien resident of the U.S. by the enactment of “attainder, ” or “pains an penalty” stat utes, than you can so punish a citizen; and yet who ever dreamed t. at the act of July 6, 1798, banishing such aliens in time of war, was a bill of pains and penalties? If it be true that our Government can with hold from none who are natives of our country the powers of citizenship, and if it cannot forfeit these powers by act of law and without conviction, when the citizen has openly renounced and trampled upon his obligations as a citizen, then some of the results would be the following: your Government could not exclude from citizenship the tribes of American Indians, at least not such as pay any tax and yet that exclusion is as old as the Government. Neither could your Government exclude from powers of government pirates, or hands of robbers, or guerrillas, who are natives of your country and unconvicted and yct such men, by the law of nations, are not only not. citizens of any country, but are the doc ared enemies of the human race, whom any nation may destroy wherever found. Neither could you declare men who flee their country in time of war to ese ape rendering to it military service to have lost citizenship. such men you cannot try as criminals, or convict, because your process cannot reach them, and besides, the act of forfeiture may be one constitutinfl no defined crime. Then. too, m: Mason, Slidell, Breckinridge, and Wigfall, adnot only demand the rights of citizen suitors in your courts, but, as has been said before, may demand that all this nations loyal blood shall be expended in war to defend their rights and avenge their injuries We have already seen that the highest international authority in the world so expressly declares the law when he says thatiie citizen does not “ observe his engagements to the government, then the Government is not bound to fulfill it, as the contract is reciprocal between society and its members, ” and that it is “on thisprinciple also that society may expel a memberw o violates its laws." (Vattcl, 106.) There is no authority nor judgment of any court that does not take for granted and assume as a stnlate the very thingl now strive to estab lab, to with that nations may exclude from all national citizenship, fellowship, and rights men whose character is wholly incompatible with the enjoyment of such rights. ake in proof of this the learned opinion of the AttyGen, Bates, already quoted, in which heassnmes that if a mans character “is so incompatible with citizenship that the 2 cannot exist to ether" then he cannot be a citizen. Or take edefinition of what a citizen is. I care not whose definition on select. You may take the oldest, as that ofy Aristotle, that it is one who “enjoys a due share in the government of that community of which he is a member, " or you may take that of Vnttcl, that they are citizens who “are members of the civil society, bound to this society by certain duties, and subject to its authority; they equally articipate in its advantages." In every de nition it is assumed that he is not entitled to be a citizen who does not.dise linrge the duties which “bind” him to society and entitle him to be “a member of the Government in which he shares its power." Or take in further proof of this the express authority of every writer upon public law, all of whom, like Vattel, assert the power in the sovereign to deprive one of citizenship who will not perform his duties. Professor Felice (vol. 1, p. 145) expressly asserts the power of the sovereign to forfeit citizenship, and indeed po does every other judicious writer on public aw. ins roar. I now appeal to history. I assert that there is not, an never was, a civilized nation in which the sovereign did not both hold and exercise the power of forfeiting and taking away, and that by law or edict of the sovereign rights of citizenship when its duties Were not recognized or rendered. Accepting foreign citizenship forfeits all its rights in France; and so does takings foreign office. (Wheaten, 922. The same is true in Prussia. (11)., 922.) no who abandons his count forfeits citizenship in Austria. Au Engligiiman loses his rights as a British subject by adhering to a foreign Power. (Whea ten, 91?; 2 Blackstone, 410. The same is the law of Bavaria, of Wurtcm urg, of Russia, and of Spain. The same law has been enforced agnin and again by Switzerland, and by every other Euro can State; and that through out all the perio of civilized history.