Mr. GARFIELD. I am very much obliged to the House for the courtesy they have extended to me. It is the 1st time have ever had occasion to ask this indulgence. I say that slavery, and the inequality of rights before the law which are now a part of our system, are more dangerous to us than to the black man whom it disfranchises. it is like a foreign substance in the body, a thorn in the flesh; it will wound and disease the body politic. I remember that this question of suffrage caused one of the greatest civilWars in the history of Rome. 90 years before Christ, when Rome was in the grandeur of its glory, just before the dawn of the Augustan age, 12 States of Italy to which the franchise was denied rose in rebellion against Rome and after 3 years and ten months of bloody war they compelled Rome to make its 1st capitulation for 300 years. For 300 years the Roman eagle had been carried triumphantly over every bottle field. But when iron Rome, with all her giandeur and glory, met men who were fighting for the right of suffrage, she was comnailed to succumb, and give the ballot to the 12 States to save herself from dissolution. Let us learn wisdom from that lesson and extend the suffrage to people who may one day bring us more disastert an foreign or omcstic war has yet dene. I must refer for a moment to the re position of my friendfrom Connecticut, [Mr. BM ixo, ] who asks us to imbed in the imperishablebulwarks of the ConstitutiOn an amendment that will forbid secession in the future. I want no such change of the Constitution. They never had by the Constitution the right to secede. If we have not settled that question by war it can never be settled by a court. That court of last resort is higher than any other tribunal. As the Governor of Ohio has so well said: “ those things have been decided in the dread court of last resortfor peoplesand nations. By asinuch as the shockof armed hosts is more rand than the intellectual tilt of lawyers, as the 0d of battles is a moreawful judge than any carthl court, by somuch does the dignietJof this contestan the finality of this decisIionexce that of any human tribuoa. " There aresomethingsto which courtsoflaw can add no sanction, and a nations appeal to God when it seizes the sword is one of them. We may, when necessary.try individual traitors and the peopleof the U.S.Wlll appear as prosecutor, but.not asdefendantat the bar. I care not what provision might be in the constitution; if any States of this Union desne to rebel and break up the Union, and are able to do it, they will do it in spite of the Constitution. All I want, therefore, is so to amend our constitution and administer our laws as shall secure liberty and loyalty among the citizens of the rebel States. I am not among those who believe that all men in the South are enemies in the eye of the law. Their property was “ edemys property, ” when it was transported and used contrary to the laws of the Government; but all are not therefore enemies of the Govepnment. Judge Sprague, in the Amy Warwrck case, distinctly declared that they were only enemies in a technical sense, namely, in reference to property, and not in another respect. Justice Nelson, in 1862, declare distinctly that men who resided within the limits of the rebellious States were not therefore to be considered as enemies.