Mr. HISE. I do not wish to be drawn off by answering the gentleman's questions. suppose you can govern people on the public do main. All the public domain that was ceded to the Government of the U.S. by Virginia, NCarolina, SCarolina, and Georgia has been peopled and received into the Union of the States under the authority of the provisions of the Constitution. Their land has been taken up, occupied, and formed into communities and those communities have been received into the Union; and now before the Government is 90 years old, you turn around and deny these people, who through their representatives in the Federal Convention were the authors of the Constitution itself, their just representation, and at the same time you are continually discriminating against them and in favor of the North in all your legislation. Is it just? Is it constitutional 7 You never owned the territory out of which those States were formed I mean Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. It is true the lands northwest of the Ohio formerly owned by Virginia were ceded to you by that State, and 5 States have since been formed out of it and admitted into the Union, and these very States have here a representation which, in connection with the rest of the northern States, are denying to their mother “the mother of States as well as of statesmen” her just representation upon this floor, and are controlling her by the most oppressive legislation. Sir, you have no foundation upon which to rest in instituting territorial governments over these people. You never had title to these lands. You had title to the lands out of which certain other States were formed. Florida was ceded to the U.S. by Spain. Louisi ana was ceded to the U.S. by France. You governed them as Territories before they were admitted into the Union as States. You instituted governments, it is true, for other territories, but never in a case where you did not own the land can you rightfully institute terri torial governments over the people. Where is the authority to convert these States into Territories? Because that is your purpose, and in carrying out that purpose you betray the consciousness that as States they should be represented. You say they are not States of the Union. I say they are. It is an axiomatic truth. It can easily be denied, and it is difficult to prove it. It is proven by the very statement of the case. I say that they are States, and to deny them representation as such in the Senate and HoRep is to deprive them of their constitutional rights. And in doing so the House and Senate are continually amenable to the charge of grossly violating the Constitution of the U.S.