Mr. COWAN. I suppose the correctness of the resolutions laid upon our tables can be verified. Now, Mr. President, let us see what the platform is, as announced at Baltimore; let us get back to the platform I do not know who was the author of this instrument. I was not a member of that convention, nor wasl present, and therefore I have no means of nowing who the scrivener was; but I find in tht platform this 1st resolution: Resolved, That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain, against all their enemies. the integrity of the Unionand the permanent gutporilty of the Constitution and laws of the U.S. to es. I think I do remember a time when, if a gentleman had offered that resolution in this body, he would have been booted at from all radical yarters as having“ Constitution on the brain." es, the platform declares that the highest duty is to maintain the integrity of the Union and the authority of the Constitution and laws. I have insisted upon that always; I insist upon it now. It is he remedy that I suggest now for the difficulties under which the country labors. The President has a plan of policy; what is it? The Constitution and the laws; that is the whole of it. Certain gentlemen here wish to introduce an entirely new lan; they wish to remodel the Constitution and they wish to change the laws. Now, what ought to be done in a case of that kind, if men want to preserve the harmony of the party, if they are satisfied that on the safety of the party depends the safety of the country 2 Is it not the most rational thing in the world that they should come back at once to some point where we could agree? You cannot make a party by continually introducing new schemes, as weu dell Phillips said the other day, blinding the pilot with the storm of constitutional amendments, upon no one of which can any half a dozen men agree. When a measure is introduced as a party measure, and it cannot command the undivided support of the party, the man who persists in it fterward is guilty of the division, and if divisgn and separation and defeat results, it is to be attributable to him, not to the slave who uts his head into the collar and follows with servility a majority. I am asked by a Senator whether I belong to the Wendell Phillips party. I never belonged to the Wendell Phillips party; but I consider Wendell Phillips as the outspoken, grand man of that party; he is the typical man of that party; and whether he wins or loses he has the advantage at least of speaking out his desires and his designs. here is no concealment about Phillips, which is one good trait in his character. I ask, then, instead of blinding the pilot with a storm of constitutional amendments, can we not come back to something on which we can all agree? Can anything be more simple? We have sworn to support the Constitution. cannot we agree upon that? We have compelled the President to swear that he will see that the laws shall be executed. Cannot we agree upon that? The rebels have agreed to that, too; have they not? They have laid down their arms; they submit themselves to that same authority; and your authority is established pyerywhere all over the States lately in rebellion. Now, if we could concoct a new measure upon which we could all agree, I would say that would be meritorious; but when you concoct measures, and cannot agree upon them, why persist in making them tests? As I understand, there has been such a divergence between Againcmnon and Achilles, even so late as yesterday, that Troy is not likely to be taken soon. Agamemnon has taken Briseis, the captive of Achilles, and insists upon carrying her away into captivity as his prize, notwithstanding by the laws of war she is claimed by the other. That is significant, to start upon. When the Achilles of the House and the Agamemnou of the Senate divide and differ, such poor doctors as we are may well disagree, and as we are all members of a common family, although belonging to different wings, why is it that we cannot compromise and agree, upon what? That of which above all other things our country has reason to be proud, her Constitution and her laws and trust to time to work out the properresults. The question is asked, why not try rebels and execute them? AsI said before, surely no man can thirst for vengeance against communities, n ainst States, against people. however niuch ie might desire to see an individual mise hievous rebeI punished, surely the women and children and the Union men of the southern States have suffered their share for any folly of which they may have been guilty in this war, and especially so when we remember that at the outstart of the war this Government had forgotten its duty. What is a Government created and instituted for? It is that it shall be a standing organization for the protection of the people. f the people could get up a governmental organization as soon as a con: spirator could usurp an organization you could put off having a Government until the contingency happened; buta Government is a standing organization of the people, whose duty it is to protect the people against hostile and usurping organizations seeking to rule them. In 1861there were conspiracies against the General Government all over the southern States. They were covered over with societies whose sole business it was to overawe and terrify the people, rendering necessary to them that very protection which it was the duty of the Government to afford them. What, under the circumstances, did this Government do? Does any sane man believe that if this had been a government vigorous, concentrated with its forces, knowing its duty, it would not have throttled the rebellion upon the instant, that it would not have dispersed the vigilance committees, dissolved the order of the Lone Star, and punished as criminals all the men who were en gpged in getting up the plot to overturn the nion? The Government did not do this. It allowed itself to be kicked out of the possession of 7 States igiiominiously. What, then. was it expected that the people should do? Was it expected that they were able to stand up against their State governments; that they were able to resist the organized bands of the various kindsof secessionists who were plotting together for the dismemberment of the Union? The man who supposes they were able to do so in the absence or their Government, which was not there to protect them, which had gone away and left them hel less and defenseless in the face of that ti e of secession, has not reflected on the nature of government enough to qualify him to govern anybody. Allegiance and protection are reciprocal. I owe allegiance to the Government of the U.S., and the Government of the U.S. owes me protection; and when I fall under the power of another organization, of a 3rd party, and I obey that yarty when the Government of the U.S. is not there to protect me, that Government is derelict, and not me. There are men, I admit, strong, sturdy, and willful enough even to stand u against a State organization and refuse obedience to it; but they are the rarinantes in gur gile vasto; they are the stray swimmers in that pool. There are very few of them. Most people submit to the authority thatis over them, to its insignia and to its emblems, and especially in this country where the General government is a confederacy of States, the States themselves being in effect the governments most directly in contact with the people, and to which they have been in the habit of looking for the administration of their laws. Isay, then, that it is one of the principles of the Baltimore platform that “ Every good citizen should maintain the integrity of the Union "I suppose that meant that everybody in the Union should have the right which the Union confers on him"and the permanent authority of the Constitution and luwso the U.S.; and that, laying aside all differences and political opinions, we pledgeour selvesas Union men.animated by a common sentiment and aiming at a common object, to do every thing in our powerto aid the Governmentin quelling by force of arms the rebellion now raging against its authority, nud in bringing to the punishmentdue to their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it." Has the President violated any part of that? Fix your tribunal; put your judge ugon it; get your machinery ready, and 5 unred chief criminals, with JeffersonDavis at their head, or 5,000 if you demand them, are at your service. I suppose it is not intended that the President shoull be common prosecutor I suppose it is not intended that he should usurp the functions of the judiciary; and I suppose it is not intended but that the American people now at this time are qualified to pass upon the question of crime. I do not line w but that perhaps I am wrong in sayin that; it is pretended that they are not qualifie to play the part of public prosecutor; because we passed a law the other day by which an office for that purpose was created so as to put in it somebo y to play public prosecutor, but he was not to prosecute traitors; he was not to prose cute rebels; he was not to bring them to crim inal punishment, but he was to punish judges and maflistrates who did not put the negro on an equality with the white man before the laws of the South. I say I suppose, however, that if rebels are to be punis ed, there are American citizens of intelligence enou h, love of country enough, desire enough to ring them throng the ordinary channels of the adminis tration of justice into the clutches of the law; and I say on the part of the President, and I say it for him, fix your tribunal, get your machinery ready, and you can have 500 of them to try tomorrow. We will not be particular about the selection; you can select them yourselves; but it is time that the blame was thrown from his shoulders because he does not himself. in someway not known to the law, bring them to trial when it was utterly impossible, according to the decision of the Chief Justice of the U.S., that he could do an thing. These men could not, under his ruing, be put to trial unless you undertook to try them by military commissions; and that the SCOTUS has decided), and very properly, I think, to be extra judicial. If you can make out a case before a military tribunal; if you have the evidence by which you can show that these men violated the laws of war, then they are properly triable before a military tribunal. You cannot try them for treason before it. That is pretty clear, I think. I go on to the next resolution, which is also signiticant of the position which this party occupied in 1864: “That we aprove the determination of the government.of thoU.S.not tocompromisewith rebels or to offerany terms of peace exceptsuch as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return of their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the U.S. " That is right. If we had any right to make war at all, our right was founded in the fact that these people were bound by the Constitution and laws. f we had any authority to strike with the sword at all, that was the source from which we derived it; and having struck for that purpose, this resolution declares that it is tit and properthat nothing less shall sat isfy us. Have they returnedto their allegiance? Are they submissive to the Constitution and the laws 1 Then they have accepted our terms. What is now proposed? Now, it is proposed to ratify the ordinances of secession next. 1st you ratify the Chicago platform of 1864hy declaring the war to be a failure and that the Union will not restore, and then you propose to ratify the secession ordinances, you propose to treat these States as though they were out of the Union and to make terms with them in order that they shall come back. Think of itl Make termsl