Mr. PIKE. REMARKS OF HON. F. A. PIKE, OF MAINE, February 7, 1867. The House having under consideration the bill (H.R.No. 1143) to provide for the moreeffectual goverumentof the insurrectionary States. Mr. PIKE said: Mr. SpeakER: In the limited time awarded to me I propose to make but 2 points. 1st, it does not seem to me that the change proposed to be made by this bill in the man agement of the southern States is so violent as gentlemen on the other side would have us suppose. They seem to believe that now the people of those States govern themselves, but the truth is, since the suppression of the rebellion, that is, since the surrender of the rebel armies in 1865, the government of those States has been virtually in the hands of the POTUS. Last session we called upon the President to furnish to Congress the correspondence between himself and the Governors of the States lately in insurrection. In that correspondence and otherwise we have had officially from the Executive a statement of his mode of dealing with them, and it exhibits the fact that the President, whenever he has chosen to intervene, has done so. He has authorized elections, and whenever disposed to abide the results has done so; setting them aside when ever he wished. I need not mention the in stances; they will occur to all gentlemen who have read the public prints for the last 2 years. NewOrleans, Mobile, and Richmond are those that occur to me just now. But the general truth is that in all instances when ever the President has not been satisfied with the result of an election or with the result of legislative action in those States he has disre garded it. He, by virtue of his authority as Chief Executive, Commander in Chief of the armies of the U.S., assuming to exercise within himself the power of the o.ernment, has intervened and controlled those States. He began with the constitutional convention, directing who should elect the members and who should be elected. He followed it up by instructing those conventions what laws they should pass and what omit, declaring upon what conditions he would allow the Governors elected by the people of the States to exercise the functions of the offices to which they had been chosen. And since he has never ceased for a moment to exercise the supreme control whenever he saw fit, having it in his power to cause them to adopt or reject the constitutional amendments—he being undoubtedly responsible for their rejection by those States—or to do any other act affecting their relations with the General Government. The proposition of this bill is to regulate and define this fitful control so exercised by the Executive. Instead of allowing him to govern these States by his own mere motion, it puts the supreme control under the General and higher officers of the Army. This authority is not to be exercised freakishly, but only when occasion calls for it. Courts, jurors, and le: gislators are to understand that the people of U.S. expect them to deal justly by all classes of the population and govern themselves accordingly. When gentlemen on the other side of the House come to reflect that the bill does not transfer the government of those States from the people to the officers of the Army, but only from the President to those officers, I hope they will become better recon ciled to it than they now uppear to be. That is the 1st point I wish to make. The 2nd is that there is an urgent necessity for action on the part of Congress. And I submit to the Houses 2 instances—representative in character—which illustrate the necessity for action. The 1st is that of 3 soldiers stationed in October, 1865, in SCarolina. They happened to be from my own State. They were detailed to guard a small quantity of cot ton at a point on the Savannah river called Brown's E. Quiet, ine ffensive, their good conduct was testified to by the people of the vicinity at a public meeting called soon after their murder. Indeed these young men seem to have been guilty of no offense to anybody except that of wearing the uniform of the Republic. These soldiers, so stationed, were set upon by the owner of the cotton—one of the most considerable men in that neighborhood—and 5 others, were murdered in cold blood, and thrown into the river. There was no altercation or provocation of any kind whatever. The murder was deliberate and fiendish to the last degree. The men committing the crime were arrested, tried, and convicted before a military commission sitting at Charleston. The examination of witnesses occupied some 2 months, and every opportunity was given to the accused to make a defense, the Government procuring the attendance of their witnesses. 4 of the murderers were convicted, a 5th escaped arrest, and the other was not identified by the witnesses. These convicts were imprisoned in Castle Pinckney, thence transferred to the Dry Tortu s, and thence by order of the President to 'ort Delaware, from which they were released on habeascorpus by Judge Hall of the district court.