Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, the State of Wisconsin and the action of her Legislature and the action of the last convention which assembled in that State represeniin the party which sent my colleague and myselghere have been referred to to dsy, and were referred to yesterday, and on one or 2 previous occasions, and referred to in a manner which seems to me to demand some attention from myself. Mr. President, of course I am not here to say that my colleague is not perfectly justified in his own judgment for each and every one of the votes he has given since he has been ii rep Representative of the State of Wisconsin here; but when he goes further than that, and not only assumes but asserts that he stands justified for these votes by the action of the last State convention held in the State of Wisconsin representing the Union party, or by any convention which ever assembled in that State representing that party, I think he assumes too much and asserts what the record of that convention will not substantiate. There was nothing, as I recollect the action of that convention, which could justify either of the votes which my colleague hus given during the present session of Congress on which he has differed from the great body of his political friends about him. ought not to speak very cpnfidently on this point, perhaps. My colleague ought to be presumed to know better what was the action of that convention than I myself. It is true, as he has stated, that he was a member of that convention. I believe he was the chairman of the committee which drew and reported the resolutions adopted by that convention. If I mistake upon any of these points, he will of course correct me. He was, therefore, a promi nent member of that convention. I was not a member of it at all. He saw the whole of it, and he was a great art of it, I think; but still I believe I cannot e mistaken in saying that the resolutions adopted by that convention cau uot be urged here as authority for some of the votes which he has ven. I heard this, as thought, asserted by my colleague yesterday on the floor, and I have lonke for a cop of those resolutions this morning to see what there was in them that could be held up here as a justification for these votes of which the recent Legislature of Wisconsin has complained. I have not been able to find a copy of the resolutions, but I find one of them in a speech which my colleague himself miide in the Senate on the 17th of January, I think at least some time in January. probably that resolution goes as far to justify the votes which have been commented upon in the State of Wisconsin as anything to be found in the whole series. Let me reproduce that resolution: "That the nmmmwhich caused the late rebellion against the U.S. was born of the pride rind ambition of an aristocracy founded upon slavery, which the war and the emancipation proclamation of President Lincoln has rightfully dostroveil: and we deem it essential to the regenerationo the late slave but now free States that they should in good faith accepttheir new constitution): free only by abolishing slavery in their Staio constitutions, but by the ratification by their Legislatures of the amendment to the Constitution of the U.S., submitted by Congress ftlld now pending which iureVer abolishes slavery in every State and empowerse congress to pussull nws necessaryto secure liberty to all the people, black and white. By its adoption the causeof the rebellion will be removed, slavery destroyed, liberty establishedupon a founda gtiroenssw, hich neither Stine. nor President. nor connor court, nor chance of parties can shake: us enduring as the lobe itself. By its adoption all the people of those iltntes, all the world will know that they accept freedom as their situation and give up slavery, and all hope of restoringslavery, forever." Now, I think my colleague will agree with me that there is nothing in the whole series of resolutions passed by that convention which comes nearer to on indorsement of the articular votes ofhis which have been complained of than the resolution I have just read. I think I shall do my colleague no injustice ifI remark that he himself was the author of that resolution, and I am certain that I do neither him nor the resolution itself any injustice when I say that right there in that molution is found authority for every proposition which has been advocated by anyone on this floor, and which has been denounced us radical, as disunion, and as disloyal. Mr. President, there and then, and through that very resolution which I have just read, my colleague instructed the people of Wisconsin and the people of the Union that to reorganize those communities down there, it was necessary, not indeed for them to put the ballot into the hands of black or white men, into the hands of one class or another, but that it was necessary for them to do certain things, to incorporate certain provisions into their own constitutions, and to assent to an amendment to the Constitution of the U.S. Did he ever instruct the people of Wisconsin, or would he, without repugiation and indignant rebuke, have allowed anybody else to say to the people of Wisconsin, that the U.S. could tell them to put a paragraph or a word into their constitution, or to strike it. out; have allowed the U.S. to tell Wisconsin that she must assent to one proposition or another as a part of the Constitution of the U.S.? Certainly not. NO one yet has ventured to tell any State in allegiance to the Government of the U.S. what sort of constitution she shall form, or what sort of amendments she must incorporate into the Constitution of the U.S. I am not controverting the truth of what was asserted in that resolution at that time; but I do say to my colleague, to you, sir, to the Son ate, and to the world, if they would only listen, that the power which can tell the State of Georgia or the State of Alabama to assent to an amendment of the Federal Constitution, or to incorporate any especial provision into her own local constitution, can do all things that we have been asked to do, and can make them put anything else into their constitution, or assent to the putting of anything else into our Constitution that we believe to be right. If you find anywhere the authority to say to the people of Georgia or Florida, “ You must in corporate one amendment into the Constitution of the U.S. before you can be restored to the roll of States, " you can tell them to incorporate anything else into that Constitution. Instead, therefore, of this resolution affording a justification for the votes which my colleague has given, or for those peculiar views which he has urged here, and which have been complained of in our State, I must as again, as I said before, that I think it uffordst e most ample justification for every proposition which has been urged by the great majority of his political friends here, and which ie has complained of as radical if not revolutionary. Mr. President, the minority of the committee appointed by that convention to draft resolutions did, us understand, ask the convention to adopt 2 resolutions, one declarin in favor of admitting negroes to the right O suffrage in Wisconsin; and I do not recollect the phraseology of the other resolution, but it was to the effect that they ought to be admitted to the right of suffrage in this southern insurrectionary portion of the country. My colleague says that those resolutions were laid upon the table by an immense majority. The I decision of the chairman of the convention was that they were lost, that the motion to lay upon the table had carried. I am not here to say that that was not the fact, because the convention was not divided; but I think I am warranted in saying that it could not have been by a.ver large majority of the convention, because have been informed by a great many very candid gentlemen who were members of that convention that, Judging by the sound, there was actually a majority agnnst laying the resolutions on the table, but the chairman decided otherWise. I believe it was the last vote taken in the convent ion, after a rent many members had left the building and ettthe town, when all were in a hurry to go. It was the last vote taken except the ferinal vote of. adjournment, and the convention was not divided. But, Mr. President, that the Union party of Wisconsin did think that the ballot on ht to be put into the hands of the colored population in Vise onsin my colleague will not deny. That a very large majority of them voted in favor of putting the ballot into their hands, he certainly will not deny, for the record proves it. My colleague thought, and so advised, that it was unsafe to commit the party to that proposrtron. I thought otherwise then. I told him that I thought otherwise. I think otherwise now. With all the light which the late election has given me on the subject, I think it would have conwise for that convention to have recommended to the people of Wisconsin to accord suffrage to the fe hundred black men Within the limits of that State. My colleague says that he voted for extending the right of suffrage and he advocatedit before the people. I am lad to hear him saythat he voted for it. Ishal not undertake to say that he did not advocate it; but my colleague will allow me to say to him that if he did advocate the extension of suffrage in our State last fall, he did not do himself full justice; that he is capable of advocating a cause more ably, more conclusively, and, when he is advocating a good cause, as that was he admits it or he would not have advocated it at all he is capable of advocating it more successfully than he did that. I recollected, when he made this statement yesterday, a speech which he made in the city of Milwaukee, and which was published extensively through that State, and which was published in the National Intelligencer in this city, and was headed his “speech on negro suffrage.” That was the on y speech of his I ever saw or heard of advocating negro suffrage; and new I want to call his attention more particularly to one or 2 extracts from that speech, to vindicate what I have just told him, that it was not his best style of advocacy: “ Now. then, felled citizens. while I myself. more than 20 years ago. in the State of NewYork advocated the extension ef sutfrngo to there, the colored men because I believed that a large majority of themwere of sufficient intelligence to exercisethat right, and although when it was submitted in Wis cousin I voted for its extension and expect to vote for it again when I go to the polls, I the 1 you I will not consentto make this questionii matter of close communionin the Union party in Wisconsin. Gentlemen tell me that this is arguing from motivesof expediency. Sir. it is nrguingfrom thohi hostexpo diency, doing that which is right and thereforo is always the best. I maintmn that at the presenttime the highestduty of the membersof the Tnienparty is to maintain their supremacyin the administration of this Government until the rebellion is over, and until the fruits of this struggle are gathered. It is not only suicidal but u crimeiof the highest magni tude in us new to becomediVided and disorganized, and thus surrenderthe Government into the hands of n party whoihasopposedand embarrassed iting dur this prosecutionof the war. You know very well and we all know that this matter of prejudice, for you may call it by that name, it"by no other is mostdifficult of a the l things to mans oin the human r cart. You cannot reasonwith it, but it is ustub born fact.“ Now, Mr. President, I think I have read all there is in that i peech in support of extending the right of suffrage to the negro. I am not complaining of my colleague for not saying any more last fall in defense of that law.