Mr. BROOMALL. Mr. Speaker, in the spring of 1865 the military forces of the late confede rate States of America surrendered themselves as prisoners of war to the arms of the Federal Government. As a civil power the pretended confederacy then ceased to exist, and the Commander in Chief of the forces of the U.S. took military possession of the conquered country. That year and the next have passed away, and yet, except in the case of 'ennessee, the suprema power of the conqueror has done nothing to relieve the subjudgated people from their condition as prisoners of war, nothing to give them civil governments, or to enable them to form such governments for themselves. It is not without cause that all parties in the South complain of this unreasonable delay. It is not without cause that the friends of the Executive reproach the national Legislature with condemning his policy without setting up something in its stead. W. accuse the President of having surrendered the fruits of our victories to the enemy, yet we take no steps to rescue them out of his hands. We charge the President with having deserted our allies, the loyal men of the South, and placed them under the control of organizations as thoroughly rebel as those which formed constituent parts of the late confederacy, yet we content our selves with simply inquiring into and publishing the enormities daily perpetrated by those organizations and the men who uphold them. We know that the loyal people of the South have no protection for life or property. We know that they are being murdered by 100s for no other offense than that of having fought on the side of their country, and the fact that they wear its uniform is the sufficient evidence against them. We know that a convention of unarmed men, met under the guarantee of the Constitution of the U.S. to deliberate on public affairs, has been disrsed by violence and its members shot down in the public streets in open day by those who pretended to act under the authority of the provernment, yet we do nothing to provide tribunals and laws for the adequate punishment of the perpetrators of these deeds. Surely the time has come for action. The loyal citizen of the U.S., residing in the territory which he aided to reclaim from the public enemy, has a right to demand protection at the hands of his Government. We are called upon to act by the duty, which even savages recognize, of shielding allies against a common foe. We are called upon by our condition as conquerors to give civil governments to the conquered. We are called upon by our immense national debt to organize the South, that its resources may be developed, and thereby may aid in lessening the public burdens. laration. The bill now before the House proposes to relieve the inhabitants of the conquered country from their condition as prisoners of war, and to declare all of them citizens of the U.S. except a small minority of the more active participants in the late rebellion. It proposes to treat these people in the manner most favorable to themselves, to consider them residents of territory within the limits of the U.S and not embraced in any organized State. It proposes to enable them to form for themselves State governments, to be admitted into the Union on a footing with the other States thereof as soon as they shall have been ascertained to be republican in form and so constituted as to secure equal rights to all citizens. It provides a process similar to the naturalization of persons of foreign birth by which those exempted from the general operation of the bill may become again citizens of the U.S. This class embraces the comparatiocly small number who voluntarily accepted office under the late confederacy, and took upon themselves its allegiance by actual oath, and who cannot now swear that on and at all times after March 4, 1864, they desired to return to their old allegiance, and that they gave no voluntary aid or encouragement to the rebellion after that date. The right to place these men on a footing with men of foreign birth cannot be denied. We have always maintained the right of expa triation. Any American citizen may lawfully renounce his allegiance and take upon himself that of another Government, but it is only at our option that he may do so and still remain in the country. The crime of these men was not the formation of the southern confederacy. To that there could be no legal or actual objection. Their crime was the taking of our soil, our property, forming their new government within our borders. If they had established it within the limits of Mexico, as some of their predecessors once did, it might have still existed, and that without cause of complaint on our part unless we were bound to prevent it by treaty stipulations with Mexico. n that event surely they would, at least at our option, have ceased to be American citizens. True, their government has fallen, but this was no merit of theirs. They did what they could to establish it, and it is not for them to say that it never had a legal existence. In short, we but take them at their word. They declared themselves no longer citizens of the U.S. They acted against us upon that dec We admit it, and they are estopped from denying it now. It is urged against the bill under consideration that it proposes to destroy existing State governments, and to create new ones in their stead, and that this is beyond the constitutional power of Congress. This objection is based upon the assumption that there are existing State governments in the territory reclaimed from the military forces of the late confederacy. Let us examine the foundation for this assumption. Take the case of NCarolina, and that pretended State stands upon precisely the same footing with all the others. If the organzation existing in that district of the conquered country is a State of the Union in the sense in which that term has always been under stood it must be either because it was a party to the original compact or because it has been admitted to participation in that compact by legitimate authority since. If it ever was a State of the Union it is necessary also that nothing which has since transpired should have deprived it of its rights as a member of the compact. These positions will not be controverted. To fix upon its legal status all that is needed therefore is to consult its history. There was a State of NCarolina, a party to the original compact. Let us admit for the present that this organization is that one. Under this view the inquiry will be: has it lost its position by anything which has transpired since? In 1861 NCarolina passed an ordinance of secession dissolving the connection with her fellow States. It is urged that this ordinance was void. I grant it, and I grant, too, that if no act had followed the ordinance, NCarolina, would still be a State of the Union. But she took up arms to maintain by force what she had resolved by legislation. She formed an alliance with other States and levied public war against the Government. These acts, however wrong ful, were not void. It is a fact not to be explained away that war existed for 4 long years, and that she and her allies constituted one belligerent and the Government of the country the other. Now, the existence of war, according to all the writers upon public law, terminates all treaties, all compacts, puts an end to all civil relations that existed between the belliger ents and the ending of the war of itself does not revive them. If the war terminates by treaty, the treaty fixes the future relations of the parties. If it terminates by conquest, the law of nations fixes those future relations. That law holds the conquered to be mere prisoners of war with no civil rights whatever as against the conqueror. It was certainly competent for the war to end by treaty, and if it had done so, what lawyer would now look to the Constitution of the U.S. for the present status of NCarolina? If the supposed treaty had restored the status ante bellum, then, indeed, the Constitution would be looked to to ascertain that status, but when ascertained it would be founded upon the treaty and nothing else. Ending, as the war actually did, by victory on the one side and unconditional submission on the other, the laws of war leave the parties as the war leaves them until the supreme power of the conqueror grants civil rights to the conquered. It is sometimes alleged that the surrender of the rebels was not unconditional, and an attempt has been made in certain quarters to give the terms of the surrender the force and effect of a treaty restoring the status ante bellum. This position is too absurd for serious consideration. The surrender was as prisoners of war, than which nothing can be more unconditional. And if this were not so, who gave the commanding General the power to make such a treaty, either in terms or by implication?, Who gave the President the power to make such a treaty or indeed any other, except with the consent of the Senate? GenlGrant knew his duty as a soldier too well to usurp the highest lawmaking power of the country, the right to make treaties. His power to contract with the enemy was limited to the purposes and the duration of the war, and he did not transcend that power. It is contended by some that the State of NCarolina did not rebel; that during the war the State remained loyal, but with its functions suspended, and that only the citizens rebelled. This is a possible assertion, but it is not true. Individual citizens do not levy war. Rebellions are organized bodies of men, not necessarily States, nor even preexisting organizations; but always organizations. It is a queston of fact, to be settled by the history of the times, whether the organization that rebelled in NCarolina was or was not the State. It claimed to be the State. It performed the functions of the State. It had the necessary elements of the State. It was the only similar organization within its limits; the only organization within its limits that possessed executive, judicial, and legislative depts. Its various offices were held and exercised by those who had held and exercised the corresponding offices of the State; and their successors. If it was not the original State wrongfully out of its line of duty and inrebellion against the Government, it is difficult to conceive what it was, and where and what that State was whose functions it was performing. The State of NCarolina did rebel, did repudiate the Constitution of the U.S., form an alliance with the public enemy; did levy war against the Government, and finally did become reduced to the condition of a conquered province by our victorious arms. Did she lose no rights by all this? Did the mere fact of rebellion suppressed remit her back to all her old privileges as a member of the Union? She violated the compact. Is this attended with no forfeiture? Can a State of the Union thus play with her rights and duties; thus violate the one without losing the other? Is her condition as a party to the compact a thing like a garment, to be put off and on at will? Common sense and the common law of nations justify the statement of the whole matter in a single plain proposition: she broke the compact o therefore can claim no rights under it. This conclusion results from the hypothesis that the present body politic is the old State of NCarolina, but the hypothesis is not true. The friends of the President say a State cannot be destroyed; “once a State always a State” is their favorite theory. It might be interesting to debate this as an abstract proposition, but when we find the State actually destroyed an argument for or against its eter nal duration would be labor thrown away. Physicians do not dispute about the mortality of the disease over the dead body of the patient. The POTUS in his roclamation of May 29, 1865, uses the following language: “The rebellion which was waged by a portion of the people of the U.S. against the properl constituted authorities of the Government thereof, in organized ost violent and revolting form, but whose and armed forces have now been almost entirely overcome, has in its revolutionary progress deprived the people of the State of NCarolina of all civil government.” To make sure that the President means what his language imports, that the organization theretofore known as the State of NCarolina had ceased to exist, I quote from the same proclamation, the following: “Now, therefore, in obedience to the high and solcmn duties imposed upon me by the Constitution of. the U.S., and for the purpose of enabling the loyal people of the said State to organize a government wherebyjustice may State be established, domestic tranquillity insured, and loyal citizens protected in their rights of life, liberty and property, I, AndrewJohnson. POTUS and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the U.S., do hereby appoint William W. HOl den, provisional governor o the State of NCarolina, ” &c. Here is the assertion as plain as language can make it, that somehow or other the State of NCarolina, that was a party to the old compact, had ceased to exist; and although it rests upon the declaration of AndrewJohnson, it is nevertheless true. The forces of the Uni.ted states had crushed out the old body politic and driven away those who had performed its functions, leaving the people, considered in the best possible aspect for themselves, as so many citizens of the U.S. occupying territory within the limits of the U.S and not embraced within any organized State. It is only in this capacity that the people of NCarolina could be enabled to create a State denovo, as they were invited to do by the proclamation, by meeting in their primary capacities and electing delegates to a convention to frame a constitution and form of government. such a convention did meet and did perform the functions assigned to it by the proclamation, and the body politic now claim.ing rights under the old compact is the crea ture of that convention. I admit that the convention took up the old form of government and adapted it to their purposes by modification, and they might have taken the constitution of Pennsylvania as a groundwork and changed it to suit them. I repeat, it is the organization that came from their hands which is here claiming rights. Now, the creature of the convention can have no legal status except upon the hypothesis that the convention was a legal body, and the convention could not have been a legal body except upon the hypothesis that the old State had ceased to exist. Grant, for the benefit of the argument of the opposition, that the President could do what he attempted and what it has always been supposed could only be done by act of Congress, that is to say, could enable citizens of the U.S. to organize a State government. Very certain it is that neither Congress nor the President can enable citizens of the U.S. to organize a State government within the limits of an organized State. A different question would have been presented if the action had been by the Legislature of the State pursuant to its laws and the design to change a form of government already existing. The product might then have been the old State or its legitimate successor. But this was not done, and the cham pions of the present body politic are involved in this dilemma, either that the convention was an illegal body and its creature a nonentity, or that the old State had ceased to exist when the convention was called, and that the present one never was a party to the old compact and can claim no rights under it. Let me now ask, what is the difference in condition and legal rights between the body politic claiming to be admitted to the rights of the State of NCarolina and that asking recognition as the State of Nebraska? Both were formed by the people of the respective districts, or some of them, of their own motion and without enabling acts. In the case of Nebraska such an act was passed, but the citizens saw fit to reject it, and some time afterward, in a totally different manner, that is to say, by and through the territorial Legislature prepared, submitted to the people, and are now presenting here their constitution and form of government. As the territorial Legislature had no power to act in the premises, the legal result is that the whole matter comes from the people of the Territory without an enabling act. In the case of NCarolina there was no enabling act whatever. It is true there was the President’s proclamation, but nobody who does not hold a lucrative office at the will of the President would concede to that the force and effect of an act of Congress. In that doc ument the Executive gives himself his twofold title of POTUS and Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, as if uncertain in which capacity he was acting and too anxious for the to leave out any source of power. In his civil capacity, it is very clear he had no power to create States by proclamation, or to enable citizens of the U.S. to create them. In his military capacity, his functions are limited to carrying out the laws of war, and a law of war which empowers the head of an army as such to create civil government is something new in the history of legal Science. Before any action was had in either of these communities, the people composing each occupied precisely the same legal position, not taking into the account the fact, immaterial in the present argument, that in one of them very many of the people had been guilty of high crimes. In both cases the inhabitants were citizens of the U.S. In both they occupied territory within the limits of the U.S., and in both they had no organized State government. Does it alter the case that in NCarolina a State government had previously existed? Certainly not, unless the present organization is its legitimate successor. But it is not. History is clear upon that point. The old State contained in its constitution a provision by which that instrument could be changed even to the making of a new government. It had to be done by act of the Legislature, passed by both branches of the body by a vote of 3/5th s of the members; advertised 6 months before the next meeting of the Legislature; passed again by a vote of 2/3rds of both branches, and finally ratified by a vote of the people. In this manner, and this only, could a State government be organized possessing the rights of the old one or being its legitimate successor. But there was no Legislature. Its members had been driven from their seats as felons never to meet again. There was no executive. The Governor had been deposed and banished. There was no judiciary. The courts had been broken up and the judges threatened with imprisonment if they should ever again attempt to exercise their functions. In fact, the whole body polio had been destroyed and the people were “without civil government.” Where then is the legal difference between the cases of Nebraska and NCarolina o There is none certainly none in favor of the latter. Both require congressional legislation to give them the rights of States, and Congress oadmit both, reject both, or admit either, and reject the other. I have already said that the pretensions of the other organizations now claiming to be States rest upon precisely the same legal grounds with those of NCarolina. If i.come as old States, former members of the compact, claiming reinstatement in their old position, the answer is: they have broken faith with their cocontractors, violated the articles of copartnership, so to speak, and cannot have them renewed except with the consent of the other arties. If they come as new States, as their history would indicate, gotten up under the authority of the President's proclamations, the answer is: 1st, new States cannot be created in that manner; and 2nd, new States have no rights under the Constitution until they are conferred by legislation. It is said that this line of argument admits the right of secession, admits that the States in question have succeeded in getting out of the Union, notwithstanding the fact that the war waged to prevent it has resulted in success on our side. Those who raise this objection are involving themselves in a series of blunders. We never denied the physical power of a State to secede; we never denied its physical power to violate the Constitution and to set up an independent sovereignty within our borders. Nothing but the experiment could settle that question. We resolved that these States o not form a new government within our territory, and we succeeded in preventing it. But it does not follow that the States so violating the Constitution have lost no rights under it. It does not even follow that they have survived the clash of arms. The States, in the sense of people and territory. are still within the limits of the U.S., and therefore not “out of the Union.” It is only that their organizations have ceased to be component parts of the Government of the U.S. The war was not waged to keep the rebel States from losing any of their rights under the Constitution. They had already renounced those rights under the delusive hope of getting something better by an appeal to arms. This something better they attempted to get from us and we resisted the attempt with success. The war was not waged on our part to prevent the rebels from doing injury to themselves, but to prevent them from doing injury to us. The result, therefore, does not reinstate them in the positions they renounced, though they have failed to secede, in fact, and are not “out of the Union.” The important feature of the bill under consideration is that which proposes to give the people of the States lately in rebellion governments strictly republican in form, by giving to every adult male who has not disqualified himself by crime the right of suffrage. The precise meaning of that clause of the Constitution which requires Congress to guaranty to every State a RFG has never been judicially determined, and every Senator and Representative who takes upon himself the obligation to support the Constitution must interpret that clause so as to satisfy his own conscience. What is a RFG? If I were to attempt a definition it would be this: it is that form of government in which the rulers are chosen by the suffrages of the people, and in which every citizen may either exercise the right of suffrage himself or have it exercised for him by some one who may be fairly considered as representing his interests by reason of legal, social, or family relations to him. Under this definition, if the right of suffrage be exercised by all the adult males, the women and children may be considered as mediately represented in the government, and hence the form would be republican. But it would meet the requirements of the definition much better if the right of suffrage were extended to all adults without regard to sex; and I am ready to advocate this extension when ever the women of America shall believe themselves, unfairly treated by this mediate representation and shall demand the right of suffrage for themselves. I ask now with what kind of consistency can the government of SCarolina, now so imperiously demanding recognition here, be considered republican in form when 4 out of every 7 adult males are denied the right of suffrage? Who represents the interests of the 4? Who represents the interests of their wives and children? Under the slave system there was at least the pretense of mediate representation. The slave in contemplation of law occupied the position of the apprentice, the mine r. He was a part of the family of the master, and to the dominant southern mind was considered as fairly represented in the government by the head of the family. Recent events have demonstrated that the slave himself looked upon the matter in a differentlight. But the slave system has passed away and the farce of mediate representation of the negroes has gone with it. The late slave and the late master stand upon the same legal footing, and as well might the former claim the right of voting for the both as the latter. We must now either violate our obligations to support the Constitution or we must refuse to recognize as republican in form any State government which denies the right of suffrage to any of its adult male citizens who are not disqualified by crime. If it be said that this argument applies with equal force to my own State I admit it, and with some sense of humiliation. Possibly, as but one in 60 is there excluded from participation in the government, the maxim demini mus noncurat lex might reconcile easy consciences. But Pennsylvania was liable to no such reproach when she became a party to the compact. That antirepublican principle was incorporated in her constitution afterward by the same political party that would have built up an aristocracy of race in the South. But gentlemen on the other side of the House say that this is a white man's Government, and they raise their hands with an affectation of holy horror at the idea of extending political rights to the negroes. Do they. that our Government is emphatically the Government of the governed? And are none but white men governed by it? Do they not know that at the time of the adoption of our Constitution negroes voted in every State of the Union but one? Do they not know that members of the Convention that framed that instrument were voted for by negroes, and that there was no law and no principle of our institutions which would have prevented a negro from sit ting in that Convention if he had been duly elected? Do they not know that there is not now and that there never has been any law to prevent a negro from holding the office of POTUS if he should be otherwise qualified? These gentlemen would like to make this a white man's Government. They seem actuated by a fear of the negro amounting to mono mania. Negro equality is Banquo's ghost to them, and if ever the negro should outstrip them in the race of civilization it will be no fault of theirs that he has had the opportunity. They will point, upward of course, to the dusky column and exclaim “Thou canstnot say I did it.” Those gentlemenknow bestwhat their chances would be in a fair and even race with the negro under equal laws, and if they really fear his competition it is but just to them to admit that they have good reason to fear it. It may not serve to allay their terror of negro equality to remind them that the American negro has advanced in. civilization more within 200 than their own race has within 2,000. With an affectation of consistency that might well be envied, the same men who exhibit this fear of fair competition with the negro under equal laws object to his right of voting on account of his ignorance. There is doubtless a great degreq of ignorance among the negroes of the South; but who is responsible for it? Not they. Until recently it was a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment in every one of the States lately in rebellion to teach negroes to read. Even the Bible was by law a sealed book to them. Certain portions of it, selected with especial reference to the pecuniary advantage of their masters, might be read to them by judicious ministers of the Gospel; but if some simple minded philanthropist should attempt to open its full light upon their benighted understandings it would be well for him if he could obtain the advantage of the punishment, meted to his crime by law, and thereby avoid the hemp and the bowie knife. But I deny that any man should be deprived of political rights on account of his ignorance. Governments are intended to equalize, as far as possible, the weak with the strong, the poor with the rich, the ignorant with the intelligent. Political rights are intended to enable men to preserve that portion of their natural rights which is the especial object of government; that is to say their civil rights of life, liberty, and property; and the only valid reason that can be urged for denying political rights to any man is that he is capable of preserving his civil rights without them. Can the negro in the South preserve his civil rights without political ones? Let the convention riot of NewOrleans answer; let the terrible 3 days in Memphis answer. In the latter city 300 negroes who had periled their lives in the service of their country and still wore its uniform, were compelled to look on while the officers of the law, elected by white men, set their dwellings in flames and fired upon their wives and children as they escaped from the doors and windows. Their churches and school houses were burned because they were their churches and school houses. Outrages which the tongue refuses to describe in language, were perpetrated upon their women; and the dead mother, who was killed because she resisted, and her living child were thrown together into the flames of the building that was burned because it had af. forded them a home. Yet no arrest, no conviction, no punishment awaits the perpetrators of these deeds, who walk in open day and boast of their enormities, because, forsooth, this is a white man's Government. Let it not be said that these occurrences are unusual and extraordinary. The history of the last 18 months will exhibit their parallel in every State and in every city of the subjugated South; and the present organizations in that territory, the base offspring of northern perfidy and southern treason, cannot, and will not, afford the adequate remedy. It is quite time that this Government should recognize the rights of the black man, and should arm him with the ballot, that he may not be compelled to arm himself with the pistol and the knife in defense of those whom his duty to his God requires that he should defend. Certain gentlemen have made the strange discovery that the extension of the right of suffrage to negroes will render them eligible to office; and they ask with an air of confidence, as if the question contained an undnswerable argument, how we would like to sit in this House with a black Representative? Well, if we have been content to sit here with gamblers and lottery brokers, it is too late to become fastidious now. These gentlemen make the mistake which, it is charitable to suppose, was made by a distinguished Cabinet officer in his letter directing the people of the U.S. not to sanction the pending constitutional amendment. They suppose that there is some necessary connection between the right of suffrage and eligibility to office; such that, granting or withholding the one of itself, grants of withholds the other. No position can be more unsound. Women and mine rs may hold office under the Government of the U.S., but may not vote. Men between the ages of 21 and 25 may vote, but may not hold the office of Representative in congress. Naturalized foreigners may vote, but are not eligible to the Presidency. In fact, the principle they so much dread in the future is already part and parcel of the laws of the land. A negro, otherwise properly qualified; is now and always has been eligible to Congress. Nothing but the want of a due election prevents any of our seats from being now occupied by black Representatives. This question i. been always heretofore left with the citizens of the several congressional districts. They have repeatedly elected worse men than an average negro, but they have never yet elected a negro. Of the 8 million inhabitants of the country lately in rebellion, 5 millions may be con:. sidered as devotedly attached to the cause of the Government, and the remaining 3 millions are as inimical to it as they were in the proudest days of the confederacy. Of the 5 millions but one million and a half are white. By limiting political power to the white element alone, therefore, an average preponderance of 2 to one will be given to?. enemies of the Government. The object of the bill under consideration is to place the destinies of the South in the hands of the entire 8 millions, in order that the loyal majority may protect themselves and the country against their and its implacable foes, rendered more deadl hostile by their humiliating defeat in the field. A measure so just, so reasonable, and so necessary cannot fail to receive the sanction of Congress.