Mr. BROBIWELL. Mr. Speaker. I deem myself fortunate in being permitted to take any part in the work of pacification and resto ration of the Government upon which we have entered. I would even deem myself fortunate to be permitted to speak at this time if it were possible for me to vindicate the great principles embodied in these measures in so ample a manner as the occasion requires. As when the war of t ie Revolution had ended it was the work of years to define the principles and settle the forms of this Government, so now, when this war of independence has terminated, the task remains to repair as far as possible the disasters of the nation, and provide for the resto ration and reconstruction of our institutions upon such principles and by such means as will secure to althe inhabitants of this Union the blessings of free, orderly, and permanent government. I do not say that this must be the work of ears. I do not wish to see on further delay in this matter than is absolute y necessary to secure the most complete and successful results; but I will say that no wise man can expect to accomplish these ends by hot haste in such a work as this. Whereforcl have been and still am for the most mature deliberation, and the closest scrutiny into the principles of our Government, and into every requirement of this emergency which the subject will admit. Could I have my way, I would exhaust every power of this Congress, and all the laws of nations, and the laws of war so far as they are in agreementwith our Constitution; and ifthose were not sufficient I would amend our organic law until it should no longer be under the reproach of being insufficient in that point which is Vital in all constitutions. I cannot but regard the series of measures which have been in part ado ted, and are in part still pending before this house, as among the most notable which the world has ever seen; for if we consider the vast extent'of territory over which they will act, the millions of beings whose condition they will affect, and the grand destinies directly and indirectly involved in their operation, we may venture to assign to these measures an importance in the eyes of future historians and statesmen 2nd to none the world has seen; not even the famous MagnaCarta, the Declaration of American Independence, the Chase of Freedom of the Czar of all the Russias, nor all these if combined. It is to be expected measures like thesewhieh l dedicate half a continent to equal rights, which strike down h a series of blows every form of despotism an unshackle a whole nation in a day, should meet with every form of opposition, and should call up against them every interest, passion, and prejudice which i has warred against iberty until now. For why, Mr. Speaker, is it that all men, everywhere, are not now and have not been at all times free? Is it because evegy man has not desired freedom for himself? Is it because societ has not at all times desired freedom for all society? On the contra, liberty, the same of which we now speak, rIias been the watchword of all nations. thasbeen the theme of the poet, orator, and statesman, from the rude chant of Skald and Trouvcre to the polished sentences of Roman jurists or of the phi losophers of the modern world, all have spoken and breathed for liberty. yet nations which loved liberty have lived in chains; democracies have organized oligarchies; oligarchies have crawled as slaves to despots; and despotism has generated anarchy; and thus the world has struggled on groaning through shifting scenes of turmoil and oppression until now, with scarcely a spot on the whole surface of the globe where or nized freedom has been secured to the ha y of the people. It is because liberty exist'sin its securities and not in its promulgation, and because nations have ignored the only security the case admits of, that liberty has been defeated 1st and last. There is but one security, and that is justice. He who would enlarge the area of freedom must 1st enlarge the area of justice, for justice and liberty are twin sisters; they cannot be separ ated. Where justice reigns liberty takes up her abode and is without an enemy in the whole domain. For this reason, as we have seen, the Revolution of 1776 fell short of accomplishing all which it might have accomplished, because entire justice had not been done in this country in laying the foundations of the Government. For this reason we ‘have seen a bill guarantying civil rights in our day met with opposition, precisely such as the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery, and precisely such opposition as has met every measure of freedom from the beginning until now. Though the results achieved by the revolution of 1776 fell far short of what might have been attained, yet we still boast with pride that during a period of 20 years, including the time of the Revolution itself, more was done for freedom than during 20 cen turies before. Therefore we may well look back and take a lesson from the past. 90 years ago the pen 10 of this country were united in an effort to rid themselves from transatlantic tyranny. At this season of that memorable car, after the battles of Lexington and Bunker ill had been fought, the multitudes of the cities and the scattered dwellers in the mountains and valleys were perplexed and oppressed with the weight of e great problems then forced upon them. The long agitation of years had brought a crisis, and war, terrible in its destruction and unmeasured in its burdens, or political servitude for themselves and their posterity, must then be chosen. Who cannot see that at such a crisis asthat radical measures, and radical measures only, could suffice? Who will not see that any such tinkering as is called conservatism would have been a mockery at such an hour, when the destiny of the nation was to be settled by measures absolute and firm? And now, sir, what do we see? A like crisis has come upon us; and now, when that element of wrong which was left in this Government has worked on until the terrible convulsion it has produced has destroyed the institutions of government in 1/3rd of the States; when the people are just returning from the terrible conflict which raged from border to border of the land, what do we hear? The self same arguments, the same outery, which rang in the ears of the radicals of the Revolution. Centralism, radicalism, ultraism, despotism these are the cries. The reserved rights of the States are brought up. Andin this outery, as it now finds support in the dispensing power and patronage that is brought to its aid, not only those who have been long known and recognised as enemies of every thing like progress and humanity, but others who loved to walk with liberty and with jus tice when they wore their silver slippers, now join in callin the men who stood by the civil rights bill tin.ers of the Constitution. These men would walk upright with the great Union and Republican party, which achieved this victory for law and order, if it were not for some reason or other better to walk halt, limp, and cry out as they see an opportunity to bring thrift by so doing from those that are in power for the time being. They are like that minister in the kingdorn of Assyria, who, havin come up to the prophet of the Lord with lou professions of venerntion for Jehovah in acnowledment of the great favor conferred on him, finally said: “In this thing. the Lord pardon thy servant. that when my master goeth into the house of ltimmon to worship there and he lcaneth on my hand, and I bow myselfin the house of ltimmon; when 1 how gown myself in the House of Itimmon, the Lord bar on thy servant in this thing." Every man whose master leans on his arm is in the house of Itimmon, while the rights of humanity are being invaded, and while every, thing for which the war has been fought through seas of blood is being trampled and defiled. The civil rights bill, which stands prominent among those measures which have been before the House, has been met by 0 position from this class of men. But that law will stand! among the immortal things of the world when the men whose voices have been raised againstit shall be forgotten, all at least but one of them, and his memory perpetuated in the continuous astonis iment of successive generations that a man could be found who would consent to place the veto of official power upon that measureat such a time. I am not here today either to call for vengeance on the South or to hurl back epithets of disrespect which have been thrown upon both branches of this Congress, including some of the most noble minds that the country contains. But I am here to say that it would be well for some of those who fancy they stand high in the seat of power to reflect upon that which is to come when the pen of history shall record the fate of those who dared to cast themselves beneath the wheels of progress at such an hour as this. Mr. Speaker, there is one thing furtherI will say, and I say it in pain, but I will say it because it springs not only from my own heart but from the hearts of this whole people who feel the warm blood of their fathers gushing about their hearts when they think that our martyred President lies in his bloody grave, and that assassination has changed the administration. I speak of it in pain., I would not H)? this heap oblo uy upon any official of the U.S.s, but. will speak for my country. Have we ever known, since the Government came into existence, or did we ever dream that it should ha pen in the history of America, that this thing should be; that such a lesson should be taught the worldas has been taught in olden lands and in Mexico and other disturbed and distracted countries; that the knife of the assassin could smite down the head of the nation and thereupon it should belawful for a man to change the administration of affairs, thus holding forth a perpetual invitation to every party which willarise in the struggles of this country to tmitate that example and reap the reward? We have had nothing in our history which we can contemplate with greater, more terrible foreboding than this most melancholy spectacle, and the people feel it. Ah! they feel itas they walk in the shadows of Oak Ridge, where sleeps the murdered champion of our liberties and rights. Who can contemplate without a shudder the spectacle we now present and the terrible consequences of such a precedent as this? I ow, sir, when all other arguments are exhausted, the opponents 0fthese ills and amendments claim, as a last resort, that State rights are invaded. What are State rights, sir? reserved rights. And what are the reserved rights of the States? Manifestly they are legal rights which were existing anterior to the Union and inherent in the States. Could a State reserve any other rights than these? The States clearly reserved the rights they had, and not the rights they had not. Now, was it ever known in the world that a State could reserve a right or have a right, either in this Union or out ofit, to do manifest injustice? The rights reserved by the States must be inherent rights; and if we inquire what are inherent. rights we are referred to the compact of society. What is the compact of society? The legal fiction by which each man is supposed to have given up a portion of his rights that he might come in and enjoy the privileges and immunities which society bestows. To suppose that one man gives up more than another or gives up the same to receive less than another, or that one class of society gives up more than another or gives up the same to receive less than another, isto suppose a fraud upon that individual or class. It is to deny the compact of society by denying mutuality therein, for mutuality is the essence of every contract, even in one made in terms, the parties being present and consenting; and much more so as to a contract which never was in fact made, but is supposed in order to found a right in all to affect the rights of each. the States never ha'd the right, and therefore never reserved it, to fight against and oppose such measures asthese. Why, air, the very object of establishing this Government was to make it sure that no Government should ever exist upon this continenteapable of denying or having the power ta deny these rights. This is why we are today citizens of this republic. Again, I say that justice is what we must have as the security of freedom or we are destroyed. What says the ancient maxim concerning the duty and discretion of judges? Discretio est discerncre perlegem justitiamthat the judge shall discern justice by the law. This maxim, like any other of transcendent truth, affirms 2 truths at once. 1st, that the judge shall discern justice by the law, and not otherwise. 2ndly, that by the law he shall discern justice, and not anything else. This, bear in mind, is the maxim concerning the discretion of the judge, a dispenser of jus tice according to laws already formed. but with how much more force does it apply to the legislator. When he comes to lay down the 1st principles oflaw and build a government, he must go by the law, and in that law discern justice and nothing else. Now, I maintain that the series of measures here proposed, and which have been partly passed. have.embodiedin them more of justice and more of freedom and more of magnanimity than the world has ever seen in any similar case, or than those engaged in this rebellion had any right to expect. In regard to the constitutional amendment and the disfranchisement it provides, about which so much has been said, let it be borne in mind that the Constitution, of which our friends are so tenacious, makes these men traitors, the punishment of whom is death, as provided by their fathers and not by us. ‘herefore, since they come before us stripped of their rights by their own offenses, this, as I take it, is an enabling act to them which confers upon them rights that they had no ground to claim, and in a very limited time of probation restores them to the position in which the stood when they cast their rights, civil an political, into the furnace of this rebellion. Then there is a proposition for changing the basis of representation. For one, I cannot do otherwise than support that proposition, for I had the honor to write with my own hand and brin the same proposition last January to this house, and after so modifying it that it should not even say that a State might under any circumstances. disfranchise any of its inhabitants, offered it here. And havin so done, I stand by it today as I stood by it then , and as I gave on that occasion all the reasons., I had to urge in favor of its adoption I will not repeat them now. Upon those rational and reasonable pro0sitions being ratified by the people, this bill comes in and says that these insurrectionary States shall again come back into the family of the Union with the rights which they forfeited when they attempted to strike down the Government of their country. But this bill is assailed at once; just as in a court of law there can be found attorneys ready to take the side of an criminal however vile, so in the field of politics, and in the forum of this nation, you find men who are ever ready to defend the last right, ay, and the last wrong of these trai tors, from the chief arch conspirator who is now luxuriating at Fortress Monroe, down to Semmcs, who made the ocean red with the blood and fire he brought upon our shelterless commerce.