Mr. DOOLITTLE. Certainly, if called upon to vote on the question, a person who has the power to vote pay has the power to vote no. It is submitted to the Legislature to vote pay or no. If they can vote ay, they can vote no; and if they can vote no they can vote ay, and the giving them or acknowledging that they have the power to vote either way acknowledges them to be States with Legislatures. We cannotsay as the hunter was said to have done when he loaded his gun and fired, to hit it if it was a deer and to miss if it was a calf. We cannot say that we submit a constitutional amendment to the State, and if they vote pay they are States and have ioined in the ratification of an amendment to?. Constitution of the U.S., and if they vote no they are not States and have no power to vote at all. Mr. President, I do not wish to continue this discussion. Indeed I dislike to be drawn into a discussion of other questions than those that are precisely the ones pending before the Senate on the admission of the Territory of Nebraska; but all the Senators who have discussel that measure have run off on to the question of the reconstruction of the States of the South and the constitutional amendment. Therefore, as that question seems to be before the Senate, though not necessarily involved in the pendin question, the admission of Nebraska, I wish to say a single word as bearing on that . not design to be drawn into any prematur. expression of an opinion upon a subject not under discussion; and the habit that some gentlemen have of asking questions upon mak ters foreign to the subject of debate, as to the opinions of Senators, would not have any effe?' at all as applied to me, because, in parliamentary language, I should say, when such a ques.tion was put, if I chose to say it, “It is nono of the Senator's business; he would find it out when the time came.” Now, the Senfrom Wisconsin says that gentlemen must define their positions; there is no neutrality, they must be somewhere or other. We all know where he i. at this o: o: r near the equator as he can get. aughter. J. ith reference . the question raised by him, so far as the ComReconstruction is concerned, I think by a reading of their report their understanding of this whole matter may be arrived at. We submitted a constitutional amendment, and in the report itself we discussed the question of the standing of the States themselves. Unless I am very much mistaken in my recollection of the substance of that report, it does not admit but almost specifically denies that anyone of the States in rebellion has ever since been in a condition to do a legal act as a State or one which we were bound to recognize; that any of them is so constituted that the men presuming to be the Legislature or to act as a Legislature are so in point of fact unless we choose to recognize the State government as such, which we have never done with regard to any of them except i ng simply the State of Tennessee. understand that this matter of admitting a State is a matter of compact. A State may establish a government if it pleases, or a sort of government to suit itself; it may call a convention; it may institute a form of government if it likes and proceed to act under it; and if the Congress of the U.S. chooses to recognize that as such in a Territory, or in a State situated as these rebellious States are, they have the power to do so. But suppose they do not choose to do it, but take exception to the form, does the body assuming to act as a Legislature remain a Legislature so far as we are concerned? Does the socalled State government entitle itself to be the government of the State so far as Congress and the government of the U.S. are concerned? Not at all, until we come into the compact. I think that principle will enable us to answer the question that is put by the Senator. We do not say that a State government is all right if it answers “ay” but all wrong if it answers “no.” We submit our constitutional amendment in the regular form; we provide that it shall be submitted to the Legislatures of the States. We do not say what States. We do not submit it ourselves except by passing a vote to that effect. We authorize the SecyState to transmit a copy to the several States of the Union; no more than that; and when he receives the answer to let it be known. That is all. We do not undertake to say that either this, that, or the other State is in a condition to act so as that its action on the subject shall be binding. Now. with orences myself individually, I do not know, and I do not undertake to say, what I may or may not do in a given, specific case. But when we vote for a constitutional amendment to be submitted and it is submitted by the SecyState to the legislatures now in existence, do we admit that those States are regularly constituted and that we have got to recognize them after they have acted? Not at all. My own understanding is that I have a right to inquire, and it is my duty to inquire, whether this constitutional amendment has been legally adopted by a Legislature of a State which I am bound to recognize. Have I not a right to make inquiry” If an organization, no matter how got up, with or without the consent of the people or a majority of the people of a State, sets itself up as the Legislature, am I precluded from inquiring into the fact whether that is the Legislature of the State whose action is binding on the question submitted? That is a question which I have a right to examine. I am not prepared to say in the veryteeth of the report of the reconstruction committee, socalled, that these States are so constituted and so organized that their action, so far as the U.S. government is concerned, is legal and bindin upon anyone subject. I have not admitte thr to: I do not admit it now. And yet, sir; I am free to say that if from the conduct of a government assuming to be the government of State, from the constitution that they submitted and here jet me say out no constitution has yet been submitted to Congress from any of these states fon. the principles of that constitution we.". as would render it safe and proper in my judgment to say that it was the constitution of a State, and that the State should come into Congress, I might then come into that compact and say that such a State was to be admitted into the Union or to be recognized as one of the States of the Union, if gentlemen like that language better, on the constitution thus submitted to Congress and the provisions they had made. But is it to be held that before any such thing has been done, when the old constitutions have been overthrown, with everything, to use the language of the President, prostrate in the dust, nothing new done under the authority of Congress, or even by the assent of anyone of these States, I am to take it for granted that that is the constitution of a State, and that they are States in the Union with all proper connections with the Government of the U.S. before I know what it is? I take it for granted that that is not obligatory on me in any sense; and I want to say here now with regard to the formation of these States, the new formation of these States if you please to call it so, because we all understand what their condition Iis, conceive that I have a right to inquire what the terms of their constitutions are, to see whether those terms are satisfactory. whether they have placed themselves in a condition to be admitted, whether they were in a condition to adopt the constitutional amendment which we have submitted, and whether they have done it; not that any convocation of people called together by a satrap, forming new arrangements to suit themselves, which they have never chosen to submit to Congress or the people of their State, of which we know nothing officially, are necessarily a Legislature and a government, all of whose acts we are pledged to take as the acts of the proper, well organized, constitutional governments of States in the Union and having renaired all their broken connections with the Union. I admit no such doctrine, sir, and therefore I say, after a vote has been taken, if any should be by anyone of these socalled States adopting the constitutional amendment, it may be a question preliminary with me: has the constitutional amendment been adopted by a legally organized constitutional government of a State, which I am bound to recognize? And, sir, I do not preclude myself from a right to look into the terms of the constitutions they submit to Congress. I rose simply to enter this caveat, and I think if gentlemen will read the report of the reconstruction committee they will find nothing particularly inconsistent with what I have said in relation to that matter. Upon all these questions, separate or otherwise, as they come up I am ready to act when they come; but no general rule can be established which will be binding upon me with reference to questions of this description: each one is to stand upon its own particular merits or demerits, as. case may be. Now, sir, what the reconstruction committee submitted was this: when the constitutional amendment has been legally and constitution ally adopted and become a part of the Constitution itself, then, in connection with the bill which was introduced at the same time, any State which shall have adopted it may resume its position in the Union.