Mr. GUTHRIE. Mr. President, I should like to know the peculiar reasons why this bill is to be extended to the State of Kentuc. She has never been in rebellion. Though s e has been overrun by rebel armies, and her fields laid waste, she has always had her full quota in the Union armies; and the blood of her sons has marked the fields whereon theyhave fought. Kentucky does not want and does not ask this relief. he freedmen in Kentucky are a part of our population and where the old and lame and ball and blin and infants require care and attention they obtain it from the counties. Our whole organization for the support of the poor, through teagencies of the magistrates in the several counties, is complete. Sir, I did hope that ere this we should have admitted the representatives of the ten States in the South who have organized governments, who are legislatin for and takin care of their local concerns, an that we should have allowed them to take care of the freedmen in their respective States. They can do it far cheaperthan we can. It is said that there are 3 million 500,000 blacks in the South who have been freed by the amendment of the constitution and your previous action. If there be that many, there cannot be less than 500,000, or one in 7, who will require the aid and support of the respective States, because they are not in a condition to an ort themselves even if they were able and wiling to work. The expense of supporting such a population at the owest calculation would he fty dollars a head, or $25,000,000 in addition to the expenditure provided forin the bill, which it was shown yesterday amounted to about 12 million dollars a year; and then the result of it will aim ly be to encourage the negroes to look to the government for rations and keep them from working. It is providing for a lazzaroni throughout the Statesto which you ally it. I do not want it applied to Kentucky. e prefer to take care of our own poor, even of the African race. We have always treated them well. I have asked a very able lawyer with whom I have corresponded to rriveme a statement of the r hts of freedmen in Kentucky under our laws as they stand and the have not been changedin this respect since the constitutional amendment an he says: right t between the negro beuatafnedwwdhifliteersc. noInesianllcitv while rights of marriage. person, and proarty, they. are identical. The same laws govern t air marriages. their wills, their acquisitions of all kinds of property. apd their disposition and transmission of it. their property of suing on contracts for injuries to personand and their modeof trial in anal and criminal prosecutions. By those laws, freedmen. that is the whole negro or colored population. are now governed.” They have all these rights the right to sue and be sued, the right to contract and be contraeted with, the same right to purchase and hold property and transmit it by will or descent, the same rights of marriage, as white people. There is some little modification in the existing laws which our friends in the Legislature are endeavoring to procure; but generally the free negroes have the same rights oF personandpropertly as white persons. do not understand the amendment of the constitution abolishing slavery as some gentlemen do. I helieveits effect is to work the complete freedom of every individual, and to break own every provision in the constitution and laws of the U.S and of the several States which prevents the enjoyment of that freedom. In Kentucky, those who were formerly slaves are now free. The have the same rights that any other freedmen have there, and my word for it, Kentucky will make it all right because she has been among the most liberal States in granting rights an privileges to her freedmen. We have had the benefit of the Freedmens Bureau in Kentucky, although we were not included in the provisions of the law creating the bureau. It seems we are entitled to the benefit of the invasion of the enemy, because they undertogk to conquer Kentucky, as they intended to conquer Missouri, as part of the southern domain. They sent their armies there thr the purpose, and after we had driven them back the deserters from both armies united and ravaged Kentucky by a guerrilla warfare that was exceedingly onerous to the people and vet destructive to our interests. s it because Kentucky has stood by the Union during the strife, is it because she has been desolate as she has been in this contest that the Freedmens bureau is to be extended to her? It cannot be proposed as a measure of economy. The great measure of economy would have been to admit the States and let each State take care of its own population. It must come to that, or this is a despotism for all time to come. We cannot have 2 systems of laws operating in one community, one portion of them governed by Congress and the other by the State Legislature. There was a time when I looked upon the constitution of the U.S. as the wisest system of government that had ever been devised in the history of time. Looking at it, I saw that 13 States, each with a local government, had made a national Government by divesting themselves of certain powers and giving them to that national Government and making its laws the supreme law of the land over the constitutions and laws of the States; and a Government thus devised onght to endure for ever. Under the system any legislation of congress or a State in violation of the provisions of the Federal constitution was void, and time and time again before the judicial tribunal of the Gdvernment, the U.S. Supreme Court, laws of Congress have fallen as void, and so have enactments of the States. It was a system to preserve itself in purity and perpetuity by conforming to its provisions. Any attempt of the State at insurrection was a violation of the constitution. I shall not attempt to o over the ground which was so ably argued y the Senfrom Maryland [Mia Jonxsor] or the Senfrom Wisconsin, [Mr. DooLirri. i ] It is a lain constitutional principle that every act o legislation and everything done in violation of the constitution of the l. U.S. is void. We have a right to suppress insurrection. If there is a combination of States against the Union, that combinationis void as in violation of the constitution. When we suppress a rebellion we have not conquered the States, but we have conquered the rebellion. We have brought the States back into the Union, and it is not in the power of Congress, with all its legislative authority, with all the stretch of power made during the war under extraordinary circumstances it is not in the power of Congress without viola tin the constitution to exclude the States, and snc an act would be held void by any judicial tribunal imbued with the principles of the constitution and understanding its provisions. Therefore, when the rebellion was so pressed, when the foe laid down their arms, teStates were still States of the Union, but without organized State governments. It was the duty of the President a duty with which he was charged and which he was solemnly sworn to execute to preserve the Government. The constitution makes it his duty to see that the laws are executed. The constitution of the U.S., the laws made in pursuance of it, and the treaties made under its authority, are the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstandin. It was the duty of the President to treat all State laws or acts of State conventions or combinations of States in resistance to the just authority of the Government as null an void under the constitution. It is made his business to see that the laws be executed. It was his duty to encourage these people to come back into the Union. 1 think it was in the perfect line of his duty, either as CommanderinChief or as chief executive oiii cer of the U.S., to bring them back. I do not think he had anyauthority to command them to do this thing, or to do that, but it was his duty to advise them, and I do not quarrel with him because he advised them to accept the results of the war, for from the feelin sI see here manifested. when what they have one accordin to his advice is not sufficient, if they had not done what they have, God knows what organization would have been proposed for them and what armies we should have sent out against them. I do not understand gentlemen when they say that the war continues. For more than 9 months there has not been a soldier in the field against us. During that period of time there has been no organization in hostility to the Government, an there has been no one inciting to treason or raising troops to resist the U.S. The President, in may last, is sued his roclamatibn of amnesty. hat did he do?ations do not war againstwomen and children, the old and the imbecile. It was impossible to prosecute for treason the whole population of the southern States. In his amnesty proclamation the President remitted the personal penalties arising from treason and the confiscation of prorty. To whom does the president exten this amne 7 He made certain exceptions, the extent o which is variously estimated; but no sensible man who has looked at the subject that I have talked with ever considered the exceptions in the amnesty proclamation as extending tomore than 40,000 persons, and the larger portion of them come under the $20,000 clause. We know, as a matter of fact, that a large portion of the $20,000 exceptions are infants and widows and married women, and that butavery small portion of the active male population is atfected by that exception. The resident has granted some pardons, very much, as I gather from the tone and remarks ere, to the dissatisfaction of many Senators on this floor. For myself, I am only sorry that he did not go further. There are now probably 35,000 people within the U.S. excluded from the general pardon; and the war which gentlemen are contriving to can on for the next 5 or ten years God only nows when it is to stopis against these 35,000 people. All the rest are pardoned, freed from the stain of rebellion and the chances of confiscation. When I came here I was in hopes, from what I had seen of the manifestations of public sentiment, that these States would be at once restored to the Union and admitted to participation in our councils, so that we might have the aid and advantage of their experience. What would have been the result? After admitting them we should then have asked the President to extend his amnest, and to give back to women and children their estates, so that we might derive the revenue which would be the result of setting the southern people at work, and enabling them to make the South productive as it had heretofore been. Does anyone suppose that all the property thus tied up, the owners of which are left uncertain as to what to do, will be ultimately confiscated by the U.S.? If we were ever so violent and ever so determined upon confiscation, public sentiment would not allow us to confiscate the property ofwomen and children who were unable to enflge themselves in rebellion, although the may have been worth more than $20,000. t may be thought that there are some who still cry for blood, but I trustthere is no such sentiment as that. Now I ask Senators to consider the punishment the South have already felt. 10,000 million dollars of their property have been destroyed and sunk in this rebelion. You may say they deserve it for having commenced the war. I say they deserve the consequence of engaging in an attcmpt to overturn this Government, and they must car it, and they ought to bear it. If the object is the infliction of punishment, have we not fined them heavily enough when we have gone to the extent of $10,000,000,000 Have we not by this veryact thrown upon them the support of a population who are not able to support themselves? It belongs to them as State governments to take care of their oWn poor and those within their own borders. Sir, it was not my intention to enga c in this discussion. I believed when I came ere that public sentiment was rie for a restoration of the Union. I believed the arguments of Sher man and Grant, and other distinguished soldiers who had enforced the national authority upon the battlefield, afforded a greater security than you could possibly exact in any shape in which you might put it and it is a lesson that will last as long as time shall endure, not only with them but With their posterity and for all tuture time. It is a decision that wants no confirmation by the SCOTUS it is a decision of the God of battles. You may say that the result is humiliating to the South, that the are not prepared to love the hand that has o astised them; but do on think the will never make good citizens 7 ir, for one, I would trust that brave and gallant peopleI hope gentlemen will not consrder it treason to. call them sowho, with inferior numbers and inferior resources, made so stout and brave a contest against us, with all our strength, with all our money, and with all our vast resources. Like our lant generals, when the battle is over I would exten to them the court esy of gentlemen and the humanity to which I believe they are entitled. I want no other guarantee than that of which I have spoken; and I have yet to learn that any portion of the people of the U.S. who have considered the subject want them back in the Union curtailed of their powers and privileges; nor do I believe that the sober intelligence of this nation requires that we should send the officers of the bureau into the southern States to irritate and annoy the people there, by acting as agents for the colored population, instituting suits for them, and trym little petty difficulties between them and the white population. All the suits to be instituted under this bill are to be those in which justice shall be administered in favor of the blacks; and there is not a solitary provision in it relative to suits in cases where the blacks do wrong to the whites. I hope that the provisions of this billwill not be extended to the State of Kentuck. This whole subject has given us a great deof trouble. It has ven us some trouble in the legislature to a apt ourselves to the new cond1tion of things in which we find ourselves. Rell you, gentlemen, the heart of Kentucky is right and it will do right on this subject. l”e inten to provide for the support of the helpless people within our borders. We want no interference from the General Government on such a matter. There is no necessity for it. it is not in the bond of the Union that you shall send your otheers and agents to Kentucky to judge between portions of her population. I ask you, gentlemen, to bring this question home to your selves. I am sure if chance were ever to put the part to which Ibelong in power, we would not ol this chalice to your lips and attempt to enforce such a system of laws in your States. Our charter for action would be the Constitution of the U.S.; and where that for bade us to go, we would not go. A great many things have been done during the last few ears tgnt I believe surpass anything ever be are seen in America. be great demoralization that exists throughout the country, both in public and private life, has had its sanction an authority in the acts of those high in power and influence. Do on expect that when men come together an fill office, and swear to abide by the constitution, and then disregard its plain provisions, the mass of the people will respect private rights and pay properregard to the lives and property of their show citizens? In my judgment, a great portion of the demoralization now existing in the country may be attributed to that cause. My be e was that on the restoration of peace we would come back to the old principle of taking the constitution for our guide, restoring the courts and the rights of action in them, settin the people to work with all their means and a1their industry and all their hopes, so thatAmerica should pros peras before, and so that we should have the ability to meet the engagements occasioned by the war. But, sir, it would be in vain to hidulge such a hope when I see, as I think I see, in this bill and its twin sister behind it, a provision, not for restoring the local State governments, but for governing the people of the States without any regard whatever to the States themselves. Herctofore it has been considered that under the constitution of the U.S. you could not take a foot of land in one of the States, even for a fort or an arsenal, without the consent of the State; but by this bill you propose to obtain land in the States and to become a landlord and renter of land to colored people. Do you think that that will tend to concihate the affections of the people in those States? How much sooner, by this course of legislation, will you have a united country?Mr. President, let me say that in my opinion we are not in a condition to continue the state of things now existing in the southern States. Our relations with foreign countries are in a very unsettled state. Our difficulties with enlau still remain unadjusted. Ourrelations with France are not settled. This Mexican question remains environed with difficulties. hatever may be thought of the Monroe doctrine, we cannot but feel that it was unkind on the part of the Emperor of France, while we were engagedlin our domestic troubles, to import an army into Mexico and set up an emperor there right opposite to us; a man who, accord in to the newspapers, is now shooting by whole salgcall the prisoners that he captures. I have ever believed and still believe, that if we had settled the difficulties among ourselves, if we had adopted the Presidents policy toward the southern States and admitte them to participation in the national councils, that very act of conciliation going forth from America, announcing to all the nations of the earth that we were one people again, would have given us a greater guarantee of peace than we have ever bad. If a necessity should arise for calling forth the energies of the nation again in foreign war, I should be for sustaining the nationa honor; but I cannot disguise from myself the fact that we are just now in no condition to involve our selves in further difficultics. Mr. President, I had hoped that there was a different spirit among the representatives of the people in relation to uniting together all the States, including the socalled confederate or rebellious States. I do not wish to so anything offensive, but the whole tenor of the remarks that have been made here during this session toward the people of those States, including those who have been pardoned by the President, has not been the language of conciliation or of kindness. I was as strongly in favor of the suppression of the rebellion as any man. I tried, as far as I had power, and as far as a man of my age could try, to prevent the war but when it came, I spoke the language of hope as to the result. I thought there was a reason in the tread of armies that would bring the Union to safety. I regret that we are not nearer a Union, that we are not nearer that spirit of conciliation which would make us one. o rent people on the face of the earth has ever been conciliated or made friendly by such discussions as we have had here; it is impossible that they should be. I think the Government will be safe if we adept the policy laid down by the President. I confess that I am astonished at the success he has met with in restoring the southern States. He has done more with them than I expected he could do, knowing them as well as I did. I believe they are sincere and honest in their desire to come back to the Union. That there are some idle men there who talk at random I do not pretend to deny; but the great mass of the people accept the situation, and mean to be loyal to the U.S., I am sorry that the chairman of the ComJudiciary has inserted in this bill a provision looking to the permanent establishment of this bureau. I am one of those who believed that while the war was goin on, while the States did not recognize their allegiance to the Union, something should be done orthese people. It was done, and this bureau was created to look after their interests during the war. But I supposed that as soon as the war was over there would be no occasion for continuin it. because we should be one people again, an this whole subject would be left to the States themselves. I should feel greatly relieved if that provision were stricken from the bill. In a financial point of view, how much better would it be for the country to have the ple of those States friends in the Union than to have them out, with the irritation which every man here knows must begoing on between the a cuts of the bureau and the citizens continua ly. It is a festering sore that will enlarge and grow with time. I thought that the nation was prepared for peace, that it was for bringing back these States. tprepared I ought it was the interest of the nation that we should have peace, that we should haven consolidated nation. I believed that there was no other security required than we had gained in the bat tles which suppressed the rebellion; that there was none other, indeed, that we ought to call for. I did not believe that this nation wanted the Union restored except upon the principles of equality that existed in the original Constitution. If you insist upon extendin the right of suffrage to the African race, in the name of God extend it to them in all the States of the Union, and do not confine your action to the southern States, placing it as a mark of degradation and inequality upon them when they come back. If you put that lasting mark of degradation upon them, it will be a festering sore to them and theirs for generations to come; and as we are advised by the experience of all those who have gone before us, when a mark of degradation is placed upon a people, they are Generall ready to seize a promising opportunity to recl against it. I shall notgo into the his tor of the world to prove this. It is known to e the history of man in all ages from the 1st, and it will e so to the last. You cannot degrade any portion of your population and put a mark and stain upon them without leav m cause of heartburning and difficulty that will endanger the ublic security hereafter. I hope that the Sorth and the South hence forth will not undervalue each other. I made as strong an etiort as I could to prevent the South from seceding. I told them that the North had such superior numbers as would crash them. When I returned from the peace conference I thought that both sides were willing for the conflict, and that nothing short of blood would stop it. I went home and told the Kentuckians so, and told them also that they must prepare for it. For a time it seemed doubt ful, perhaps, which side would get their support; but the cause of the Union prevailed with the people of Kentucky, and Kentucky has been true to the Union always. I hope gentlemen will consent to strike Kentucky out of the bill. We can take care of ourselves, and we pledge you that Kentucky will do what is right toward these people.