Mr. WAE E. No doubta out that; but I do not want to be turned aside to a controversy on I am not contending that the President has done anything very wrong in all this. I agree that when we conquer a people who had no laws, who had no civil organization and could have none, it devolved upon the POTUS to keep the peace in that country, and to prescribe such rules and regulations as in his Judgment would conduce to that end until such time as Congress should assemble and prescribe the law to, be followed. That is what he had a right to do, and in my judgment that is all the constitution permitted him to do, and in that he had a very urge discretion; but I can see no authority for the President to undertake to prescribe an oath which was to qualify persons to elect a State government which was to be the permanent civil government of a State in this Union, a part and parcel of the Union. I do not know where you find anything in the constitution of the U.S. to require that a State shall pass a constitutional amendment of any kind. I do not know how you get it constitution ally. I do know that he could not do it to a State that had not been outside of the Union; no man would attempt it there. There is evidently, therefore, a broad distinction made by the President between a State outside of the nion and a State inside. Neither the president, nor any Senator upon this tloor, nor any statesman in the nation, would have thought of prescribing any of these conditions to a State which had never been out of the Union. Why, then, did the President impose these conditions on the seceded States? Because the areput of the Union, and therefore he was rig in demanding conditions. I say he has done well, so far as he has gone. I want him now, as I said before, to put the keystone in the arch, to invoke the loyal people in the South, those who have stood by us through evil report and through good report, whom you can trust, (in whom you can rely today, tomorrow, and forever, as an offset. to the traitors that you propose to let in. I want to counterbalance them, or I dare not trust them alone. I say there is no more constitutional difficulty in the way of accomplishing this result than there is in the way o any condition that the President has enjoined on thatpeople. They all stand upon the same principle precisely; and I wonder that any statesman or lawyer can contend that the President might impose the important radical conditions that he has insisted upon, and rightly insisted upon, as conditions precedent to the organization and admission of these States, and stop there. If he can do what he has done, he can do anything else that is necessary to effect the purpose, to bring these States back into the Union. There is no great difference in principle between what he has done and what I want him to do. He is right as far as he has gone; and now I want him to make what has been done secure by placing this great question where it must be placed before it will rest in peace, and that is, as I said before, on the rock of eternal justice and truth. I hope the nation will be agitated as by an earthquake until she shall be ready to do right. I know she will finally get down to this rock. You may build upon the sand, but the human mind will not rest upon such a foundation. It never has rested upon it. We have progressed from one pointto another until I think we are about stepping upon the rock and then this controversy will cease and we shall be at rest. Again, sir, I deny that the organization of "theseState governments in the South has begun at the right end so far. I contended during the last Congress that the President had no right, by military Order No. 87, or any other military order, to organize a State government. any where. Our Government must be a Government of the people. In this country you can notforceaGovernmentupon anybod. Itmight be very convenient if we could. despotic Government may do it with perfect case. I hen Russia comtuers Poland she may trample her punder foot, because armed with espotic, irre sponsible power. When we conquer a people We must deal with them within the pale of the constitution, in analogy to the great principles of our glorious free Government. Iapeople conquered by us are so erverse, if they have [been educated and stimu ated by hate for Gen, eratrons, so that they cannot act with us now, you cannot make republican government out of l. suizlh material. You are beginning at the wrong en. Who has asked the President and conss to establish civil government in the South 2 ow "can Democrats contend that a people shall be bound by an organization emanating from the center? That is not the place for it to orii mate. These people must be held under mi i tary subjugation (though an equitable oneI would contend for) until they themselves shall see that the time has come when they can act in accordance with the old constitution and Government of the U.S. They have not come to that yet, and nobody is surprised that they have not. Do on suppose that in a moment the temperand disposition of men who breathed fire and wrath against you for fourion years, and murdered 300,000 of your bravest sons, and committed all the atrocities to which I have alluded, have been so changed that they will ask to be taken back into that Government which they had in voked foreign despotisms to overthrow, and to destroy which they had hazarded their lives and fortunes? I know that the southern people will come back. I know it is as much or their interest, and infinitely more for their interest, than it is for ours. We all have a pride in the whole nation; as the Senfrom Wisconsin said, we will never consent to lose a single star from the old flag; but when we repair this breach, I want it to be done by the people of the South becoming convinced that it is for their interest, and tellin us “ we aresick of war we are sick of contening against the power of the U.S.; and we ask and petition Congress now to permit us to organise a State government in accordance with the constitution of the U.S., and we are ready to back up our petition by majorities in the State, uncontrolled by the Armv, uninflueneed by anything except the will and wish of the people to get back into the old fold from which they had strayed.” I know that they will come in due time, butyou cannot. force it. What I wish to inculcate and insist upon is the utter absurdity of suppoSing that a cemocratic people can force another people to join them and comply with the forms of the Government when their hearts are at variance with it. The old maxim was that one man could lead a horse to water, but ten men could not make him drink. You cannot make a people drink in democracy until they are ready for it. You may give them the forms, but they are all idle cere monies unless they are imbued with the spirit. Govern them justly by the strong arm of the nation until such time as they themselves shall have had an opportunity to reflect, to cool off, to become willing that aState government should be revived over them, when they see their interest plainly in that direction. When that is done there is no doubt they will come asking to be allowed to have a State government, some soorier, some later. Time is agreat elementin all such cases, and he is a mostunreasonable man who expects that in the twinkling of an eye on can may e a people cordially cooperateint is free Government who the day before were endeavoring to overthrow;it and until the people themselves can agree to it, it is vain and idle, and worse, to contend that you can force them into this Government by this hothouse operation, and induce them to harmonize with you. They will come back in due time no doubt and no man will rejoice more than I shall when that time shall come; and lean tell you when it will come. Leave them to themselves; do not send your great officers down there to ersuade them; do not leave yourconquerorwit armsin his hands to say to them “Come up and make such and such a constitution, and come into the Union with it.” That is notthe way; but govern them equitably until it is shown by their petitions, by their speeches, by their actions, which no body can mistake, that the great heart of that people has relented and repented of the crimes the have committed, and that the are willing an anxious to come back to the nion as the ark of their safety, and there lodge and travel and act with us. Sir, I shall look as anxiously as any other man to see that there is this repentance, this temperand disposition thzitwill enable us when they ask it to so to them, ” You shall have the right hand of fe lowship, you shall stand on as high ground as you ever stood on before;” but coin never Consent that a government shall be organized from this central pointto bring States into the Union. You can bring themih by the Army of the U.S. s; you can force them to go through the form of making a State government and send their delegates here; but would that be a republican government? Would it be a democracy? ould it be a government having its authority in the consent of the people, sue as our great DeclarIndep calls for?Mr. President, the great panacea for all our difficulties is to throw our prejudices to the winds and come up and do justice. Look at yourold Declaration of lndependenee; a document which has notits equal 5 a document which in sublimity, in usefulness, and in enlightenment to the human mind, excels any that has ever been promulgated among men. I am amazed that nearly a century has gone by since that great Declaration was given to mankind, and yet the mass of our Senators have not reached the sublime position in which our forefathers in that darker period stood. They knew full well that the Government they were founding could rest. upon nothing else than the great basis of eternal, equal right and justice. I revere that Declaration because it came from their hands, but I revere it more becauselknow that it came from the hand of the Almighty. It is the will of God that no nation can prosperor rest in peace until it builds upon this foundation. I am for giving all the rights guarantied in thatDeclaration to all men, and especially to those who aided me in trouble, who aided me in securing to myself and posterity those great rights that we had all inherited, when they were placed in jeopardyby the accursed traitors whom you look upon With such lenity. I do not wish to say much in answer to what has been said about the rdoning of rebels. That system of pardoning sacs not meet my approbation to the extent that it has gone. I never would pardon the wretch who, afterhaving taken an oath to supportthe Government of the I U.S. which educated him and gave him ahigh and honorable position among his fellows in order that he might stand by the Government in time of trouble, sneaked away and perjured his soul to God and resigned himself to treason. If I spared his life, it. would be all he could have at hands. Invite such a wretch as that into our Government anywhere! Sir, this mawkish tenderness to traitors is treason to the State. To themass of the people of the South I would, of course, grant an amnesty; butthe great leaders of this rebellion who led them on to destruction cannot have my pardon here, and I do not know that they will iercafter. If there is an unpardonable sin, the wretches who stood as the guardians of this great and glorious and equi table nation, and for selfish purposes turned around and songht its destruction. have committed it, and they never should be pardoned. But, Mr. President, I stand by my friends; I stand by my pledges. The colored population of this country, 4 million? innnmber, are ii5fto"beignored by the speeches of Gentlemen, uoi the votes of this If on could do so, you would create anotheroligare y, for when you cutoff from the right to participate in a flee Government 4 millions of its people, more than 1/3rd of the entire population of the seceded States, when you cut them of? fiom this great democratic right, you fix a stigma upon t iem that cannot be wiped out; it will have a bearing infinitely beyond the influence in the Government that their votes will confer; you will have tram led them under foot forever with the mark of sin upon them and that will be your return for their brave an able defense of your institutions in time of peril. Sir, I will stand by them forever. As I have already said, my manhood, my honor, my sense of justice, and my policy as a member of a free Government all conduce to the same end, to make me stand firmly and forever by the riglts, of these 4 million people. So far as my voice can go the”shal stand upon the same basis that I in stand on. I espise, with a contour tthat I cannot name. the man who Willi conten, for rights for himself that he will not. E award to everybody els6. What I claim for I 1866. 2 myselfor my children, politically, I will award I to every member of this Government, and with more scrupulous guardianship to him who is weak and uninfluential than to him who is pow erful and able to defend himself. Sir these are the sentiments that will government. remarks. I thought that the elaborate speechcs manufactured upon this subject, and the long orations pronounced over it, without suggesting the clearing of the path from any of the difli oulties that must occur to everybody were cal culated rather to mislead than anything else; and hence I wished to point out the ditheulties that I have encountere all the while since the discussion has been up. I say once more that whenever the southern States can give me evidence that it is safe to withdraw our troops from that quarter, that they will conform to the principles of the Government, that it will be safe to admit them into our counsels, I shall be 1st and foremost to go with him who is for letting them in; but, sir, I, for one, will never consent to let unwashed traitors, dyed in the blood of our dearest friends, articipate in the councils of the Government that they have endeavored to overthrow.