Mr. DIXON. Mr. President, I ask leave to give notice of my intention to offer, by way of amendment to the bill and resolutions reported by the JtComReconstruction, and as a substitute therefor, the following JtResolution: Resolved the Senate and HoRep of the U.S.A. in congress assembled. That the interests of peaceand the interestsof the Unien require the admission of every State to its share in public legislation whenever it presents it self. not onlyin an attitude of loyalty and harmony. but in the personsof repre rutativeswhnse loynlty cannot be questioned under any constitutional or legal tests I ask the consent of the Senate to say a few words in explanation of my views on the subt., mWhat the country expected from Congress was a practical scheme or hastening the reestablishment of all the States in their full constitutional relations. This report produces a plan which must inevitably put of this end, so strongly desired and demanded. Does anyone believe that the southern States will accept the proposed constitutional amendment? Certainly they will decline. They will say, “Let us see what the next elections in the North develop. This Congress may recommend the amendment; the next Congress, which is to be chosen in the fall of the present year, and which may meet on the 6th of arch, 1807, may be of adifferent mind. It may reeal all that this congress has enacted; we had etter wait.” The “restoration of the States to their prac tical relations in the Union, ” as Mr. Lincoln happily phrased it, is therefore put off, if this report is accepted, for at least another year; and the practical result of the labors of the reconstruction committee will be to have made up a platform on which those who choose to stand upon it may go before the country at the fall election. That is all; and in our judgment that is not enough to satisfy the country. It is hardly worthw ile to discuss the merits of measures which to be valid must be accepted by communitieswhich are sure to reject them; but. we may remark that it is not probable so heavily taxed and so poor a people as those of the southern States wrllassumet a payment of the enormous and wastefull contracted rebel debt, and that no party wou d ever dare to go before the people of this country with a proposition for the UgliBd States to assume this debt, whose certificates are held chiefly by foreign speculators upon our national ruin. Further, that it is scarcely probable the epic who have a majority in the outh will vo untarily disfranchise themselves; and that the extremes to which partisan passions have been inflamed in Tennessee by the disfranchisem ent of the greater part of the population there, does not encour age practical men to look for the fruitsof peace from such a policy enforced elsewhere. Even the reconstruction committee acknowledge that “it is expedient that the States lately in insurrection should, at the earliest day consistent with the future cues and safety of the Union, be restored to all articipation in all political rights." Now, what have we already to “secure future peace and safety?" In the 1st place, we have the civil rights act, under whicli) any citizen who is denie justice by local or State courts is empowered to appeal to the U.S. court, which is commanded, with all its machinery, to interfere in his behalf, and if necessary, to use the Military power of the U.S. to secure him justice. Surely no citizen need suffer wrong while this act remains. In the next place, we have a form of oath, prescribed by congress, which makes it impossible for anyone who voluntarily ened in rebellion to enter Congress or to be any Federal office without committing perjury, for which he may and oughtto be indicted and punished. Finall, we have the Freedmens arena for a whole year, during which, with a wise and concili atory policy, we may hope the labor question in the South will assume something of its nor mal condition. But let us not forget, on the other hand, the dangers which attend impracticable measures. Suppose, oing before the people on this plat. form, buit by the congressional committee, we are beaten. In that event we may be sure that the next Congress will not only refuse to make the demands which this one makes, but it will most probably repeal the civil rights act and the test oath; and thus our own imprudence will have sacrificed the great objects we have already gained. The amendment proposed is right enough, if the reconstruction committee can get any southern State to accept it. But unless they do so, it is of course only a shot in the air, which may be right and true, but will hit no where unless indeed it falls upon the heads of the gunners. Is it not far wiser for Congress to make sure of what it has done; to cry “ lanough for this time;” to be contentthat it has secured the supremacy of law and justice in all our torritory; and to admit at once to their seats all Representatives and Senators who can take the prescribed oaths? One Congress cannot bring abont the millennium; there are years to come in which we may all join upon a platform of larger liberty, an argue the questions and urge the reforms which still remain. For this time we have reason to be content; for we have put down armed resistance to the laws, and Congress has given us, in the civil rights act, a guarantee for free speech in every part of the union. It is our own fault if, having thus secured the right to argue, we do not enlighten prejudice an mere opposition, and show that equal liberty is the best for all. What I have read seems to me so wise and just, that I have adopted it as the best expression which I can make of my own views. it is the leading editorial article in the NewYork Evening Post of May 1, a ournal which certainly is not excelled in ability, patriotism, and influence by any newspaperin this country. Coming from such a source, I cannot but hope that these wise, calm, and statesmanlike views may have some influence even in this body, as they certainly will have amen the intelligent people of the U.S. ey express, in my judgment, the calm and resolute convictions O thinking men, and will, so soon as public opinion can legitimately declare itsel, take the form and be clothed with the authority of public law. Leave was granted to introduce the JtResolution (8.R. No. 81) providing for the representation of the several States in the congress of the U.S.; which was read twice by its title.