Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, in any remarks I may make today, I shall not attempt to suggest any new remedies for the evils which now afflict the country. I shall only tr to show that the old are amply sufficient, and that there is not the least necessity for going outside the Constitution and laws in order to vindicate the Government. We do not need to amend the one or to remodel the other and especially we ought not to violate the one and disregard the other in order to attain our ends. I am glad to say to the country at I only state in thiQ the views of the President. He has sworn to support and maintain the Constitution and see that the laws are fully executed, and he will stand there, no matter what comes. My object now, then, is simply to induce a return to the great principles of the Gmerllment, which for a period of 3 quarters of a century were undisputed, and which gave to us a progress and prosperity heretofore unpar alleled in the world. Mr. President, the U.S. are in themselves a body politic or corporation, created Originally by 13 States, with certain pow e“rs conferred u n it byn great charter called The Constitution of the U.s., ” which from the year 1787 till the present. with a few amendments not material here, has continued to be the low of its existence and the measure of its power and authority. In and by the term?! of the Constitution it was provide that new States might be admitted by the coness into the Union, and under this authority, gem time to time, States have been admitted till the number amounts to 36. The States that originally joined in creating the Union were themselves bodies politic or corporations, with governing powers granted to hem by their people supreme, except so far as limited in their constitutions and the constitution of the U.S. The new States have also their charters or constitutions, made by their people, and, when once admitted, stand upon the same footing in all respects as the oricinal States. he Constitution further provides that the Senate of the U.S. istall be composed of 2 Senators from each State, and that each house shall be the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members. 5 years 0, upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the resi ency, the secession party of the cotton States, deeming it a fitting occasion to commence the carrying out of their schemes, and being in possession of most of the places of power in those States, they undertook to repeal the ordinances by which they lind bound themselves in the Union by enacting ordinancesof secession. They then expelled the U.S. authorities frohf the possession of their territories in all of their ports, except 2 small forts, Pickens and Sumter. In the mean time the Congress was in session a d the President was in the Executive Mansion. They had full power to raise and support armies, to lprovide and maintain a navy, and they had ful.power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union and suppress the insurrection. They did nothing, and for 4 months the people of the cotton States were left at the mercy of the conspirators, with no protection and no assistance. The government was paralyzed, and the rebels, without let orlanderance, established aconfederate government in fact and in full possession, which had the power to compel the obedience of the people to all its decrees and laws; and this was done with an iron hand. The people on their art, without organization, without means ooked in vain to the U.S. for aid and deliverence, but. none came. They voted, when they had. a chance, in opposition to the scheme of secession, but their votes were disregarded and the usurpation went on to its completion. The 4th day of March, 1861, came, and Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. There was no congress. The Army was demoralized, the N svy was distrusted, and the Treasury was emptv. No one knew what to do; wise men hesitated; timid men quailed; and it was doubtful whether we would attempt to rescue the ople, suppress the insurrection, and put the nion again in possession. This suspense lasted till the 12t of April, 1861, when the rebels, embold ened by the apparent weakness of the Government, opened their fire upon Fort Sumter to drive the U.S. from the possession of their last foothold in SCarolina. The 1st shot settled the question forever; almost every man in the Nort started asif struck by it, and rushed to otier his services to the President. War was imminent, and sides must be taken. Mr. Greeley, in his American Conflict, volume one, page 450, says: “ Secession.aswe have seen.had been initiated by the aid of the most positive assurancesthat. one. fairly in progress.every slave Stat; would speedily and surely unite in it: yet up to this time but 7 of the 15 slave States, having a decidedminority of the noulation and astill more decided minority of the white inhabitants, of that section. had justified the sanguine promise. On the contrrry the socalled border States.with Tennesseeand Arkansas. had voted not to secede and most of thorn by overwhelming majorities: savethat Kentucky Maryland and Delaware had scarcely (lElKllCt.tl o take the matter into eousulcrution. and, despite VEEP Stephenss glowing rhetoric, it was plain that these ceded States did not and could not suflionto form a nation. Of protcctorates and imported princesbetrayedtheir ownconsciousness of this, Eitherlo attack the union, and thus provoke a war, or to sink gradually but surely out of existencebeneath azenernl appreciation of weakness. insecurity, and intolerable burdens, was the only choice lelt to the plotters and upholdors ot"seeession and though signally beaten in the recent elections of the non-seceed c slave.States.they had yet a voryslroug pary in most of those States: stronger in wealth. in sotial stnniling, and in political activity and influence tl an in numbeis. A minority oflhase had been able to bring the conventionsor Legislatuunracns imotit yt, hoIirlres ective States to say, with tolerable tio Black Republicans attempt to cecrcetho accededb tat ewse Will join theniin armed resistance. It was indispensable, thercfore. To their mutual purposes that there should he eoercion. "So liitcas the lth aine uth ailer the return of their coVuirigminisisii, othrrs of ugrohmhtehrecoanbvoertnivtieon peace conference by the decisive vote of 89to 45, rotused to pass an oliniince of se cannon." In March, Tennessee voted 01, 803 Union and 24, 740 for convention, (Ibid, page 481) but afterward the Legislature entered into articles With the confederaey giving it control of the military force and public property Senate, yeas 14, nnys 6, absent or not voting 0; House, yeas 43, nays 15, absent or not voting 18. This was the 7th of May, 1801, and an ordinance of secession was ratified by the people on the 8th of June following, under the followmg circumstances, says Mr. Greeley, page 483 and I read With great pleasure from Mr. Greeley, because if there 15any man in the country who ought to be authority with the dominant party in the Senate, 1 thin it is Mr. Greeley: “The network of railroads checkering the State, and especially the great line connecting Virginia, throng i hnoxville and Chattanoogunrith the cotton States. was instantly covered With rebel soldiers, and all freedom of opinion and expression on the side of the Union completely crushed ut. Govorporllarris, ionng the at2thltehovf of June of, tishseu8etdhhhisad proclamation declar resulted as follows: Separation. No separation. 14, 80, 58.1505 8.198 Military 20.127 6, 117 camps. 2, 741 Total. "104, 918 47, 238 " But a convention of the peopleofEast Tennessee n region wherein the immense preponderance of Union sentimcpts still commanded some degree of freedom for Unionists held at Grccnville on the 17th, and wherein 3once ounties were represented by dfilegates, adopted declarntion of grievnnce s wherein t “cy say: We, tho people ofEast Tennessee again assembled in a convention of our delegates, make the following declaration in pdditipn to that heretofore promul iite llbytus at Imoxville on the 30thand 3lst days of ay as: “ So far as we can lenm, the election held in this State on the 8th day of the present month was free. with but few exceptions, in no part of theState other than East Tennessee. In the larger portion of Middle and West Tennessee no specchcs or diseussinns in favor of the Union were permitted. Union papers were not allowed to circulate. Measures were to en in some parts of west the pnessec in defiance of the constitution and laws, which allow folded tickets, to have the ballots numbered in such manner as to mark and expose the Union voters." From the same volume, page 485, we may learn how NCarolina was carried into the whirlpool of rebellion. Here it " is: The State of NCarolina, though never deliberately and intelligentl hostilc to the nion. became a much easier prey to the conspirators. lIer Democratic Lezislature reconvene at Raleigh, November 19, ISGU – hitd refused.ampnth later, to passe bill to arm the State, though Visited and entreated to that end by Hon. Jacob Thompson, then a.member of Mr. Buchanans Cabinet; and had adjourned without even calling a convention. This as we have leen did not prevent Governor Ellis taking military gagegsmn of the Federal forts near Beaufort and ilmin top (January 2) on the protest that, if he did not do it. a mob would! lie proceededto reconvene the Legislature in extra session and to worry it into calling a convention for which an election 75. duly held. But the aetnraking this call provided that the people, when electing delegates, might vote that the convention should or should not meet. They profited by the groom!" permiwqm and while electing a Union convention by an immense majority, voted to guard against accidents that the conven lttiaonndsinheo, ul fonrohtmolding;, t4h0e, i6r7i2ote quitcalieuvyono 0.281115.ll]0ldln, 47.3z31 majority for no convention dkil. This vote tempora my checked all oprn, ngirressive movements in the interest of distine n But did not arrest nor diminish tshaewg firiogrhtstosf its champions. 0n the contrary a great convention was assembledat kaleuh i i Already the talk in their aristocraticcircles J on the 22dof March, and largely attendedby leading disunionisls from SCarolina, Virginia, and other States. Its spirit and its demonstrations lelt no doubt of the fixed resolveof the master spirits to take their State out of the Union. even in defianceof a majority of her voters. But they concluded to awaitthe opportunity which SCarolina was preparing. This opportunity was the taking of Fort Sumter: when Governor llis proceeded to seize the U.S. branch mint at Charlotte and the Federal arsena. but Idnycttevillc; and thereupon to call an extra sessionof the Legislature. This session commencedMay Land in a few dsysthereafter resulted in“ the vpnssngcof thofollownig: heronsby an unwarranted and unprecedented usurpation of power by the Administration at Washington city, the Government of the U.S.A. has beensubverted; and whereas the honor. dignity, and welfare of the people of NCarolina imperatively demand that they should resist. at all hazards, such usurpation; and whereas there is an actual state of revolution existing in NCarolina, and our sister state otVirginia, innkin common cause with us, is threatenedwith inVasion y the said administer as toilovned, Now, therefore, That his Excellency the Governor be authorized to tender to Virginia, or to the government of the confederate States, such portions of our volunteer forces now or that may behereafter, under his commandas may not be necessaryfor the imme diate defense of h orth Curolina.” Here is his vers10n of the way the Arkansas ordinance was procured, to be found on page 486: "The Arkansas convention assembled about the 1st of March, and on the 10thwas waited on by William S. Oldham, a memberof the confederate congressand a commissmnerfrom JeffersonDavis, bearinga messagefrom that potentute dated March 9 4 days utter the adjournment of Congress. on when the contents of Mr. Lincolns inaugural were familiar to the entire Soutb. The convention list ened to Mr. Daviss letter, wherein he dilated on the identity of institutions and of interests between his confederacy and the State of Arkansas, urging the adhesionof thelutterto the former; and after taking 2 daysto deliberate, amaiority liilto33 voted not to secede from the Union. lhc convention proceeded, howcverJto resolve that it vote of lhc people of their State should be taken on the 1st Augustveu suing the ballots reading. seccssion or eoiiperation the convention to stand adjournedto August 17.when if it should appear that secession had received a majority this should be regarded nsnn instructionfrom the ir constituents to pass the ordinance which they had now rejected; and so having electedtive delegatesto a proposedeonferenceof the border Statesat Frankfort. Kentucky, May 27, the convention stood adjourned. Yetthisidentical convention was reconvenedupon the reception of the newsfrom Fort Sumter, and proceededwith little hesitation to passan ordinance of secessionby a vote Of 60to 1. [ but ordinance assertsthat this convention. by resolvesadopted March 11, had pledged the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity anv attempt on the part of such power to coerce any late that seceded from the old buion. The ordinance proceeds to set forth that the Legislature of Arkansas had, on the 18th October, 1830, y virtue of authority vested thercin by the convention whieh framed the State constitution. adopted certain propositions made to thatState by Congress.which propositionswerefreely accepted, raiilied and irrevocably confirmedasarticles of compnet and union between the State of arkansasand the U.S., which irrevocablecoin pact this convention proceededformally to revoke and nnnul and to declare repealed, abrogated and fully set aside, by the identical actwhich withdraws Arkansas from the Union and absolves its citizens from all allegianceto its Government.” In summing up the results of all the indications of public opinion, it is impossible to dissent from the conclusion of Mr. Greeleys 22nd chapter, page 351: " The slave States and District which hadnot united in the movement, were as follows: States. Iree populationinlBGO. Slaves. Arkansas elawnr Kcntuck, Maryland. Missouri. NCarolina. Tennessee. District.of (Jo um in. Total., Total. 5, 701, 900 "50 that, after the conspiracy had had complete possessionof the southern mind for 3 months, with the southern members of the Cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers.most of Governors and other State functionaries. mid7 8ths of the prominent and active politicians, pressing it on, and no force exerted aga ins ntor in an manner threatening to resist it. a maJority of the s are States, with 2/3rds of the free population of the entire slaveholding region, were openly either because they regard depothseitivaollley gaeddvgerriseevatoncites of the south as exaggeratedif not unreal, or because they believedthat those wrongs would rather boag gravatedthan cured by disunion." Now, to sum up, here isa free population of over 5 and a half millions in the insurrectionary States, of which Mr. Greeley asserts 2/3rds to have been loyal and true to the Union in spite of the extraordinary intluciiccs brought to bear upon them, leaving not quite 2 millions represented by secession. But to understand t iis in a still clearer light, it is necessary to analyze this 2 millions and take a look at its elements before we undertake to decide upon its loyalty. Arkansas had a white po ulntion of 324, 328 in 1860, and she cast a m of 54, 050, showing that the adult males overtwcnty oiie years of age were almost exactly one 6th of the whole. Who were the other 5 6ths? Wo men and children. Yes, sir, 270,000 people in Arkansas, whom nobody would dream of charging with treason, who could not well commit it under any circumstances, much less in those which surrounded them. Again, 25, 321 adult men voted against Mr. Breckinridge, against 28, 732 for him, and I suppose nobody pretends but. that those who voted for Douglas and llell were Union men, whatever the others might be. But who were the others? They were 28,000 of the rank and file of American voters and I will consider for the arguments sake that they were as intelli gent as any equal number taken from any other part of the country. How many of them voted for Breckinridge with intent to destroy the Union? No man can say that if that had been the issue distinctly pronounced, that 14,000 would have so voted, nor that 7,000 would have done so, nor indeed that any number would have done so, except the actual leaders of the movement. So much for Arkansas. Let us look at tennessee next. Her white population was 834,000, and her votes in 1800 were, Bell 60, 274, Douglas 11, 350, and Breekinridge 64, 209, or a few more than one 6th of the whole, and showing a majority of more than 16,000 votes for the Union candidates, Bell and Douglas. She had 700,000 or nearly, of innocent women and children, and 80,000 loyal voters at least, and if we add to these the 1,000s and tens of 1,000s who voted for Breckinridge without for one moment thinking of treason, among them the present POTUS, whose loyalty has been tried in the tire, how many actually guilty cons irators can you point out in Tennessee? wilFany one liaznr the assertion that 10,000 or even 5,000 original conspirators could be found there? Let him hesitate. Next NCarolina. Her white population was 601,586, and her votes in 1860 were, for Douglas 2, 701, Bell 44, 990, Breckinridge 48, 638, or nearly one for every 7 and a half of her}people, and all I have said of Tennessee may well apply to her. Virginia presents liar self in the same category with a vote somewhat larger for her population, and a majority of more than 10,000 for the Union candidates and so I mightgo on, with every State, county, and neighborhood throughout the South, and after sifting the matter to the very bottom, it would be found that the number of the guilty contrivers of secession is so small when compared with the masses of the people, or even the masses of the voters, that it sinks into insignifiesnce. Nor is this strange. It is only what the world has always known, and the postulate upon which it has always acted. There never can be in any community as highly civilized as ours any very great numberof men capable of the crime of treason, and it is well it is so, otherwise society would enjoy few intervals of peaceful repose. War would be the rule and not the exception. the jwople in all ages have been disposed to yicl themselves to leaders, and to follow them, not always with a blind obedience, but with confidence that their trust would not be abused. How many responsible leaders were there in the seceding States when the U.S. authorities were ousted from the possession of their territories? How many guilty men controlled the movement aptill the time the hsdtho people wholl intheirpower? Because omthat time forwar you will rememberthat no man who had not taken out before, on be or be responsible except in so far as he suffers in the war which follows. Were there 10,000, or were there but 5,000d? In answering this question let every man look to his Own county or district, and let him fix the number of men in it who ought to be held for the disorders sure to result for an attemft of this kind. I think he will find the number he would ever think of arraigning to be very few. Where, too, are most of those guilty men of the South today? Is not much the larger number of them one; some dead in the course of nature, Floy, Yancey, and others; some dead on the battle fields, as Jackson, Barksdale, and others; some are in exile in foreign lands, as Mason, Slidell, Price, Wigfall, and others; so that those who remain are incapable of great mischief, or only of such mischicfas we have ample means of preventing by recourse to the common and OIWIOUS legal remedies. If any man asks how it came that the people, being in favor of the Union, could be over come and led away into such aterrible rebellion as we have jus. but down without being themselves guilty, I Will answer him that in this case their confidence was abused by their leaders; they were for a long time induced to believe that these were their friends, with no motive in view but the good of the whole country; that their zeal in their behalf was the result of exccssive patriotism and not heated by an unseen fire; that they were their safest defenders against the greater strength of the North because they were loudest in their warnings of danger from that quarter and therefore they bestowed upon them all the offices and places in the gill; of the strongest and most popular party in their midst. All usurpers achieve places of power by great apparent devotion to the interests of the people, and I suppose the cruelty of the tyrant has always been nitiless in the same ratio as his former patriotism was ardent. His shortest route to the throne is when he marches through the most crowded thoroughfares bearing aloft the flag of liberty; and the devil is never half so successful and bloody in his crusades as when he uts on the armor of superior sanctity and wa s humbly under the banner of the cross. Again, the people are easily misled by terror or overcome by fear. The wicked and designing combine, contrive, and organize; the virtuous and unambitious pursue their avocations; they 1st multiply their power indefinitely by acting in concert according to a preconstructed plan; the latter, however numerous, are as an army without leaders and without discipline, an easy prey to their captors. Here, too, perhaps, lies the true secret of the necessity for oyernment, inasmuch as it is the oiganized force of the people kept constantly on foot for the purpose of urnishing for thema rallyin point from which to resist and crush other and inimical combinations against the ence of society. Hence nothing so much in 3 in a revolutionary movement in a confederacy as that the insurgents should get hold of the governments of the States composing it, or some of them, because the treason is easy in proportion to the control the traitor can exercise over the insignia of power among the people. Let him carry the loyal flag, and 1,000s will follow it as though in loyal hands. Let him sign with the national seal, and 1,000s will respond as thouflh the impress was made by a loyal officer. the Government of England halted at one time because James H had thrown the great seal in the Thames! How to ct along without that piece of iron was a puzz c, but it shows the reverence men everywhere entertain for the insignia, the emblems, of power. Thus in our case, when the secessionists procured themselvesto be made Governors, judges, and legislators all over the southern States, according to their several constitutions and laws, they were in a position to command the obedience of the Boatern people whenever they were not protected by superior force. Nor will it be found so easy for the common seople to de cide between the State and the U.S. when they are in conflict as most persons thoughtlessly suppose. Lawyers may e very clear; but the people are not alllawyers, and are not expected to judge correctly of either titles or jurisdiction; they usually follow those who are in possession of the tribunals to which they are accustomed. Hear Mr. Greeley on some of the machinery which may be brought to bear upon them by means of secret socie ties, organized with the sole view of overawing them, and compellin their coliperation in deeds of violence, an then let Senators so what they would have done themselves in sue a reign of terror. I read from page 360, et seq.: " Beforethe o ening of 186la.perfect reign ofterror had beenestab ished throughout the (lulf states. A secretorder.kuown as Knights of the Golden Circle, or as Kinghts of the Columbian Star, succceding that known. 6 or 7 years earlier, as the Order of the Lone Stnr. having for its ostensible object the acquisition of Cuba, Meiuco and Central America, an the establishment of slavery in the 2 latter. but really operating in the interest of disunion. had s read its network of lod cs. grips, passwords and a luring mysteryall over t ic South and had ramifications oV1!“in someof the cities oftho adioniingfree States. Other clubs, moreor less secret were known as the Precipitaturs. Vizilance Cominittcc, minute Mcu, and by kindred designations; but all of them weresworn tofidelitytosouthern rights, whilo their members were gradually prepared and ripened. wherever any ripening as needed. for the timk of treason. Whoever vented to condemn and repudiate secessionas the true and sovereign remedy for southern wrongs. in any neighborhood where slavery was dominant. was thence lortha marked man. to bestigmatizedand hunted down as a Lincolnite, subinissionist, or nbolitionist. Onorefugeeplanter from southern Alabama. himself a slaveholder. but of northern birth, who bnrcly escaped a violent death becauseof an intercepted letter from a relative in Connecticut.urging him to free his slaves and return to the North, as ho had promised, stated that he had himself been obliged to Join the Minute Men of his neighborhood for safcty and had thus been compelled to assistin hanging 6 menof noern birth because of their Union sentiments and he personally knew that not less than 100 men had been hung in his section of the State and in the oinin: section of Georgia, during the 6 weekswhic preceded his escapein December.1860." and at this point I wish Senators to pause before deterinining upon the guilt of the of any State in circumstances like these people et us see if the fault was on their side. where were they to look for protection against all this terrible machiuery of parties, secret societies, precipitators, vigilance committees, and minute men, backed as [these were by the State Officers everywhere? What power had they established to stand watch and ward over them at such a time? It was the Federal government of the U.S., having authority over the armies, the militia, and the navies of the U.S. It was, too, the very object of all these threats, and was openly notified and cognizant of all these preparations against it. It was bound by the very law of its own existence to defend itself, and it was further bound, nay, it was of the very essence of its 9008!"!!tion, to protect the freedom and liberties of the people. it was created for that purpose, and was entitled to the allegiance of the people only when it performed its trust. What then, I ask, did it do? Mr. President, I tremble when I answer, nothing, nothing; but, on the other hand, allowed itself to be ignominiously stripped of its arsenals, forts, and public property of every kind all over the disa ected region. Not a gun was fired, not a sword drawn, to sustain its authority or vindicate its honor. Congress accuses the President, and the PreSideut accuses congress, for these shameful derelictions of duty. 1 leave it to the future to decide between them; it is enough that we do now know that there never was such a great breach of public trust before. Never before had men intrusted with the government of a great empire counting millionsupou millions of people loyal and true to it abdicated theirhigh prerogatives so basely; never before were a people so shamefully deprived of that protection which was due to them as the consideration for their allegiance and yet it is this people, thus betrayed by their leaders, by their State governments, by the Federal Government, thus defenseless in the very face of civilWar, who voted every time they were free to do so for the old Union and the old flag With a pertmacity and a resolution of which ev lover of his country and its people ought to e road. Yet it is this same people who, after being rescued from the grasp of the conspiracy are constantly held up to the country as though they had been all traitors, and guilty of treason against the U.S and while the Federal GOvernment isnow in undisputed possession of all the national do main, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, with ample means and opportunity to seize upon and arrest all original) conspirators and leaders in secession, all Knights of the Lone Star or Golden Circle, all vigilance committees, all precipitators and minute men, with courts, udges, juries, marshals, the and all the machinery proper for their trial and conviction, yet no one has been punished, nor have I seen or heard of a single one of all the furious patriots with which this Congress teems, and who never speak of the South without telling you it iyiwarming with traitors, who has made the slightest effort to enforce the law against anyone of these really guilty persons. ot one of them has sued out a warrant, not one has made an arrest, not one of them has even asked that the law and the law alone shall decide; not one and yet these same persons spend week after week and month after month in devising unlawful measures and schemes for the punishment of the people. not as individuals in courts, where they may be heard in their own defense, but as States and communities, in a Congress where they are not represented, and where all are confounded together, loyal and disloyal, true men and traitors, innocent and guilty, tender women and bloodstained minute men, little children and grim dema g es, in one great mass. condemned as guilty, an punished as such with a rigor that Austria has repented of and Russia abandoned, it is he ed, forever. Mr. President, I am unable to express in terms sufficiently strong my condemnation of our cruelty to this rescued people. When I think of the way we abandoned them in the outset, how we allowed them to get into the toils of the conspirators, of the terrible war in which they were involved, of their desolate homes and devastated fields, I cannot think there is a human being who would say that they ought to suffer further. Whatever guilt may have been on their souls surely has been atoned for by what they have suffered in the war, and as the people they are purged, and ought to stand purged in the forum of the nation. I say the people are purged; war always urges the ieople; but Iwant it distinctly nn gerstood, that while I myself utter no cry for more blood, I will do all that lies in my way to punish any I think really guilty of treason in this rebellion. If I find one of this sort under takes to thrust himselfinto the councils of the country or to take the lead in public affairs, I will not nppealto the HoRep nor to the Senate nor to the President to prevent him;Iwill appeal to that which ishigher still the laid, the exssed will of the American people. I will have him arrested by the law, arraigned by the law; Iwill offer evidence of his guilt to a jury of his peers, and I will not assail his State or its people. I will not involve the women and children of his neigh borhood in his guilt; nay, in my eyes his own wife and children shall be presumed innocent. He shall be heard in his defense fully, and confronted with the witnesses against him. He may show everything which goes to show his innocence; he may a owthat the Federal Gorernment eitherdid not or could not protect him; that another government was over him which he durst not disobey. I would have all this done, soberly, solemnly, and patiently, in a court of justice, and according to all the forms which have been adopted by us as befitting the dig nity of the American people, so that all men should how their heads reverently in presence of its majesty. If he was convicted, I would have him punished and made ignominious. Treason is agreat, my, the mostheine us of all crimes, and ought to be punished; but it must be punished by the law, and not by Congress nor by the military nor by anybody but the law, administered by the judges and jurors in the courts. It is no answer to say to me that the courts are corrupt and the juries are tainted; the man who makes such an assertion asserts the infamy of his Government, the infamy of his countrymen, and that the great Republic has failed to answer the ends for which it was established. The law is the will of the American people, and whenever the Government cannot or will not try and punish all offenses against that law, then the American people are at the mercyof offenders or tyrants. It is time we came to this, Mr. President. It will he the solution of all our difficulties, and relieve us from all our troubles; but as long as we endeavor to impress our people with the idea that they poPlllilllOUS of the southern States are all rebels and traitors, that they are not to. be punished in courts by the law, but in Congress by a deprivation of their rights as free peoples, then the further we go the worse we will are, for the simple reason that we as sume as a fact that which is a falsehood. It is not true that the southern people are now or ever were traitors; and if the Government had given them the protection to which their allegiance entitled them, they never would have, yielded themselves to rebellion. Let us, then, treat the people according to the great law of the Union, as free States, equal members in the Union, and if we punish at all, let us punish individuals in the courts, where punishment alone can be inflicted. I now propose to apply the principles I have laid down to a solution of the question which now agitates the country, and I think they will be found effectual and at the outset. 1 may ask in all sincerity, what the difference may be, in the eyes of the law, between putting down a great rebellion by armies in war and arresting a single felon who resists by a constable? Is not the difference to be found wholly in the number of persons engaged? Is not the object in both cases the same 40 vindicate the laws? Is not the means the same, to use such force as to compel submission to the laws? Surely nobody can doubt this. Let us see, then, what happens during the process. If the felon relists, the constable may kill him; so, if the rebels resist, the soldiers may kill them. When the felon yields, the constable turns him over to the law; and no matter how heine us may have been his crime or how desperate his resistance, he has a right to be tried by the law and punished by the law. The constable being himself the mere creature of the law as such otticer, must yield his prisoner to the law; as a man sim ly, he has no power to touch a hair of his head). So it is with the rebel or rebels when they surrenderto the Presidentor to his generals; these have no powerto touch ahair of the head of one of them; the law, which is supreme over Presidents, generals, and Congress, becomes the ar biter of their fate the moment they yield, and this for the most potential of all reasons, namely, that the American people have so willed it. They haveadopted it in their Constitution and enacted it in their laws, and no greater indig nity could be offered to them than for anyone, no matter who, who should dare to substitute his will and his punishment upon any criminal for the law and its punishment; and no matter how atrocious has been the crimes of the pris 0ner he has a right to appeal to the law against all people; this also is due to the law, because it was against the law he offended, and to the law he ought to make atonement and now, Mr. President, this disposes of, or ought to dispose of, allthe questions with which the country is so uselessly convulsed. These I propose to examine seriatim, and show not only their legal absurdity but also their mischievous effect in preventing the pacification Of the country. The 1st of these whimsies is that the rebellion destroyed the States whose people were engaged in it by a kind of incorporea fclo de. u, not vezy c early caxlained even by the authors of e charge. nd, indeed, when we, with territories, boundaries, inhabitants, conconsider that the State is an artificial and not a natural person, a body politic or corporation, existing merely in contemplation of law, not having a soul to be damned nor a body to be kicked, it is difficult to see how it could achieve the extraordinary feat of committin suicide. It is said, however, this is done by forfeiture, as a punishment for crimes committed, not by the State I suppose, for folly has not yet gene that length, but by its officers and peeple. Well, I have no objection to the punishment of individuals who commit crimes, but I would ask where it was or is the law that the State should diefor the sins of the pee lo. I guess, however, that those who advocate this theory reallymean to say to the people of the rebel States, “ You have been so wiced recently that as a penalty therefor you shall not have a State at all." But the people, wicked though they may be, still have a right to say, “ Will you be good enough to show us where it is written in the Constitution or laws of the U.S. that we shall not have a State as a punishment for any crime or crimes whatever? If there is any such law we submit of course.” Nobody has shown any such law. But perhaps the best answer to the felo de se hypothesis is in the fact that the States in question ive the lie to it by persisting to be alive all he time they are avowed to be dead and what is still more conclusive, not only alive but vigorous and in very nearly full function, stitutions, laws, Governors, Legislatures, and judiciaries, and more than all that, with the armies of the U.S. standing by, ready to defend them from all internal and external dangers. This is thought quite ample to repel the imputation of selfmurder. The 2nd so hism is equally fallacious, but farmore cowar y, because being afraid to say to a living corporate body “ You are dead, ” it says “ You are in fine robust health to be sure, but for fear you might overdo yourself we will take the task of government off your hands and govern your peeple ourselves as a conucred people. So you see it comes back to t leold point precisely, namely, that the people are or ought to be deprived of their States as a pen alty for crimes. Another class of these patriots disavow the dogmas of dead States an conquered peoples, but nevertheless sternly insist t mt having put down the rebellion at an enormous loss of men and money, we have.now a rightto impose terms upon the States in question before we restore them again to their old rights. Some of them call this requiring indemnity for the past and security for the future, a phrase that has about as much application to the suppression of an insurrection as it has to the operation of the courts of quarter sessions in dealing with riots. These are both liable as usual to the same fatal objection which beset the others they are without the sanction of either Constitution or law, orrather in direct contravention of both. We have seen that when the rebels surrendered the surrendered to the law, and if the law provied no mode by which we can impose conditions or make terms then we are at an end of it. Again, there is another set still more meta physical in their notions. They hold that although the rebel States are still States in the Union, yet, because they were for awhile, on account of the rebellion, prevented from enjoying their rights in the nion, they are not now to be restored to those rights till congress, either by law or concurrent resolution, (I do not know which) has declared they ought to be so restored and to fashion this business properl for the action of the 2 Houses is the wor allotted to the somewhat famous committee of 15. That body was instructed to inquire into the condition of the States which formed the socalled confederate States, &c., and report whether they or any of them are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress. This is the resolution, but it has been taken to be a little wider than its terms, and the committee has gone on to inquire into the condition of the people as well as into that of the States. So or as it is possible to know, it would seem that this inquiry is not as to the physical condition of the people, their religious or moral condition, nor their intellectual condition, but their loyal condition; and when that word is uttered there is a dead stop; nobody attempts to define it or tell what they mean by it, only it is generally understood to be a clincher and unanswernble. Suppose we look at this word which serves so many uses today. What is a loyal man? What must. he do, say, think, or feel, to entitle him to this appellation? Usually he has been held to be one who submitted himself to the laws. He was thus contradistinguished from a rebellious man who resisted the laws. If this then is the meaning put upon it by the committee, their task may he performs soon and with some certainty, because the executive of ficers could soon report whether in any part of the count there was resistance to the laws on the {part of the people. I, however, we epart from this, and inquire further into the condition of the people, it is hard to see where the end is. If it is to depend on some mental or emotional condition of the person examined, who is to judge? How completely must. the secession opinion have been ogged out of him by the war? Will it do to say he gives it up, or must he go further and say he is convinced the other way? What must he think of slavery? Thntit was acurse to the mas ter, or a curse to the slave, or to both? What ought to be his views on suffrage? Ought he to insist on universal suffrage, universal adult suffrage, or universal manhood suffrage? Will he be required to believe in universal ne prosuffrage, or may he circumscribe and limit it by a literary fence so high that a large number of negroes cannot jump it? Then again it is thought important to know what party these fellows would prefer, whether for or against the late veto. I confess I should like to know how much of all these severalingredients must enter into the composition of a loyal man, and then how many this laborious committee must sample in order that they may accurately determine for us the character of the whole lot. Mr. President, I cannot conceive of anything so utterly absurd and ridiculous as this pretense of inquiring into the loyalty of the people anywhere, in atime of peace, when nobody pretends there is flagrant war. Does any sane man believe any good will ever come out of it? But it may be said that the committee only inquire as to the condition of States, not people. If so, I would ask to what characteristic element of States they have turned their attention? Is it to their constitutions as the limitation of their powers put upon them by the people? Or do they lookat the mode and manner by which they provide for the organization of the State? Or Will they go behind even their constitutions themselves, and inquire whetherthere was fraud, duress, or undueinfluence used upon the people to such an extent as to vitiate these instruments and nullity them? If they look at the limitations only, can they say these are too few or too many; that the sovereignt is too much restrained or too much abandone? and how long does this require for 11 constitutions? litre the committee read them I Have they got them 7 and how? By private enterprise, or by the usual reference? and suppose the examination made: what is the standard of the committee to try them? and if they thought them or any of them not made as they would have made them, what are they gain to do about it? They have not to d us. If it is the mode of organization they look into, what is their guide? Do they inquire into the primary distribution of political power or therightof sufimge? and if they concluded this was improper, would the State be free if the could impose terms and compel a modification? Would a form of government imposed upon a State by compulsion be a republican form, the Federalist to the contrary notwithstanding? All these are nuts for the committee to crack. Again. can they inquire into the duress of the people in forming these constitutions? If so, who alleges it? Who imposed it? and who can remedy it, if not the people? and ifthe people. who now hinders the people from doing so? Cannot we make them free now to have their own way as they ought to have under our system? Mr. Pixsident, all these labors of the committee seem so ludicrous and extravagant that it is hardly possible to treat them with becoming gravity, cs cciall as we have seen that the results are stilflcss than the throes which give them birth. We want information as to the condition of certain States, and we are treated to an amendment. to the Constitution and a legal opinion bad law at that. Is the proposed amendment germane to the committee; is it within the scope of its authority; or is it a mere ebullition of the Constitution making rage which seems to darken the visages of all members of Congress nowadays? l propose to trespass upon the Senate a issection of it, and l hope they will witness the operation patiently. What I have to do with it may as well be done now. What does this amendment mean? Mr. President, the amendment means this: that the several States of the Union may have full and entire control over the political status of all their people, except the negro, without. incurring any ennlty whatever; but if they do not choose to intrust him with the franchise of an elector then they are to be deprived of all representation for him in Congress. In other words, we care nothing about anyone else; our sole business in this respect is to protect the negro. “Race and color” is yourtouch stone. Do anything you will to the poor, to the foreign born, to the unfortunate, to the woman, to the mine r, to anybody but to the man of color. the man of a different race from ourselves, to him you must be generous, even to the sharing of dominion with him. Let us see, if we can, how race and color at this time demand such essential consideration over and above all other disabilities; because, nsl have said before, no other is taken into account. The States may debar for want of money, learning, residence, height, weight, or any other measure they may see fit to adopt, but they must not touch race and color. They may refuse the right to a man who cannot read, and you have no rebuke for this, you have no penalty to impose. Why not, I would ask? If the States are competent to protect the unlearned soldier who cannot read the Constitution, why are they not good enough to be guard ians of the negroes who can? You commit the one in all confidence to their tender mer cies, and yet the other you must hedge round with a constitutional amendment because of race and color. What did you say to this unlettered soldier when your armies were to be recruited and your draft quotas filled? Did you examine into. his literary qualifications then, or tell him itwas necessary then to have a certain amount of constitutional learning, or did you say it was enough for him if he could give and receivethe countersign? Do not your pay rolls show you took his mark as a valid signa ture, as valid as the stroke of his saber and the thrust of his bayonet and yet you leave him to the mercy of the States. Why do you do this? How do you intend to a ologize to the men who fought your battles? Flow do you expect to conciliate the Army by thus abandoning the unlettered soldier at vomt where he may be disfranchised even by assachusetts? Again, the States are competent to deal with " the Question of the age at which the voter is qualified. They may fix it at 18 or 30, or at any other age, without penalty. They can do the same with regard to residence. They can require the voter to reside in one spot ten days or ten years before voting, and yet you do not restrain them. You leave, too, at the mercy of the States the poor man; they have the right to disfranchise him to any extent. ls he not, too, a man and a brother? and upon whatprinciple can you punish his poverty as a disqualification? it may be the result of unavoidable misfortune, the result of the visitation of God, or the public, encmy. It may be from defective organization, l or may have been from the very excess of his 1 virtues. Yet no one has ever suggested an amendment of the Constitutwn to protect him } against the State in which he lives. It is not aquestion of race and color. ou talk of taxation without representation, and you apply it not to the whole community, but to certain classes of the community. If so, how do you exclude the 1,000s of women all over the country who are pursuedby your tax gatherers with as much vigor as if they were all members of Congress? 1 ct they are at the 1 will of the States distranchised now, and most likely will continue to be so. Did it not strike the committee of 15 that something might be done for this meritorious class of our tax payers? ls it composed wholly of singLe men, widowed orcelibato? It involves no question of race or color. Why should the foreigner who seeks our shores to aid as in establishing a glorious lie pnblic, where the people shallalone benr rule, run the risk of having to stand back at the bid dingrof a state, depriv.ed of his franchise 1 How could he help the cause of his exclusion? It, is very clear that he could not come to this country before he was born; and if that event. happened in foreign parts, I do not see, sir, how he could avoid it or postpone it until he could be ushered in with the DeclarIndep in his pocket, and be swaddled in the starry folds of the national flag. He comes as soon as he can, and surely stands on as fair footing as those who did not come at all, or had to be brought. But, Mr. President, I have another objection to this amendment, which is fatal, I think. It will be observed that the committee who have" reported this bill were appointed by Congress in order to inquire into the condition of the States in which these negroes reside, it being alleged here that their people were so traitor ous, diabolical, and malignanttoward the federal Governmentand the negroes that theyought not to be allowed the privilege of representation in Congress along wrth their taxation, and the committee was to report thereon. Now, after weeks of inquiry, l infer the committee thinks that allegation true, because surely, if it did not. it would not keep 11 sovereign States, deprived of that 1st and dearest of all rights, standing outside the legislative Halls where the laws are made which are to govern them. I say, then, they must have found or believed the people of those States were very bad people, or they would not have kept them out. Well, sir, this august committee, which, as I said some days ago, carrieson its girdle the key of the Union, and upon whose terrible fiat the rights of sovereign Statics depend; this committee proposes in this amendment to sell out 4 million (radical count) negroes to the bad people of those States forever and ever. In consideration ofwhat? lam asked. Oh. shame! where is thy blush? I answer, indust and ashes, for about 16 members of coness. Has there ever been before, sir, in the history of this or any other country, such a stupendous sale of negroes as that? Never, never! It is saying to the southern States, you may have these millions of human beings whom we love so dearly, and about whom we have said so much, and for whom we have done so much; you may do with them as you please in the way of legislative discrimination against them, ifyou will only agree not to count them at the next census, except as your sheep and oxen are counted; waive your right to 16 members of Congress, and the great compromise is sealed; the long agony is over; the nations dead are avenged; the nationstenrs are dried; and the nations polities are relieved of the negro. Again, this proposition resenting an alter native to the States. We have a right to suppose its authors intend to be satisfied, no matter which horn of the dilemma is taken; if the States enfranchise the negro they are satisfied; if, on the other hand, they waive their right to the 16 members of Congress, they are satisfied; and if this latter should turn out to be a swap of negroes in exchange for increased political power, then they are satisfied. Call you that backing of your friends? No wonder many of the friends of humanity threaten to starve ere they will rob a foot further in such company. spirit, and will strengthen their firmness if it needs it. The conclusion then is inevitable that the committee are perfectly willig that the States shall have unlimited rights over all people except the negro, the man distinguished by race and color, and as to him they can also have these rights if they will yield their presentright to 16 members of Congress and I might ask, does any man doubt what the States on ht to do, nay, what they will do in the event this amendment. becomes a part of the Constitution? Will they on any account, much less on account of a member of Congress or 2 in each State. agrce to share political power with the negro? Will they consent to make him the custodian of the institutions of their fathers, himself the helpless, degraded ward of the Freedmens Bureau? Wi lthey open the door to his admission to a seat in their magisterial chairs, their legislative assemblies, or to wear the ermine in the courts of justice? Will they consent to enlarge the field wherein passion sows and deinagogues reap, wherein the tribal antipathicsof the raceswill be the terrible lever! to be used by the tribal demagognes on both sides? Can they possibly accept this insidi ous invitation to antagonize their people in that most dangerous strife of all the strife of ol itics, where the lust of ambition and the ore of money engender together a brood of de mons delighting in contiagration, massacre, and war? To suppose it, sir, is to suppose the country gone mad, ready to rush on to its own destruction. No midnight witches in the interest of revolution ever threw into their fearful caldron such a nantity of black ingredients as is here contemp ated, and none could form such a charm of powerful trouble. No one who knows the strife of races can think of the consequences without a shudder. Mr. President, I have shown, I think, be yond the possibility of disute. that this amend.ment cares nothing really for the interests, rights, and liberties of whim ple, and really very little for black people, mthat the great purpose disclosed by it is to punish the States in which negroes reside by diminishing their rights of representation, and in the same ratio increasing the political power of the States having no black population. In other words, it is a scheme to transfer political power in congress from one section of the Union and give it to another section. Here. sir, we have reason to congratulate ourselves that the framers of the amendment were not as sngacious as they were bold, not as wise as they were enterprising. Their work is palpably defective, even to effectuate their own purposes, and their machinery is so clumsy of contrivance as to render it useless. i As I have said before, their object is to de prive certain States of a part of their politiml power or else compel them to allow negroes to vote; and to achieve this, they provide “ that whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color, all persons therein of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation.” Now, I submit there are many ways of denying or abridgin the right in question besides )utting it. on time ground of race and color, which are not in themselves reasons for the denial or abridgment in any case, but are mere words of description by which a class of people are excluded. Now. if that class can a ascribed by any other equally procim and I admire their definite terms, then these may be discarded and the reason for the exclusion still remain as before. Now, the negro is not new, never was, excluded, either on account of his race or color; surely not on account of his race, for the large majority of the people everywhere believe that hers of ourrace, descended from our Adam, and entitled to be made alive in Christ the some as other men are. Nor is it on account of his color, for if all to be hereafter born were Albiine s us many are, it would make no difference, so far as the real reason is concerned. What is reull the true reason for his exclusion? It is not that he is not a man, or that he is a colored man, but that he is an inferior man an inferior article of man. Now, if a State denied suffrage to uogroes on account of general ig norance, vice, or what not, this amendment would not punish the exclusion; it cannot be construed beyonditsterms. Another objection is the uncertainty of the clause. Is it meant that all of the colored race in a State shall vote, men, women, and children? I suppose not; but if not, where is the abridgment or denial to begin which begets the forfeiture? Suppose it is confined, as in Massachusetts orin NewYork, that would not be a denial; would it be an unconstitutional abridgment? and how long would it take Congress to decide it on an aportionment bill? Crom. wells democratic House worked 3 weeks on the meaning of the word “incumbrances;” this is a much more knotty uzzle. Again, would the denia of the right to blacks forfeit the right to representations for the yellow, and if not how are the several shades of color to be distinguished? Will all the classes have to be kept so nrate or not? These and 100 other did leulties might be stated, and no deliberative assembly could solve them, whatever a court might do under the maxim that construction must make the clause avail, and not destroy it. But could it be avoided? What would prevent a State from extending the franchise before the apportionment to all, and after it was made withdrawing it? Congress could not reapportion for ten years, and the same process would serve again to defeat this provision at the end of that time. I know, sir, that it will be said that these objections are fine spun, frivolous, kc, but to all who have listened to the debates which arise here upon the true import of phrases the meanin of which has been settled for 100s of years, they will not appear so. Who could have foreseen that the phrase “to coin money” could have been construed to give the right to issue U.S. notes, that is, “ to coin money out of lump black and rags, ” of leather, cloth, or anything you choose with or without reference to intrinsic value? Who could have foreseen an elaborate argument to prove the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution did not warrant the rendition of slaves, but only abseouding white apprentices? No, sir, the rule is to cavil on the 9th partofa hair, and those who are ambitious of fame as Constitution makers should look to it. But, sir, I now come to a different class of objections, which in my judgment are sufficient to make all rudent men hesitate in the face of a proposition of this kind, made at the time, in temanner, and with the interest this is made. 1st, the proposition in itself is revolutionary, striking directly at the freedom of the several States, and if accomplished will Overturn the Government down to its very foundations. Revolutionary, because it seeks to influence, the free distribution of political power in the States by saying to them, "“ if you do not bestow a portion of 1tnpon aparticular class of your people we will deprive on of yours to the same extent you deprive t iem." Now, ifthere is anyone thing more than an othervitalto the existence ofufree State, which, indeed, is of its very essence, it is that the copleof such State shall say of themselves, with rout external dictation, who shall and who shall not be the depositaries of their political power; in a roundabout way. 1 other words, who shall do their voting, who shall cast their ballots; and any attempt on the part of any power outside the State to compel them in any way to do in that behalf what they are unwilling to do is just so much sheer tyr aun, and sets such outside war over that insi e. making it the master. but right would NewYork have to compel NewJersoyto admit a certain class of her peole to this privilege? Or Penusylvania to compe Maryland? Would not these weaker States feel that such an attempt would be fatal to their inde eudeuce? They would say at once that this right of theirs was vital and to ield it would be to yield their freedom itself. hen, if NewYork or Pennsylvania have no supervisory rights of this kind, in what way could they acquire them by joining with them the rest of the States or any number of them? The clause is revolutionary and de structive, just as much so as to attempt to compel the people of a State to elect such officers as might be pointed out toher by the U.S. for that purpose, because everybody knows that the e ector in the States is just as much the creature of the peopledust as much elected and chosen by them to vote as the officers are elected to hold offices. What would be thought of a proposition to amend the constitution to compel the States each to send one negro member to Congress? and yet this amendment amounts to just the same thing in It really says to certain States, if you do not elect a few negroes, you shall not elect any; we will diminish the number to which you are now entitled in the same ratio. Mr. President, whenever the Constitution is amended in this part of it, then there is no U.S.; there will be no States; all will be consolidated into one great central despotism, in which the States will play the part of prov inces, and all the safeguard we now have in the freedom of this people will be gone forever. I know many will sa this amendmentis fair because it will not allow representation ibr a class of people who have no voice in public affairs. liiut this, sir, is founded in misapprehension. Our system is not one of class Representation in any case, but the representation of communities, and when the community is represented all classes in it are represented, although the great majority have not, and many cannot have a representation of their own. The Irish and Germans of Pennsylvania never think of claiming for themselves a class representation, neither do the various trades and occupations, but all are looked upon as constituting a unit for the purposes of State government, a unit for counties, cities, tovms,, and there can benothing unfair in the fact that any class is excluded; it only shows that its powerin the community is subordinate to one superior. Others say that by the abolition of slavery 2/5ths is added to the basis of the late slave representation, which, being the result of an not to be allowed to remain for the advantage of the slave States. To this I answer, that from all we can learn, the number of these negroes in 1870 will more than likely be 2 hfths less than it was in 1860, owing to the increased mortality resulting from the war, from the change in their mode of life, and the with drawal of the masters care over them. But whether or not, the freedom of the States is worth more 1,000times, especiall to the they would gain by this amendment. I am opposed to it, however, on other grounds. It is proiosed to be carried by aminority part, for it will be recolleeted that there was near y a million of a popular majority against Mr. Lincoln in 1860, when all the States voted. They are all now back again, and I am inclined to think, unless we change our conduct toward them, there will not be a large number of them disposed to vote with the the publicans in the future. You will be in a minority again, and power and place. Do you suppose they will not be disposed to do a little tinkering at the accident not contemplated at the time, ought, smaller ones, than all the increase of power. the majority will manifest itself by a return to. Constitution too? These patches of yours look very unseemly to them, and they may take a notion to ripthem off and put on some of their own not quite to lease you. Indeed, I can conceive how they might affect you or some of you even on this very tender point of representation. They might take it into theirheads to make the Senate national instead of Federal; and seeing you can do so much, beingu minority, what do you think they cannot do, being a majority? Besides, you are enly nbleto (lo this to them by shutting them out of these Hal ls; they may be strong enough to do it to you even while allowing you to be present to witness the operation. Now, sir, I would much rather let all this alone than run the risk of having the same bitter chalice come back to our own lips in the future. It must also be evident to any sagacious man that an amendment to the Constitution which can only operate upon a particular section of the country and which is proposed byCongress at a time when that section has no representation there, would not be worth a straw. communities do not submit to such things so tamcly, and sooner or later they manage to come out victorious over all such attern ts to take advan tage of their weakness. Go himself may aid them. Who knows? Besides this, air, it would not be hard to show that none of these A rojects for amending the Constitution come mm the people, or are de manded by the people with that earnest and decisive significance which ought always to precede organic changes such as this purports to be. How many people have petitioned for this change? Certainly I should think 15 or 20,000 would cover the whole of them. How small a part of the 30 millions to be affected; and what ornarrow foundation upon which to base a change of a Constitution. But that is not the worst ofit. We do know that a very large majority of the Republican party are opposed to any change. They have made great sacrifices to enforce the Constitution. They look upon it as the ark of our Union covenant, on they will permit no med dlesome Uzzah to lay officious hands upon it upon pretense that it requires his aid to steady it along. Then it is equall clear that the other half of the people of teNorth, the Democratic party, is also opposed to this and all similar measures. In fact, upon negro suffrage they are a unit in opposition. But the worst opposition, and the one most to be respected, is in the States where it alone would be felt; and on the whole I think it may be safely said that but a very small part of the whole people can be said to favor it. I now come to the resolution of the committee which proposes to stop agitation and quiet the country by declaring that 11 States shall not have representation in Congress or either branch of the same until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such Representation. Now, let us for one instant contemplate this most extraordinary proposition is it not a virtual setting aside or suspension of the constitution itself until Congress shall be moved to declare it restored? "That instrument declares that Representatives" o “shall be apportioned amen the several Stateswhich may be included within his Union according to their respectivenumbers, " Ac and by an act of Congress of March 4, 1862, a certain number of Representatives, 56, were apportioned to the elcven States in question, fixin by law their constitutional rightin this behal. The resolution before us sets all that at naught, and declares that these States shall have no representation at all till Congress shall 8;!) decide. The Constitution further declares that “The Senate of the U.S shall be composedof 2 Senators from eachState." and this resolution declares that 11 States shall have no Senators at all till Congress shall so decide. Now, it is well to know whether COW" or the Constitution is supreme in this respect. i We have been in the habit ofthinking Congress was but the creature of the Constitution; that its title to rule and legislate for the people was under and by virtue of that instrument. How, then, does it assume to disregard it? Has the Sabbath become greater than the Lord of the Sabbath? Has the stream risen above the fountain, and the servant above his master? But it is said these States have been in rebellion. Well, suppose they have. Rebellion is treason; treason is a crime, and ought to be nnished. But can Congress inflict that punishment? The Constitution says emphatically: “ No bill of attainder or expostfacto law shall be passed." Now, if Congress were to pass this resolution, it would be both; because it is a bill which of itself inflicts this de rivation of right upon the people of 11 States as a punishment for their alleged treason, which is a species of attainder known as a “ bill of ains and penalties, ” and which has been hel to be included in the prohibition of bills of attainder.” Again, even if that barrier was not in the way, there, is another equally impassable, lying in this. Up until this time it has never been the law of the U.S. that a community could be punished at all enmasse, either for treason or anything else, and if Congress were to attempt it now as a punishment for crimes already committed, it would be null and void; it would be an “ expostfacto law, ” and one expressly for hidden. The whole is monstrous no matter in what light it may be viewed. We have seen how small a number of traitors there were even in the worst parts of the South, and that after the people of all classes had been left by the federal Government at the mercy of these fiends, men, women, and children; after they had suffered all the miseries of war as the consequence, t“hen to turn round to then! and say to them, We will not punish the rebels who are guilty, and who have brought all these misfortunes upon you, but we will punish on who are in nocent.” Instead of sayin tot etraitors “ We will hang you for treason, you say to the inno cent people, “We will keep you out of congress. Think of it. We have no right to do this, either by law or in morals, and just as long as we persist in it, just so long will we be the allies of disunion, and enemies to the peace of the country. We hear it said here very often that in order to enable us to judge correctly and act advisedly in this matter we ought to have a general recognition of the State governments by Congress, that we may act together and avoid conflict. All this is plausible, but mischievous, because there is really not a doubt but that the present State governments are in the sole and undisputed possession of their several States, and are obeed cheerfully as such and the pretense that they require investigation and legislation to restore their relations with the Federal Government is only urged as it indirectly attains the end so much to be deprecated, name], that of punishing the people in an unlawfu and unconstitutional manner. Another and fatal objection to the course proposed in this resolution is that it provides or the joint action of the House an Senate in a matter which it is of the greatest moment should be kept entirely separate. If joint action can take place in cases of this kind, then the advantages which the country expected, and which it has realized, in the Senate of the U.S., are lost to it perhaps forever. The constitutions of the 2 Houses are entirely different. The HoRep 15national, representing numbers; the Senate is Federal, representing States. The great States of NewYork, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, are therefore potent in the House, but in the Senate, RhdIsland, Delaware, Vermont, and NewHampshire are their equals, and serve as a kind of breakwater to prevent the effects of the sudden in; ulses of such heavy populations as inhabit toStates 1st named? The Senate is indeed the bulwark of the smaller States, and they ought therefore to he the esl ecial guardians of the Constitution, because Iit is only by maintaining the strictest reverence. for it the can expect to maintain their equal rights. have been much surprised therefore i to find Senators on this floor, whose interests of all others were most indanger, show such ntpathy with regard to these innovations, which i they are ever to become precedents will assuredly work the destruction of the lesser States. by Now, the Constitution expressly provides that “Esch House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members." A provision that must strike every one at 1st sight as necessary if the bodies are to be a check one upon the other. Because if the Senate had to decide who shall O into the House or who shall not go in, the House would soon become the creature of the Senate and dependent upon it for its existence; and so if the Senate were to allow the House the same rights over its members. This resolution, however, very angenerously selects only a single point upon which to apply the joint action complained of, and that is this: that both Houses shall jointly decide which are the States entitled to representation. That is the whole of it. Now, Mr. President, can anything be clearer than that this very questiomhas been already settled authoritatively and beyond dispute? Has not the Constitution settled it? Is it not to be found on eve line and page of our laws and especially in the act of March 4, 1862? hen, if this be so, the Jtcommigee prevents the Senate from deciding on the e ctions, returns, and qualifications of its members, because it ets behind the whole and denies the right of States to members at all. It does not deny but that they have Legislatures competent to elect if it did the answer would be obvious: the Senate will decide that on the question of elections but it declares at once, boldly, that although the people of these States are desirous of submitting to the laws they of fended inst, we will impose upon them a new pena ty not known to the law. Mr. President, I think I have shown beyond question that at the breaking out of the rebellion there was not any considerable number of people, in any of the States inquestion, who ever were guilty of treason to the U.S., if we admit the law to be asI hold it is, namely, that if the legitimate Government of any country suffers itself to be dispossessed and a hostile Government to be established and put in possession in its stead, so that it cannot protect its citizens in their resistance to such hostile Government, then it cannot punish them for acts done afterward under the authority of and in obedience to the hostile Government; such acts cannot amount to treason and the law excuses them. I think I have also shown that the moment the rebels yield and surrender, that they are immediately in the custody of the law, and can only be subjected to such punishmentas it provides to be inflicted upon them through the courts according to “due process” of law. I have shown that for any uilt part taken by the people in the late war, t att esufferings and losses they endured in that war were the natural and sufficient punishment; that after it they remain purged, and on ht to be remitted to all their constitutional rights at once. That it is due to the dignity of the U.S. as a great nation; if she punishes the actual traitors who incited the rebellion that itbe done solemnly and according to the strictest form of law, in open courts, where the prisoners may have counsel and witnesse so t t they me make their defense, if the have any. hat according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; that secession ordinances could not repeal the one, nor war set aside the other; that they are neither dead by forfeiture orfelo de se, but are now in full and perfect existence with all their muni cipal machinery in full play. hat the proposition of the committee of 15 to amend the Constitution is fundamental and revolutionary, and destructive of the freedom of the States and the liberties of the people; that it is n threat to deprive them of their rights by compelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give up a share of their representation, which is theirs by law and the last amendment to the Constitution. That the resolution now before us from the same committee is also revolutions and de structive, being an attempt to suspen the constitution and laws in regard to reresentation in Congress over 11 States of the Union until Congress shall see fit to restore them. It is a declaration on the part of the members of the present House and Senate, that having the means of keeping these States from being Represented here, they are going to do so as long as they please; that no one of these measures can be justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Constitution forbids them as bills of ins and penalties, and as expostfacto in then character. Then, sir, here at the conclusion, I will endeavor to answer a question which has been so often ut; and With that air of braggart triumph that indicates an answer impossible. The question is this: “ Would you bring back here into the Senate rebels and traitors, the authors of all our troubles, whose hands are yet red with the bloodof our slaughtered people? and if not, how do you propose to avoid it unless you deny these States representation for a time at least?" To all this I answer, no, as emphatically as any other Senator can do; but I would keep them out in a very different way from that proposed. I would keep them out by following the mode and seekin the remedy afforded by the Constitution and aws, instead of adoptin a course forbidden by both and unjust in itsel. I would keep out traitors, not keep out States; I would punish criminals, and not enslave communities; I would single out the guilty, and not confound the innocent with them. Is not this easy? When the traitor asks Mk mission here, you can arrest him fer his treason; on can commit him for trial; and the offense is not bailable. I suppose everybody will agree that would keep him out, at least till he is tried. It has another great advantage, too: it is lawful and none can comlain of it. After the trial, i acquitted, he is not a traitor, and his case presents no difficulty. If he is convicted, attainted, and banged, I suppose that would allay all fears of his return. Now, Mr. President, when I think how obvious and effectual this plan would be, I am amazed that it should have ever entered into the human mind to contrive another. Why is it not adopted? Sir, I am afraid to answer. I am afraid there are patriots who would prefer to let treason go unwhi d rather than they should risk their own he dpgn power. It looks to me much like that; and if so, I am sorry that any man can be so short sighted as not to see the fatal consequences of such an exchange as this. Does it not say, your treason may go if you let us rule the count I One word more and I amdone. The country is alarmed, the people are anxious, and the political atmosphere bodes the coming of no common storm. What can we do to prevent it and bring back peace to the country and harmony to the party? Is there no common ground on which we can stand? Is there no common standard round which we can rally? I think there is, sir. Surely, we may go back to the Constitution which we have all sworn to support. We can go back to the laws and enforce them without dissension among ourselves. Then there are things which we uiny avoid doing. We may avoid new measures on which we cannot agree, and which only serve as wedges to s lit us further and further nsunder. hff. President, why these new measures 7 Who is bound to the support of a new measure except the author of it? What member of a party is bound to a new measure not in comtemplation of the party at the time it was organized, at the time its platform was laid down, except the author; and if dissension and division spring u from the new measure, who is responsible orthat? The man who stands on the record, or the man who introduces the new measure? The man who catches the foxes and ties their tails so as to send them into the standing corn, or the men who do not? These arequestions that the country are coming to ask. hey will ask who did this thing, who brought this about? Was the Freedmens Bureau in the Baltimore platform? Was it in the Chi cago platform? Where did the party agree to that as a party? Where was that laid down as a line to which all party men should come? The pretense is a surd. The Freedmens Bureau bill is not now and never was a party measure, except with some few people who took it into their heads that it was a very good thing. N obod blamed them for that; they had a right to believe that; but other people who did not believe it are not to be ostracized on that account, particularly if those who did not believe it thought that in itself it was not only inexpedient and impolitic, but that it was unconstitutional.