Mr. HOWARD. The Senator will pardon me for saying that although my refusal in this case may not be entirely agreeable to him, it cannot be beyond his recollection that he, on some occasions heretofore, has shown a little intolerance of interruption. When I was interrupted I was reading the dying speech of Mr. Lincoln. I must go back to it. He says: i. “ In the annual messageof December, 1863, and accompanying proclamation. I presenteda plan of reconstruction, (asthephrasegoes, )whicb I promised if adoptedby any State. should be acceptableto EtllCI sustainedbythe executive governmental thenation. I distinctly statedthat this was not the only plan which might possibly be acceptable: and I also disptugtlyprotested that the Executive claimed no ilbll Hearken to his language"tliut the Executive clniined no right to say when or whether members should he nrlmitlrd to seats in CongressfromsuchStates. This plan was.in advance, aubinitted to the then Cabinet, and distinctly up pruvedby everymciuberofit. Oneof themsuggested that I shouldt en and in that connection.apply the emancipation reclamation to the therctoioro excepted partsof Virginia and Louisiana; that lshould drop the Sllg"05ll0!l about apprenticeship for freed people and that I should omit the protest against my own power in regardto the udmissionet members of Congress. O Will the Senfrom Pennsylvania have the goodness to listen to this language? such was the peculiar caution, on this mighty subject, of Abraham Lincoln. He disclaimed in the most distinct and emphatic terms both in his proclamation of the 8th of December, 1863, and in what is called his dyin speech, made only a few days before his death. all authority in himself to import to the States he was attempting to reconstruct any constitutionul right to elect members of Congress. whether Senators or Representatives, in such a way as to give them a legal title to be admitted to seats. That is what he means and exactly what he means nothing more, nething less. That is by no means the doctrine of the present day. The claim now is that the i Tht to elect, and censequently the legal right have the party elected, if possessing the requisite personal qualifications, admitted to his seat.in either House, has been imparted by the Presidents authority and under his commission, and that Congress are concluded and debarred any inquiry into the right claimed. Again, sir, Mr. Lincoln did not confine himself to the peculiar mode of reconstruction mentioned in that proclamation. Early in Jul following, as the world knows, Congress with great unanimity passed a bill for the reestablishment of the rebel States, commonly known as the “ Winter Davis bill, ” a bill which president Lincoln did not see fit to approve; but for his omission to approve it he gives, in the proclamation he issued on the 8th ofJuly, 1864, th“e following reasoii: N ow, therefor, I.Abrnbum Lincoln. POTUS do proclaim, declare, and make known. that while I am, (as I was in December last, when by proclamation I propouuded n plan for restoration.) unprepared.by a formal approval of this bill, to be inflexibly committed to any single plan of restoration; and while I am also unpro pnred to declare that the free State constitutions and governments already adopted and installed in Arkansas and Louisiana shall 0set asideand hold for naught, thereby repelling and discouraging the loyal citizens who have set up the same as to further effort or to declarea constitutional come teucy in Congressto abolish slavery in States, iit am at the sametime sincerely hoping and expecting that a constitutional amendmentabolishing slavery throughout the nation may be adopted. neverthe lessI am fully satisfiedwith the system for restoration contained in the bill as one very properplan for the loyal people of any State choosing to adopt it and that I am, and at all times shall be, prepared to give the executiveaid and assistanceto any such people, so soon as the military resistanceto the U.S shall have been suppressedin any such State and the poop)! thereof shall huvo sufficiently returned to their O edienceto the Constitution and the laws of the U.S., in which casesmili tary governorswill be appointed, with directions to proceedaccording to the bill." Here it is apparent that Mr. Lincoln was not willing to be bound down even to his own plan as sketched in his proclamation of the 8th of December, 1863, but that he was entirely satisfied with the bill he had omitted to approve; and he solemnly promised, in his proclamation of July, 1864, that whenever military resistance should cease in any of the rebel States, and the lpeople in those States were willin to return to their loyalty, he would give them is executive aid by appointing a provisional governor and giving governors the authority granted by the bill. Here were his 2 schemes, both of them liberal, and the last, had the bill been approved, free from all constitutional objections. Now, sir, let Mr. Lincoln be no longer quoted here or elsewhere as being the author of this enormous policy by which the whole power of Congress over the subject of reconstruction is to be absorbed into the single band of the executive. Do not desocrate the name of that greet and good man by imputing to hiiii such a gross attempt to usurp the powers of Congress. Mr. President, the honorable SecyState, in the prepared speech delivered by him at. the CooperInstitute, in NewYork, on the 22d of February, simultaneously with the deliv ery of President Johnsons 5 seek, to which I have alluded, speaking of the restoration of the rebel States, uses the following very strange language: “Now, I am surethis plan is going to succeed.” That is, the plan of President Johnson; the lan of immediate, unconditional readmission into Congress. "I am sureof it, becausesomeplan mustsucceed." He is perfectly sure that a particular plan is going to succeed, because he is sure some plan must succeed. When I was a school boy, attending to my logic, had I uttered such a sentence, I think the professor would have told me it was a non. sequitur. But let us proceed. The Secretary continues: “And because this is the only plan which has ever been attempted, or which I think over will be attempted." The only plan! Had the honorable Secretary forgotten the lap of Mr. Lincoln, as different in principle from that of Mr. Johnson as light from darkness? He says: "Certainly it is the only one that can be attempted with success." Sir, we will try that issue. Imake no boast; I throw out no menace and no defiance; but I say with confidence here to the friends of this policy that I will tr that issue before the country. I know of noting init which should deter an honest man from espousin the negative; and I tell you, air, that when this issue is fully and fairly presented to the peeple of the U.S., when they come to understand what it is in its length and in its breadth, in its de signs, in its purposes, in its enormous dangers, in its injustice, in its crucltics, and in all its deformities, you need not doubt that that honestand loyal and gallant people who have done so much to preserve the government, to maintainits dignity and its honor, will utter a lasting and an indelible rebuke to the policy so confidently and so boastfully advocated by the SecyState. He says further: “It is nearly executed already. The States are there "Hearken to this“ The States are there, just asfully in the exercise of their State functions and powers and faculties as the State of NewYork is. at Albany, today." What is the logical consequence of this? If the 11 rebel States are at the present time as legitimately and constitutionally in the exercise of their properfunctions, and as much entitled to be represented in the 2 Houses of Congress as is the State of NewYork, and if Congress are wantonly and wickedly refusing to allow them the same privilege of representation here as is enjoyed by the State of NewYork, what is the consequence? What is the logical result of this position, or rather assumption, of the SecyState, that they are as perfectly rehabilitated, that the are as perectly in the enjoyment of their tute rights as is the State of NewYork? Sir, I would not impute to the SecyState any unlawful intention; I do not; but I cannot read thision age and fail to see that it at least squints at l e possibility of an armed interference at some future day and the establishment by means of the executive sword of these reconstructed States regularly in congress, with the full quota of Sens&Reps. If they are constitutionally entitled to this representation, as much so as NewYork, it is wholly unconstitutional for u to keep them out, and clearly our sworn duty to let them in. In short, according to the SecyState, the conduct of Congress upon this subject is usurpator, tyrannical, revolutionaiy, and even trensonable. There is but one step between such:1position and advising the employment of military force to carry out its purposes. He says: " Rizgresentatives can comeup and hty their hands upon a Bible and take the oath.und remain there. New, I think this in gain: to be done. It may not be done today. I thought it ought to be done on the 1st day of this sessionoingress. Olin rs thought it better to wait and inquire trike a recess. Then I thought it had betterbe done when the mess was ended. Others thought.it had better be postpon to the Ist of February. Now they are talking e postponingit until they can pass some low.” It is quite apparent that the Secretary deems no law necessar to the reintroduction of the Senators and to resentstives of the rebel States into these ails; he seems to have ig nored entirely the effects of the war upon the rebel States and the legislation of Congress and looks upon them as just as much entitled at this day to be readmitted here as the State of NewYork is entitled to enjoy the benefits of her present representation here. This read mission, be says, is all that remains to be done: “And it is the same plan that Abraham Lincoln projectedbeforelie was removed from his high trust, the someonethat AndrewJohnson was executingfor him in Tennesse o. It will bedone. “Then, as the Union is to be restoredsome time there is to be some lun which is practicable, and if there is someone, tiien some one who is in favor of it can tell mewhat that plan is and when it is likely to be adopted. I pause for a rely. I have never seenany other plan proposed. I have seenthis plan suggested nttwosuccessiveCongresses.that, notwithstanding the conditions of the States, theyshould be legislatedinto the condition ofIcrritories and should be governed by the military arm till they had ier formed sufficiontacts of purgation and should be brought in at some fur 01f period.” I read from the speech chiefly to show what the real doctrine is, known as “my policy;" that it is a claim on the part of the Executive that he in his decrees has recstablished these States and put them in possession of all their functions as States, without the assistance and without the sanction of Congress, and that therefore they are entitled to be represented now; and that; for Congress to wait any longer, to keep them out by any statute or any measureit may see fit to resort to, is doing a great wron to the insurrectionaiy States. Sir, we are oin no wrong to the insurrectionary States. concur with the honorable SecyState when he says the time will come when they will be readmitted to the Union with all their rights and privileges, with their full comlement of Sens&Reps; buth do not hold that it is the dut of congress to admit them now and immediately. I think we ought to take time to consider, that we ought to look especially to the condition of the southern eo lo, and ascertain to our own satisfaction whether they are in such a social and political condition as to make it safe and secure for us to readmit them. Sir, I reject, as entirely untenable, the principle, if it can be called a principle, that when ever a disloyal State sends to Congress a loyal representative that loyal representative ought to be admitted to his sent if he has been regularly elected. Upon this point a great deal has been said both in Congress and out of congress. We are told that if they send here loya Senators, our duty is to admit them; if they send here loyal Representatives, the duty of the House is to admit their Representatives. Sir, I deny it. That assertion is in direct in consistency with the essential principle of republican government. What is a representative who is sent to the Congress expected to do? What is his leading characteristic? Is he not expected to represent the interests and the feelings of the constituency who send him? Certainly. Who expects that a particular constituency will elect a man to Congress and send him here as their representative, whose principles are utterly at war with theirs, or whose interests or principles or prejudices are incon sistent with theirs? and yet the honorable Senfrom Connecticut holds, I believe, that we ought to admit the loyal representatives without the slightest reference to the character of the constituency whom they represent. Sir, that is a great fallacy.