Mr. HISE. Well, I cannot recollect; I cannot give facts, dates, or speeches, because they have passed somewhat out of my recollection. But my recollection is that the president of the southern confederacy, JeffersonDavis, while he remained in the Senate of the U.S and until his State passed her ordinance of secession, made as patriotic and earnest efforts to have the difficulties of the country adjusted and prevent disunion as any man in . the American at the time. That is my impression. Do not ask me for dates, nor for what this man or the other man said, nor the precise purport of this, that, or the other proposition, because I did not expect to discuss that subject and have not the documents or facts before me. I can only state my impressions. Now, sir, suppose that the southern people were wrong in the action which they took and that it was both inexpedient and unauthorized, Yet this does not justify you in the past and the intended treatment of the excluded States. If they erred in the attempt to carry their States out of the Union, is that a sufficient reason why now the hostile spirit engendered by the war should be continued? Now, when peace is restored, why should we not endeavor by every possible means to restore harmony to the country. “Ah, ” say you, “if we do not keep these people muzzled, if we do not deny them any share or influence in the Government and refuse them their share of representation in the Halls of Congress, our party predominance will pass away.” That is the fear. Now, is that a motive by which statesmen should be influenced? Our object should be peace a peaceable reunion of the States or rather a union of them, because I deny that the Union has ever been divided; I deny that any of the States have ever been destroyed. There can be no such thing as “reconstruction” unless there has been a structure demolished. The name of the committee who seem to have charge of this whole subject is therefore not appropriate. There is no reason or necessity for any ComReconstruction, because there is nothing to reconstruct. The Union has been preserved. Certain States that attempted to get out of the Union by force failed in that attempt and are still in the Union. All the acts by which they attempted to get out are null and void, being in conflict with the constitution of the U.S., the “supreme law of the land.” Now, sir, how does this Congress propose to treat those States? It has treated them as Jtates in the various particulars and modes pointed out in the President's message. gentlemen clamor here because those States have not adopted the proposed constitutional amendment, by which their whole social system and fabric of society would be debauched, demoralized, and reversed. Yet they have no authority to act on that constitutional amendment unless they be States of the Union. In many other particulars, as stated in the President's message, Congress has treated them as States. Yet it is now insisted that they are not States, and not being States are not en Etitled t.o representation upon this floor. It is that they have relinquished and orfeited their rights as States. Why, sir, such a thing is impossible. Where is the law or the reason for it? Why, sir, during the wars of the French Revolution there was one portion of France, on the coast of Brittany, called, I believe, LaVendee, whose people fought on the side of the monarchy o against the revolutionary party; yet I never learned, from my reading of rench history, that when the revolutionary party had proved successful the people of the insurgent districts were disfranchised. How was it in the civilWars of England, the conflicts between the houses of York and Lancaster, and the intestine strife during the reign of Charles I? After the Government became established, 1st under Cromwell and afterward under Charles H, were the people who had taken part in those wars either on one side or the other disfranchised denied the privilege of sending their representatives to the House of Commons, and deprived of their rights as subjects of GreatBritain? I imagine not. There may have been here and there cases in which the ringleaders were punished; but there was no disfranchisement of the people inhabiting whole sections of country, counties, or municipalities that may have been involved in a rebellion or civilWar. Why not have peace and union? You say they are not States, because you know if they are States they must have representation. If they are not States I admit i. have no right to representation. But they are States; now you propose unlawfully and unconstitutionally to destroy their character as States and convert them into dependent territories or conquered provinces. Upon what authority? Where is the law for it? You cannot punish a State. There is no constitutional authority for the ! indictment. trial, conviction, and punishment of a State as such. There is no punishment for States prescribed in the Constitution or in any law I have ever seen or heard of. Why punish them? How can you try the State? ocannot do it. Do you want to punish the people? You cannot do it. It is impossible. e people of those States, many of them, would never have concurred in the movement of secession but for the enormities and atrocities practiced by this Government during the war, and the violation of what was declared to be the object of the war in a resolution passed by both Houses of Congress, to the effect that it was not intended to interfere with their domestic institutions or any of their rights and privileges under the Constitution. It was not, sir, until after the Government violated that solemn pledge, made in both branches of Congress, that the war was to be prosecuted, not for the purpose of subjugation or enslavement of those people, not for the purpose of overturning or interfering with their rights as States or their State institutions, not at all; but for the mere purpose of enforcing the constitution and laws of the U.S and preserving and maintaining the Union and the Government of the Union under the Constitution; and that when they succeeded in suppressing all armed opposition and resistance to the Government, then those States should be received again into the Union, or would be in the Union as before according to the declaration of Mr. Seward in his dispatch to our minister to France, that the States would come back again and remain in the Union with all their rights of property and representation. I repeat it was not until after these solemn pledges were violated by the subsequent development of the real objects and purposes, for the attainment of which the war continued to be prosecuted, that the southern people generally concurred in the necessity of persisting in armed resistance for defense. ow; in violation of all these pledges you design in bad faith to convert these States into Territories. Where is the authority, where is the law for it? Some gentlemen contend the authority is to be found in that portion of the Constitution which says that the U.S shall guaranty to every State in the Union a RFG, and shall protect each of them against invasion, and upon application of the Legislature or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence. Sir, that provision of the Constitution, in my opinion, authorizes no such thing as the conversion of those States into provinces to be governed arbitrarily. This clause of the Constitution contains no such authority. It is a mere guarantee that the republican governments of the States shall be maintained. There was no authority given in that clause to convert States into Territories so as to deprive them of all representation in congress. It is an obligation, in fact, imposed upon the Federal Government to see that neither by domestic violence, foreign invasion, or in any other way the republican governments of the States should be overthrown. Now, does that give to the Government of the U.S. the power to overthrow the State governments when they are republican in fact, and to institute territorial governments so as to deprive them of all representation in Congress? Was that the object? Can this Congress make them Territo. ries at its discretion? Can it reduce them to the condition of conquered and dependent prov inces when they choose and as they choose? Because the duty is imposed upon this government by the clause of the Constitution above cited to protect the States as States in the enjoyment of their RFGs as existing, can it be contended with any show of reason that this power or duty of the U.S. is properly executed and performed by overturning instead of guarantying the republican governments of these States, by changing their condition as States into that of dependent provinces, and by denying to them their right of representation in Congress? Never! no, never!