Mr.JULIAN made some remarks, which will be found in the Appendix. Regeneration before Reconstruction. SPEECH OF HON. GEO. W. JULIAN, OF INDIANA, January 28, 1867. The House having under consideration House bill No. 543, to restore to the States lately in rebellion their political rights, and the amendment thereto proposed by Mr. STEvens. Mr. JULIAN said: Mr. SpeakER: In view of the time already consumed in the discussion of the measure now before us, and the general desire of members to reach an early vote on the pending motion to commit, I shall endeavor to address the House as briefly as possible; and I therefore prefer, on this occasion, to submit my views without interruption. i cannot support the amendment proposed by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. STEvens] in its present form; but I shall not vote to send it to the ComReconstruction at this late hour in the session. I believe the time has come for action, and that having this great subject now before us we should proceed earnestly, and with as little delay as may be, to mature some measure which may meet the demand of the people. Nearly 2 years have elapsed since the close of the war, during, the whole of which time the regions blasted by treason have been subject to the authority of Congress; and yet these regions are still unprovided with any valid civil governments, and no loyal man within their limits, black or white, is safe in his person or estate. The civil rights act and the Freedmen's Bureau bill are set at open defiance, while freedom of speech and of the press are unknown. The loyal people of these districts, with sorely tried patience and hopes long deferred; plead with us for our speedy interposition in their behalf; and even the conquered rebels themselves, who are supreme in this general reign of terror, seem to be growing weary of their term of lawlessness and misrule., Sir, let us tolerate no further procrastination; and while we justly hold the President responsible for the trouble and mal administration which now curse the South and disturb the peace of the country, let us remem ber that the national odium already perpetually linked with the name of AndrewJohnson will be shared by us, if we fail in the great duty which is now brought to our doors. Mr. Speaker, my 1st objection to the amendment proposed is that it practically confounds the distinction between treason and loyalty by allowing the elective franchise to the great body of the criminals who strove, through 4 blood years, to destroy the nation's life. No such policy can have my sanction. The 6th section of the amendment, which seeks to guard against this by the affidavit which it requires, would prove a delusion and a snare. I will read the form of the oath which it prescribes: I, A B, do solemnly swear, on the Holy Evangel ists of Almighty God, that on the 4th day of March, 1864, and at all times thereafter, I would willingly have complied with the requirementsof the proclamation of the POTUS, issued on the 8th day of December, 1863, had a safe opportunity of so doing been allowed me: that on the said 4otphpoofseMdatrochth, e1c8o6n4ta, innudaantcaelloftimthees rtehbeerellai oftnera, nIdwatos the establishmentof the socalled confederate government, and voluntarily gave no aid or encourage mUneine tn, thereto, but earnestlydesired the successof the and the suppression of all armed resistance to the Government of the U.S.: and that I will henceforth faithfully support the Constitution of the U.S and the Union of the Statesthere under. Sir, of what value would be such an oath? In exacting it, instead of protecting the rights of loyal men we should build a safe bridge over which every rebel in the South could pass back into power. How could perjury be assigned upon such an affidavit? By what process could the prosecutor prove, on the trial, the hidden } or the secret intention of the party? have little faith in the oaths of rebels under any circumstances. If our experience in the late war establishes any general rule in such cases, it is that the oath of a traitor proves nothing but the perjury of the villain who takes it. Most assuredly we could not rely upon it where the man who swears runs no risk of being brought to account; and the exaction of such an oath of men who have ruthlessly lifted their hands against their country is scarcely less than a mockery. But if it be granted that this oath would be honestly taken, it does not follow that we should now restore the franchise on any such cheap and easy conditions. Are we willing thus to degrade and belittle this great right, the highest expression of citizenship, and its truest safe guard? Must we make haste to share the governing power of the country with the rebel hordes who fought us nearly 3 years, be. cause they grew weary of their enterprise on the 4th day of March, 1864, and desired then to give it up? Is treason against the nation an offense so slight, an affair so trifling, that no real atonement for it shall be demanded? Sir, these are grave questions, and the state of our country today demands that Congress shall, ponder them. The citizen's duty of allegiance and the nation's obligation of protection are reciprocal. The one is the price of the other, and the compact is alike binding upon both parties. When the rebels broke this compact by attempting the crime of national murder their right of citizenship was forfeited, and the nation has the undoubted right to declare the consequences of that forfeiture by law. It not only has the right, but in my judgment is sacredly bound to exercise it. And why? Because, in the language of Vattel, “Every nation is obliged to perform the duty of self preservation.” The only solid foundation of national security is the allegiance of the citizen; and the most solemn duty which is at this moment devolved upon the Congress of the U.S. is the duty, of keeping the Government of the country in the hands of loyal men. No Government can be secure, and no Government deserves to live, which allows its enemies a common and equal voice with its friends in the exercise of its powers. This nation has hitherto recognized this principle. In the very 1st years of the Republic Congress sanctioned the perpetual disfranchisement of the leader. principal officers of Shay's rebellion; and the acts of Congress which warrant the exercise of this power of disfranchisement stand in full force and unchallenged on your statute books. Congress, during the rebellion, deprived of all rights of citizenship those who deserted from the military or naval service, or who, after being “duly enrolled, ” left the U.S or their military districts to avoid a draft. Certainly these offenses are no greater than the crime of treason, persisted in for successive years. The authority of Congress in all such cases rests upon the universal law of nations. It grows out of the contract of allegiance and the duty of every nation to preserve its own life; and therefore no trial and conviction by any judicial tribunal are necessary as a condition of the declared forfeiture. The forfeiture is not declared as a punishment for the violation of any criminal law, but as a safeguard against national danger. It is an expression of the same policy which excludes aliens from the rights of citizens. The power is not unconstitutional, for our fathers, in framing the Constitution, recognized the law of nations, as they were compelled to do, in launching the Republic among the in dependent Powers of the world. Nor is it at all affected by the question whether the districts lately in revolt are States in the Union or territorial provinces. In both States and Territories the national authority must be held ". to the rights of citizenship, which has uniformly been regarded as a national question. If the 2nd section of the 1st article of the Constitution gives to the States the power to say who shall vote, this must necessarily be understood to apply only to those who are citizens of the U.S., since otherwise the national authority might be overthrown by aliens in our midst in combination with citizens. The late war for the Union has been carried on at immense cost for the purpose of demonstrating to all the world that we are a nation; and every nation, according to the high authority already quoted, “has a right to every thing that can ward off imminent danger, and keep at a distance whatever is capable of causing its ruin; and from that very same reason that establishes its right it has also the right to the things necessary to its preservation.” Mr. Speaker, with what face can we denounce the President for his wholesale pardons, and charge him with making treason honorable and loyalty odious, if we ourselves voluntarily clothe with the honor and dignity of the ballot the men who have forfeited all their rights by their crimes against their country? With what consistency can we declaim against the monstrous blood guiltiness of treason while we extend to the traitor the right hand of political fellow ship?. Sir, not a single rebel has yet expiated his crime on the gallows. Not one has even been tried. Neither confiscation nor exile has been the portion of the armed assassins and outlaws who summoned to their untimely graves more than 300,000 heroes of the Republic, and made the civilized world stand aghast at the recital of their crimes. I do not say we should disfranchise the rebels because the President has allowed then to go unpunished, but that loyal men alone can be trusted to govern the country they have saved, and that the false clemency of the Executive is the exact reverse of a good reason for restor. ING traitors to power. Nor do I argue that perpetual disfranchisement will certainly be necessary, but that the nation, for its own safety, should withhold the ballot from its enemies till they have proved themselves fit to cast it. No such.P. be adduced. On the contrary, the spirit of treason is now quite as reeking and defiant in the revolted districts as at any time during the war. In the sunshine of the Presi. dent it has sprouted up into new and more vigorous forms of life, while repentant rebels are unknown, save in the sense of regretting the failure of their treason. Sir, I hope the 39th Congress will not sully its good name by confounding the friends of the country with its enemies in the reconstruction and government of the districts blighted by treason, and thus trample down the great principle that allegiance to the nation is the condition of citizenship and the bulwark of our freedom. To do this would be to surrender our strongest weapons to the President and his rebel allies. It would be disloyalty to the great cause which would thus again be i.p and bring dis. honor upon the graves of our martyred legions, who perished in deadly encounter with the trai tors whom we now propose to restore to their lost rights. Mr. Speaker, I further object to the measure before us, that it is a mere enabling act, looking to the early restoration of the rebellious districts to their former places in the Union, instead of a well considered frame of government, contemplating such restoration at some indefinite future time, and designed to fit them to receive it. They are not ready for reconstruction as independent States on any terms or conditions which Congress might impose; and I believe the time has come for us to say so. We owe this much to their misguided people, o whose false and feverish hopes have been alive by the course of the Executive and the hesitating policy of Congress. I think I am safe in saying that if these districts were today admitted as States, with the precise political and social elements which we know to exist in them, even with their rebel population disfranchised and the ballot placed in the hands of radical Union men only, irrespecive of color, the experiment would be ruine us to the best interests of their loyal people and calamitous to the nation. The withdrawal of Federal intervention and the unchecked operation of local supremacy would as fatally hedge up the way of justice and equality as the robel ascendency which now prevails. Why? Sin ply because no theory on.no forms of administration, can be trusted, unless a dequately supported by public opinion. The power of the great landed aristocracy in these regions, if unrestrained by power from with: out, would inevitably assert itself. Its political chemistry, obeying its own laws, would "e soon crystalize itself into the same forms o treason and lawlessness which today hold their undisturbed empire over the exising loyal element. What these regions need, above all things, is not an easy and quick return to their forfeited rights in the Union, but got rm, ment, the strong arm of power, outstretched from the central authority here in Wash ng: ton, making it safe for the freedmen of the South, safe for her loyal white men, safe for emigrants from the Old World and from he northern States to go and dwell there; safe for northern capital and labor, northern ent gy and enterprise, and northern ideas to set up their habitation in peace, and thus foun a Christian civilization and a living democracy amid the ruins of the past. That, sir, is what the country demands and the rebel power needs. To talk about suddenly building u independent States where the material for such structures is fatally wanting is nonsense. States must grow, and to that end their growth must be fostered and protected. The political and social regeneration of the country made deso late by treason is the prime necessity of the hour, and is preliminary to any reconstruction of States. Years of careful pupilage under the authority of the nation may be found necessary, and Congress alone must decide when and upon what conditions the tie rudely broken by treason shall be restored. Congress, more over, is as solemnly bound to deny to disloyal communities admission into our great sister hood of States as it is to deny the rights of citizenship to those who have forfeited such rights by treason. I have thus far, Mr. Speaker, addressed myself to considerations which appeal to men of my own political faith. There is a theory of reconstruction held by gentlemen on the other side of the House, according to which the rebels, the moment they laid down their arms and confessed themselves vanquished, were entitled to resume all their rights as citizens, just as if they had had not rebelled, and to set in motion the machinery of their State governments, be represented in Congress, and enjoy all and singular the rights and privileges of other citizens of the U.S. Sir, I shall not consume much time in noticing this strange theory, which was so happily disposed of by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. SHELLABARGER) on Friday last. I must, however, do its friends the honor of confessing it to be entirely original. I think no such principle can be found in the law of nations. I am quite sure there is no historical precedent for it, and that the precedents are strongly the other way. One of these, and a very notable one, I may refer to, as illustrating the difference between the congressional and presidential theories of reconstruction. I understand that when Satan rebelled against the Almighty he was accommodatedwith quarters somewhat more tropical and less salubrious than the kingdom he had involuntarily abdicated. To speak plainly, he was plunged into hell; and he “accepted the situation.” According to one account of the transaction he said it was — "Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven;” and he has not been “reconstructed” to this day. But according to the modern theory to which I refer, the devil, when he was finally overpowered and was willing to acknowledge it, was that moment entitled to be reinstated in his ancient rights in Paradise, exactly as if he had not sinned. That I understand to be the Democratic theory of reconstruction. But Satan, devil as he was, never had the infernal audacity to insinuate so monstrous a preten:sion; and it was reserved for the followers of AndrewJohnson, nearly 6,000 years later, to startle the civilized world by its avowal. Mr. Speaker, let me not be misunderstood here. I do not desire to see the rebels follow in the footsteps of their illustrious predecessor. There may have been times when it seemed to me theydeserved a similar treatment. It may even have occurred to me, in some of my profaner moments, that if there is not a pretty respect able orthodox hell on the other side of the grave for the special discipline of the rebel leaders, it would seem to be the grandest over sight that divine Providence could possibly havecommitted. But in confronting the dan. gers which now beset our country, I put aside thesetheological fancies; and what I demand, and Iall ask, is that Congress shall organize a well appointed political purgatory; located in the rebellious districts, and keep the rebels in it until by their penitence and a change of their lives they al satisfy us that they can again be trusted with power. Let us put them on probation; and should it require ten years, or 20 years, to qualify them for restoration, or secure an outside element strong enough to rule the rebel faction, let the time be extended. The grand interests involved plead with us to “make haste slowly, ” while voices from the graves of our slaughtered countrymen beseech us to “keep none but loyal men on guard.” When the rebels, conscious of the ruin they have wrought, shall wash away their guilt in their tears of genuine contrition, then, and not till then, let us restore them to our embrace. And now, Mr. Speaker, if any gentleman asks me what plan of government I would in stitute for the probation and pupilage of these districts I am ready to answer him. But before I do that I desire to say what forms of reconstruction I do not favor. In the 1st place, I oppose any cunningly devised scheme like that reported by the Gentfrom Ohio [Mr. AsHLEY] from the ComTerritories, with its popular conventions, its committees of safety, its provisional governors, and other machinery designed to meet the ugly fact that we have a bad man in the presidential chair, whose usurpations it is pretended we must checkmate by these extraordinary measures. If the President has been guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, let him be impeached and hurled from power. I believe he is thus guilty, and therefore I believe our 1st duty is to call him to account. Instead of gradual approaches and flank movements we should confront him at once with our accusations and demand his trial. Instead of lopping off the branches we should strike at the root of our troubles, and no significance or insignificance of the executive office as now filled should stand in the way of our constitutional duty. If the President is not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, in the sense in which those terms were understood by our forefathers, and according to the precedents they had before them, then the right of impeachment is not even a “scarecrow, ” as Mr. Jefferson styled it. But if I am mistaken, and the country is doomed yet longer to endure his maladministration, let us adopt precisely such measures of government for the rebellious districts as would be necessary and proper if we had an honest man in the place of AndrewJohnson, thus affording him the opportunity, should he seek it, to provoke new conflicts with the people by opposing our measures. Should his mad ness fail to supply us, abundantly, with the grounds for a successful impeachment, the sands of his official life will soon run out at the worst, while the management of the rebel territory demands a policy which may last for indefinite years. As the friends of the Constitution and the champions of law, we can best perform our duty by adhering to the well settled forms and usages of our republican institutions. I oppose, in the 2nd place, any plan of reconstruction which attempts to reconcile opposite and utterly irreconcilable theories. If the rebellious districts are States, known to the Constitution as such, they have the right to be represented on this floor and in the other end of the Capitol. They have all the rights of the other independent States of the Union, and the work of reconstruction is done already. The logic of this theory, if accepted, not only vindicates the policy of the President, but brands the legislation of Congress for nearly 6 years past as a deliberate usurpation. This is the rebel theory, and those awho have accepted it with all its consequences are consistent and brave men, who are entitled to the thanks of all the enemies of their country. But if you reject this theory, then you are driven squarely over to the policy of unqualified radicalism, for there is no middle ground on which to stand. If these districts are not States known to the Constitution it must follow inevitably that the Constitution knows them only as Territories, for which Congress is bound by the express words of the Constitution to “make all needful rules and regula.tions.” Sir, I am opposed to any schome of compromise between these theories, and to any plan of reconstruction which embodies in it any elements of the rebel theory. The policy of Congress and the President in recognizing those districts as States, while exercising over them powers utterly inconsistent with the rights of States, has brought upon us our worst troubles, and the sooner we abandon it the better it will be for the country. The nation needs a manly and straightforward policy, and not the weakness and vacillation which spring from crooked and ambidextrous measures which lend strength to the enemies of the Republic. Mr. Speaker, the theory which deals with the rebellious districts as under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress rests upon grounds which are logically impregnable. In the 1st place, their old constitutional governments were verthrown and destroyed by the rebellion. This will not be disputed. 2nd, their rebel governments, which followed, were destroyed by our arms. This is equally certain. 3rd, their present governments, extemporized by the President, are military and provisional only, having no validity whatever save that which they borrow from the continued acquiescence of Congress. The President himself can be quoted in support of this position. And 4th, the rebels themselves, having forfeited all their rights by their treason, as I have already shown, have no authority to institute any sort of government within their respective districts, until they are expressly empowered so to do by Congress. Hf am right in these positions, these districts are so many geographical divisions of the Republic whose people are wholly without any valid civil government, and without any constitutional power to frame such government; and being solely under the juris diction of Congress, and having none of the powers and attributes of States, they are neces. sarily Territories of the U.S. As such they need government till they are prepared for readmission, and the machinery of territorial governments, older than the Constitution itself, is as familiar to the American people as that of the State governments. Let each of these Territories then have a governor, a chief justice, a marshal, and an attorney. Let each of them have a Delegate in Congress, fitly denied the right to vote, while permitted to speak. Let each have a Legislature for the enactment of local laws, subject to the super vision of Congress. Let Congress declare who shall be qualified to vote in these Territories, adopting the same rule already established in the other Territories of the U.S and in the DistCol. And when local supremacy shall defy the national authority in any of these Territories, let it be effectually cured by the military power of the U.S. Under this educational process I would have these rebellious districts trained up in the way they should go, whether the time required for such training shall prove long or short; while in the mean time every inch of their soi will be subject to the national authority, and freely open to the energy and enterprise of the world. This policy, by nationalizing the South, would render life and property as secure in Louisiana as in Maine. It would tend power fully to make our whole country homogeneous. It would encourage in these wasted regions “small farms, thrifty tillage, free schools, closely associated communities, social ind pendence, respect for honest labor, and equality of political rights.” All these blessings must follow, if only the nation, having vanquished its enemies, will now resolutely assert its power in the interest of loyal men, over regions in which nothing but power is respected. To all this, Mr. Speaker, it will be objected that it contravenes the policy of the constitutional amendment proposed by Congress at our last session, and therefore cannot in good faith be urged while that amendment is. Several replies to this objection are at hand. 1st, it must be remembered that this amendment was submitted to the several States. Congress had no right to propose it to unor ganized districts which had no constitutional governments of any sort, and therefore no power to pass upon the question. Could we, or example, submit this amendment to colorado or Nebraska, before they have been law fully declared States? Congress, at the last session, might have waived all formalities and recognized the rebellious districts as States by receiving"their representatives, as was done in the case of Tennessee; but we refused to do this. Congress even declined to pass the bill reported from the Reconstruction Committee providing that these socalled States should be received on their acceptance of the amendment. It is perfectly certain, therefore, that Congress reserved for its future judgment the very question which is assumed to have been decided by the objection under notice; or, that if congress did decide it the decision was the other way. The very utmost that can be claimed b the champions of the constitutional.ment is that the question is an open one; and, being an open question, Congress may decide it today by putting territorial governments over these regions, leaving the amendment to the disposition of the loyal States, whose representatives in Congress for nearly 6 years past have ignored the existence of disloyal States in dealing with the mighty concerns of war and peace jthe amendment of the Constitution itself. I. believe the pending amendment will be ratified; but in voting to submit iIt do not think Congress is at all embarrassed in its present action. I can say, for myself at least, that I am perfectly untrammeled, either by my votes in this House or by pledges or commit tals anywhere; while I believe the general understanding at the last session was that the amendment embodied provisions which were demanded as national safeguards, without pretending to supply any final solution of the problem of reconstruction. But I reply, in the next place, that even if Congress at the last session bound itself by an implied agreement to admit these districts as States on their ratification of the amendment, we are now released from that obligation. With singular unanimity and emphasis they have rejected our proposal, and thereby left us free. Sir, are we bound to wait here 5 years, or ten years, for them to ponder the question and reverse their decision, after they have already defiantly spurned our offer, allowing the rebel power in the meanwhile to have free course 2I do not so understand the bargain, if any bargain has been made. We have the right to plead our release, and the state of the country demands that we shall exercise it. Since our session of last summer great changes have been wrought in the general feeling of the people. We see daily the truth of the old adage that “circumstances alter cases.” Public opinion has forced Congress to establish manhood suffrage in the DistCol, and thereby to say that that principle should prevail in all the States of the Union. congress has extended it over all the Territories of the U.S., constituting an empire large enough to support a population of 200 million people. Congress has voted for the admission of Colorado and Nebraska on the fundamental condition of their acceptance of the same principle, and thus adver tised all whom it may concern that other States yet to be born must comply with the same condition:. Most certainly the like requirement will be made of the districts lately in arms against us, whatever may betide the constitutional amendment. God forbid that we should impose conditions upon virgin States of the Northwest, which have never rebelled, and whose people today are loyal, which we will not exact of the rebels who have drenched their country in blood! Sir, we cannot trifle with a principle so vital, or expose it to any sort of hazard. I voted last year against restoring Tennessee to her place in the Union, because I feared she could not be trusted without a mortgage from her securing the ballot to her colored loyalists. I hope my fears will prove groundless, but I shall never regret my vote. The loyal people of Maryland today black and white, would be safer under Federal bayonets than under their local government; and Congress, where it has the power, must exert it against the enemies of the country and their sympathizers. I shall never vote to restore one of these rebel districts to power as a State, except upon the condition that impartial suffrage, without respect to race, color, or for mer condition of slavery, shall be the supreme law within her borders. Sir, we can no longer evade the solemn duty which the logic of events has at last made plain to all lovers of justice; and the man who now thrusts constitutional amendments in our way might as well uote the Crittenden resolutions, adopted by this House the day following the 1st battle of Bull Run, as the governing principle of the 39th Congress. I add, finally, and as a conclusion from what I have said already, that the 2nd section of the proposed amendment ought never to be made a part of the Constitution of the U.S. It would not now be proposed, if the question were pending as a new one, as our action at this session has plainly indicated. I voted for it, along with the other sections of the amendment, simply as a proposal to reduce the political power of the rebels to a common level with that of loyal men; but instead of cutting down representation in these districts to the basis of actual suffrage, I think we are now ready so to extend the franchise as to make it commensurate with actual representation. An amendment of the Constitution securing this result should have been proposed at the last session. When, in our extremity, we called on the black loyalists of the South to help us through the red sea of war into which our wickedness had plunged us, and they responded to our call by sending 200,000 soldiers to our rescue, it thence forward became the nation's duty, from which no escape was morally possible, to secure the rights of citizenship, both civil and political, to the wronged and outraged millions of the African race in our midst. It thenceforward ought to have been counted a shameful prop position, a flagrant affront to common justice and gratitude, for Congress to propose to the rebels, as a constitutional amendment, that if they would agree to the exclusion of these loyal colored men from the basis of representation, we would agree to surrender them to the tender mercies of rebel State governments, which might wholly deprive them of the sacred right of representation. Sir, I hope no such principle will ever defile the Constitution of our fathers. Aside from its cold blooded in gratitude to our black allies, it is radically vicious. It impliedly concedes to the States of the Union. right to disfranchise male citizens of the U.S. over 21 years old who are innocent ef crime, strikes at the root of all democracy. If “taxation without representation is tyranny, ” and Governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed, “ the citizen's right of representation is as natural and in herent as the breath of his nostrils. To deprive him of it, unless he himself forfeits it by his offenses against society, is a crime against his manhood, which is the common foundation of the rights of all men. It is an offense against all free government, for the right of one citizen to a voice in its public administration is precisely the same as the right of every other citizen; and no fraction of citizens, however large, can deprive the remainder of their common and equal right. To deny this is to mock the DeclarIndep and insult the memory of our fathers; and to incorporate the denial into the Constitution of the U.S., in words which express or imply it. would strengthen the hands of everyrol; the South, and comfort the enemies of Ams. ican democracy throughout the world, i. would pollute the very fountains of our totional life by the unnatural marriage of Constitution to the foul heresy of Staterigo, which so recently wrapped the Republicio flames of war;, while it would stand in ore, conflict with that grand central principle of our great Charter which declares that“the U.S shall guaranty to everyState: this Union a RFG."