Mr. BROMWELL. Mr. Speaker, as there seems to be an opportunity at this time, I be leave to submit a few remarks upon some of the matters which at present are pressing upon the attention of this congress and although I might give some reasons why I desire to e heard at this time concerning these questions, I will omit them; because unless in that which I shall say there be found some reason for its utterance, I had better hold my peace. Since all loyal men seem to a co that some security should he demanded of the Stateslately in rebellion, there would seem to be but little danger of disseusion among them touching the course to be pursued to secure the restoration of constitutional government in those districts latel overcome by the Union arms. But because deem it proper that the course we are most likely to pursue should be shown to be within the landmarks ofvgogstitutignal law, as Wtfie laws offpr, I will ottenny opinion conceriiiri The—present condition of these districts O our country, the measures deemed proper for their restoration, and the principles which should guide us in the reconstruction of this cat Republic and 1st, we are toldrfrom day to day that it is immaterial what is the present condition of the rebel States so that we agree among ourselves as to the proper remedy to be applied. But we should take notice that this is the same as sa ng that Congress initself is absolute and can O what it ipleases,provided its members can agree; fori Congress be notabsolute, then it is surely one thin to legislate for communities which are, and iave a right to be, lawful States of this Union—and possessed of the re served rights" of such —a part of its life, body, and soul, as described by the Gentfrom Kentucky, [Mr. Smru;] and it is another and quite a different thing to legislate for communities which are within the territorial areaand subject to the national jurisdiction of the U.S., but without the right or power to sit in its national councils an affect the welfare of each other and the remainder of the States by their action. He who ignores this question ores the very limits of the authority by which e proposes to act, if he re oses to remedy the existing dis orders of this lepublic by congressional action. He may, indeed, be so fortunate as to act within the limits of constitutional authority, but he cannot say that he does so by design. The best results of his action can be esteemed nothing better than fortunate blunders; since with his own hand he turns down the light upon his own powers of legal discernment. Nor can one who says this escape from a similar reflection upon his legal sagncity, if, while he says that this question is immaterial, he seeks to relieve Congress of the burden of this matter, by attributing to the executive arm the whole power to determine the remedy for the disorders of the Republic. For if it were true that the POTUS, as Commander in Chiefor otherwise, could lawfully determine this matter; if he could step between the people of the U.S and that question which affects every interest and eve right throughout our complicated system O government, and every principle of our institutions from primary to ultimate; if he could indeed grasp that supreme and sublime power which is the source of all action creative of laws in this country; if in shorthe can hold the legislative will of the poople in the hollow of his hand, which is all that cspotism in its utmost grasp includes; even then, this question of the legal status of these States won d force its presence at the outset, and must be met and grap led with by him, unless we say that in his han s constitutions fix no limits, and laws, however organic, must spend their force in reaching the footstool of executive power. such an assumption represents the body politio no longer as a being of possible conformation and functions; but as a monster whose dis osing power or soul is rifled and dislodged from the vital organs, and lodged in the arms, hands, and fingers, which were ordained but to serve and to defend. The announcement of such a doctrine as this uts to shame and covers with confusion the la ore of every statesman of the past and of the present day, and mocks at the simplicity which has heretofore supposed 3 Depts essential to orderly and rational government. With these remarks I dismiss this point, only saying further that I apprehend but little danger in anyone who entertains this doctrine nursin the same either in or out of Congress; for, an ess the capacity of our people for self government has been immensely overrated, and every estimate based upon it wholly ground less; no considerable body of men can be found to encourage or entertain for a moment this most pernicious of all heresies, the mere pro mulgation of which is the abnegation of free government in this country, and an invitation. to all future Presidents to make themselves autocrats for the time of their service. It could only remain to render the presidential office by Iaw hereditary, to complete the subversion of our institutions; and rival the imperial d nasties of the ancient Babylon in the splendid despotism of the new. But, sir, are we to be told today by any considerable body of the American people that all that for which a Constitution was ordered and organized, for which its wonderful parts and machinery were adjusted, everything that constitutes a free Government in this country is to be surrendered, and that the legislative Will, the power creatllve of laws, the disposing ir power and consent of the people of the U.S. is to be taken from their Congress, where the are all by representation present as individuals and as States, and transferred to an officer of the law, a minister of the organization which that legislative power in its onginal expression set up to execute its own determined will? Now, sir, since so man gentlemen have s oken on this matter, and have assumed that the States lately in rebellion are this day part of the life, body, and soul of this country; it seems strange to me that so few of them have deemed it worth while to describe and define to us what it was that constituted anyone of them a State, before it applied the torpedo of secession to its own organization; and what there is that now remains and can be exhumed from the rubbish of that explosion. by which it may be identified and recognized, and by which it is anchored to each of the others an to the whole. What. sir, is thdt king bolt in each to which the chain of legality fastens, by which all in this great system are held in order, and so held that there maybe a Union complete in its parts, so that Epluribus unum may be written upon the whole? What is that primal force from which springs every power which issues and acts in our complex and complicated system of free governmentnt—that from which all constitutions and ordinances, statutes, and charters, and every species of legislative enactment, every judicial determination and every executive not derive their force and power—which may be described in this our system of free government as the omnific force from which all exists, extends, and acts? It is this: consent makes the law. This is a truth of constitutions“, as of statutes, charters, and contracts. According to our legal principles we recognize no other foundation for any law whatever. There is no law of any country claiming to be free, whether it be a monarchy or a republic, which can claim, or does claim, a foundation on any other principle. We have. this principle as the foundation of our Government. To deny it is to deny that free government is possible; it is such a denial that it cannot be named without the total abnewation of free, orderly, and rational constitutional government, according to our institutions. Now, sir, when. you apply this principle to the compact of Union as you apply it to a contract between partners or in any other case known at law or equit, you find that the whole compact of this linion is based upon and lodged in the common consent and dis posing power of this people. If these views are correct, you find that each of the original 13 States of this Union derives its being from the consent of the whole, as witnessed by the Constitution of the U.S.; and its existence from its own particular organization, created and thenceforth in action and operation, by means of powers lodged in official hands, which thus preserve and carry on its functions. These are subordinate to the General Government in all things in which the latter is supreme; concurrent in all things, if any, which are common; independent in all things not involved in the peoples grant of power to this General Government, and in agreement with it in all things whatsoever. The same principles apply to the States admitted into the nion since the establishment of the Federal Constitution. They have their being in the original consent, according to the manner contemp ated and provided for in the original Constitution, which consent is witnessed in each particular case by the enabling and admitting acts of congress. They huge their existence from their own State organization continually acting by means of like official powers placed in otheial hands, and with like subordination, equality, independence, and agreement with the whole and with each other, as in the case of the ori ginal 13. The rights of a State thus created in the Union as a State of this Union are rights accruing to itself from the Union and from its parts. It can forfeit these because they are founded in compact, and because all rights which are founded in compact are necessarily forfeited by the violation of the terms of the consent in which they rise. It is of the nature of a compact that violation of in terms is inseparable from forfeiture of the benefits accruing out of it, to either or an of the parties. The States in the Federal Union being formed by virtue of a compact wherein was necessary the consent of the whole people and States, are continually operatin according to that consent under the powersoft eConstitutionwhichearry forward their legal life and make it perpetual. But when they operate according to the terms of that consent, with the rights which that consent affords, they find themselves bound by this principle, which is part and parcel of every right in existence on the earth, that a violation of the consent in which the right springs is the forfeiture of the right, an this is the security that the right carries with it, and is the only one which any right carries with it by its own force. Take whatever penalty there may be attached by statute or by common law to the violation of any law or of any right whatsoever; there is not one which the rig it carries with itself except this, that mutuality being the essence of the compact and necessary to make it exist at all; violation of the terms creates forfeiture according to the case, against which ever party may violate it. Now, sir, a State in and of the Union has no other status than that of a party in a compact —to that compact all its powers are to be re ferred. It drew its origin from the common consent, when that power, creative of law, ar ranged and ordered the machinery of the federal Government. How can it be claimed that this compact which confers existence upon these States differs in its principles from any other compact known among men? Is consent a different thing, when it sanctionsa bargain and sale, or a covenant to do or not to do a particular thing, from consent when it sanctions a compact creating a State, or admitting a State to allfinion of such, or admitting new members thereafter? What is there in consent which is not one and the same? It operates forever in the same essential mode: on though the contract may be different, the consent which forms it, and which binds the rights which flow from it and the obligations which follow, is in each and all the same in its very essence. Gentlemen tell us that the State of Alabama could forfeit the right to the lands which it re ceived from the Federal Government, to aid in the construction of a railroad from Mobile to the Ohio river, by violating the terms of the consent by which she acquired them, Buther right to be the State of Alabama, and thereby impose her will upon the other States by assisting in the formation of additional State governmentnts, by joining in amendments to the constitution, by joining in the enactments of stat utes, by joining in the election of President, and by all acts the powerto do which vests in a State—her right to do these she can exercise and enjoy in spite of violation, secession, confederation,on war. Upon what principle are we to be told toda that this compact by which these States were ormed is the only compact known among men at law or in equity, under any system or code, American, Eng ish, or continental, ancient or modem, that does not of itself ca with it a forfeiture of the rights accruing from it in case of a violation O its terms? I would like to know—and as I once propounded the question to the Gentfrom Kentucky, [Mr. 8241111,]Iwoul here propound it again to the gentlemen who are maintaining, as one of the undamental principles of their action, that these States are in the Union in full power and competency—I would like to suggest to them again, what if their own State should be greatly interested in a matter about which there was a pending amendment to the Constitution of the U.S.