Mr. HARDING, of Kentucky. Well, sir, I cannot stop to argue that question, because the facts are assumed to be true. But suppose they are true; suppose there are rebels who do these things, if you refuse to show mercy are you any better than they? There is no argument in anything of that sort, and yet if I have time I will consider these stories that are told about crimes that prevail in the South. I admit that the fact is so to some extent, but it is quite as true in regard to the North as the South. But, sir, there is nothing in these reports that hould mislead or deceive a ten year old boy. Why should you be. up such reports from one section of the country and making a great parade about them, over looking the same kind of outrages that occur in another section? But, sir, I was about to refer to the Gentfrom Ohio, {Mr. BINGHAM,) with a part of whose speech here the other day I was well pleased, broke out here the other evening in true loyal style, declaring that there never had been a time during the war when any of the southern States was out of the Union; that never had “one rood” of any of them become foreign territory. It was very true. Moreover, he went on to repeat some 6 or 7 statutes that had been passed, all of which clearly recognized the stubborn fact that these were States in the Union during the war, and were still in the Union. He went even so far as to refer to various bills that gentleman had voted for, and coming down to the Freedmen's Bureau bill, he said that every man who voted for that bill had declared 2 things on oath: 1st, that the insurgent States were States in the Union; and 2ndly, that the people inhabiting them were citizens of the U.S. I was glad to hear that from the Gentfrom Ohio. I was glad to see the gentleman better late than never stand up for the Constitution and remind gentlemen of the oath to support it. He also said the idea that these States are out of the Union he “repudiated with scorn and contempt.” I sympathized with him in that also: But, sir, I confess I was a little surprised when I found him a few moments afterward making certain admissions which knocked his previous argument all into pi, as the printers say. [Laughter] If the gentleman had stopped right there his argument would have been all sound and truthful; but the mischievous Gentfrom Wisconsin {Mr. ELDRIDGE] kept interposing and asking questions, such as, “Ifthese States are in the Union how, under the Constitution, do you reconcile to yourself the establishment of military despotism over them?” And, then, the gentleman suddenly fell into one of his radical spells, the monomania of radicalism came over him, and he was gone in a moment, and declared that he “embraced the general purpose of the bill with all his heart.” Then the Gentfrom Wisconsin Pressed upon him the question, “How do you reconcile your views of the Constitution with the establishment of a military despotism?” and the Gentfrom Ohio answered, “Why, by the unlimited powers of the Constitution for the common defense.” A clause in the Constitution to which my attention had never before been called as proof to support such a positionf Turning to the Constitution we find a clause which provides that Congress shall have power to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the U.S. How? By laying and collecting taxes, duties, imposts, and excises; but all duties, imposts, and excises shall be uniform through out the U.S. That was the clause I suppose the gentleman intended to refer to: strange proof for such a ur.pose ! If the gentleman will look a little er he will find another clause which provides that Congress shall have power “to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” This would have suited his purpose fully as well; it is just as clearly in point as ithe.f;irst, because neither of the clauses can be so tortured as to have the remotest earing or lend the least support to his position. Now, sir, I do not know whether it was a mock fight or not. But while the Gentfrom Ohio was ready to embrace most heartily this bloody monster of a bill, he would yet vail it a little in the preamble; he would have the words “so called” stricken out. Denying that the loyal citizens of the South were a conquered people or had ever forfeited any of their rights, he is yet ready to establish an absolute despotism over loyal and disloyal alike, as this bill does. He quarrels with the preamble with the shadow yet embraces the substance. If that scene in which the gentleman figured was but a mock fight for the leadership of that side of the House, then if I had a vote in the matter I should say, let the Gentfrom Pennsylvania {Mr. STEVENs] continue in the leadership, because he is more open and undisguised; he seeks no concealment; he does not vail from the public gaze a proposition, however mon strous, which he is ready to embrace, nor will you ever hear him argue that the power is derived from the Constitution to pass such a bill as this. Not at all. He takes the ground now that he took some 2 or 3 years ago, that “all compacts between the North and South were abrogated and destroyed, and that thence forth the fate of each section depended upon the will of the conqueror, under the laws of war and the laws of nations.” Grant him his premises and he is always consistent in his conclusions; and certainly he will always con. tend boldly for his premises, whether you grant them or not. I think that they are all wrong; I am sure they are; but, as I have just said, the gentleman is too good a lawyer to claim power under the Constitution to pass such a bill. He claims it outside of the Constitution, from the Iaws of war and conquest. I wish to call the attention of gentlemen to 2 predictions made by 2 great men men great, however, in very different ways. All who were here during the period of which I speak will remember that from 1861 all through the war it was proclaimed publicly by the President over and over again, and by all his most distinguished supporters, that the Union was and must be perpetual; that it could not be dissolved or destroyed except by successful revolution. They all stood together upon that platform, and claimed and seemed to be Union men. But I recollect very distinctly that some 2 or 3 years ago the Gentfrom Pennsylvania {Mr. STEVENs] rose and repudiated the whole of that theory, and announced the doctrine “that all previously existing compacts between the North and the South were abrogated and destroyed; and that thenceforth the doom of either section depended upon the result of the armed conflict; that if the South was conquered it would be subject to the absolute will of the conqueror!” and if the North should be conquered it would in like manner be subject to the South. That utterance called out quite a number of assailants, and members on that side of the House, from Massachusetts and elsewhere, combatted his theory as ruine us and false. A fierce debate upon that the ory sprung up at the time, and it found no favor from any quarter; but the gentleman poised himself and remarked that “he was generally a little in advance, ” that he was regarded as a pioneer; “but, ” said he, “after awhile you will all be with me.” 2 or 3 years have elapsed that prediction is verified; and today these gentlemen are all with him, all ready to proclaim the same disunion doctrine. The other prediction I wish to recall is that of another great man, from a different section of the country, and, as I have said, great in a very different way a man who loved his country above all things else, a man who looked into the future with almost the vision of a rophet Daniel Webster. He is reported to E. exclaimed on one occasion “Let theseinfernal fanaticsgetcontrol of the Government and they will treat the decisions of the SupremeCourt with contempt;, they will make laws to suit themselves; they will lay violent hands on all who opposethem: theywill bankrupt the country, and finally deluge it with blood.’ Now look at what has been done. That very party obtained control of. the Government. has been war; that war is over, but the Union is not restored, and at this very moment the public debt, mountain high, is casting its joand blighting shadow of bankruptcy over the whole country. We are literally bankrupts today; and generations to come must be ground to the earth under the crushing weight of this monstrous debt. Has not the land been deluged in blood, been literally reddened all over with the blood of half a million men? And last, has not the Supreme Court been treated with contempt here in this very Hall? Yes, sir, we have seen here the attempt to bring into ridicule and contempt the last refuge of liberty for the opPressed. The only hope that now lights up the darkness of the horizon is that court; and that court has been rudely assailed here in this Hall, and why? Because it proclaimed a truth known to every lawyer who i. read at all. That truth was that a “military commission taking charge of a citizen not connected with the Army or the Navy, and trying and executing him is guilty of That murder.” is the whole of it. And I aver now that whenever a civilian, not connected with the Army or the Navy, is tried by a military commission, sentenced and executed, that is an act of cold blooded murder; and there is not a lawyer in the U.S. who can frame even a plausible defense for such an act. And for declaring that truth the SCOTUS has been assailed and every where treated with contempt. And now, right in the face of that decision of the highest judicial tribunal of this country, it is proposed to recnact and sanction these if. military commissions. Now, as I said before, if any of these bills is to pass, I care not which it is. The one coming from the Gentfrom Massachusetts {Mr. ELIoT] is only vailed and concealed a little. It provides for military rule, for a brigadier general who is to command in Louisi ana, and to have all the force he desires to carry out his will. There is the absolute control, the bloody despotism of military power; though kept a little in the background, it is not a whit better than the other bill. Now, I again call on gentlemen who deny that the Union has been dissolved, for I suppose this military bill is to pass if any does, to Waus.e before they take this last and final step. does this bill do? It proclaims the Union dissolved; it declares that ten States are out of the Union; and if ten States are out all are out; the Constitution holds and binds all together or it holds none. It proclaims that the Union is dissolved; that the experiment of man's capacity for self government is a fail ure. This is the last struggle, and I fear its result will be as sad and melancholy as that of former republics. All along the stream of time you can see the wrecks of departed republics. The last experiment is now being made in this country. And yet gentlemen are disposed to rush madly upon the passage of a bill declaring in substance that the Union is dissolved, establishing an absolute military despotism over ten States with a population of 8 or ten million people, giving to the military commander unlimited and absolute power over life, liberty, property, and all things else. True, it is said and it is all the more humiliating that it is said that when a military commission shall try and pass sentence of death upon a citizen, he.". be executed until the brigadier general commanding shall approve the sentence. That is, a man is not to lose his head until there is time to prepare an ax and block. And, then, another provision of the bill is still more humiliating; that while the writ of habeascorpus is suspended everywhere in the southern States it is placed under the absolute control of military officers, and a commissioned officer, a colonel in the Army, may, as an act of sovereign grace and mercy, give authority to the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to issue a writ of habeascorpus. Now, how humiliating it is to talk about passing a bill that puts the judicial power of the U.S., with all laws, constitutions, and courts, absolutely under the feet of military power And yet as an act of mere grace you say to a justice of the SCOTUS, if a colonel in the Army shall write giving you permission to do so, you may issue a writ of habeascorpus, but not otherwise. Now, sir, it would be folly to inquire whether a bill like this finds any favor in the Constitution. That is a question which does not deserve argument. Every man who gives the subject impartial consideration must know that there is not a shadow of constitutional authority for it. Let me remind you, sir, that the Gentfrom Pennsylvania {Mr. STEVENs] not pretend to claim constitutional authority for it. Why, sir, when WestVirginia was erected into a State that gentleman himself declared that there was no constitutional authority for that step, and that he found no warrant for it in the Constitution, and that he voted for it on other grounds.