'^y- ■cko 013 789 92;£A % CONSTITUTION THE TRUE EEMEDT. OF HON. EDGAR COWAN, OF PENNSYLVANIA, ON THE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION OF THE COMMITTEE OF FIFTEEN. DELIVERED IN TEE SENATE OP THE UNITED STATES, MARCH 2, 1S66. The Senate resumed the consideration of the following resolution of the House of Representatives: Resolved by the House of Representatives, (the Senate concurring,) That in order to close agita- tion upon a question which seems likely to disturb the action of the Government, as well as to'qui- et the uncertainty which is agitating the minds of the people of the eleven States which have been declared to be in insurrection, no Senator or Hepresentativtj shall be admitted into either branch of Congress from any of said States until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such representation. The pending question being on the amendment of Mr. Hendricks to insert the words "the inhabitants of" after "eleven States." Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, in any remarks I may make to-day, I shall not at- tempt to suggest any new remedies for the evils which now afilict the country. I shall only try to show that the old are amply sufficient, and tliat there is not the least necessity for going outside the Constitution and laws in order to vindicate the Government. We do not need^to amend the one or to remodel the other and es- pecially we ought not to violate the one and disregard the other in order to attain our ends. I am glad to say to the country that I only state in this the views of the Presi- dent. He has sworn to support and maintain the Constitution and see that the laws are fully executed, and he will stand there, no matter what comes. My object now, then, is simply to induce a return to the great principles of the Government which for a period of three quarters of a century were undisputed and which gave to us a progress and prosperity heretofore unparalleled in the world. Mr. President, the United States are in themselves a body-politic or corporation created originally by thirteen States, with certain powers conferred upon it by a great charter called "The Constitution of the United States," which from the year 1787 till the present, with a few amendments not material here, has continued to be the law of its existence and the measure of its powers and authority. In and by the terms of the Constitution it was provided that new States might be admit- ted by the Congress into the Union, and under this authority, from time to time States have been admitted till the number amounts to thirty-six. ' The States that originally joined in creating the Union were themselves bodies- politic or corporations, with governing powers granted to them by their people supreme, except so far as limited in their constitutions and the Constitution of the United States. The new States have also their charters or constitutions, made by their people, and, when once admitted, stand upon the same footing in all respects as the original States, The Constitution further provides that the Senate of the United States shall be ewnposed of two Senators from each State, acd that each House shall be the jndee of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members. Five years ago, upon the election of Mr. Lincoln to the Presidency, the secession party of the cotton States, deeming it a fitting occasion to commence the carrying out of their Bchemes, and being in possession of most of the places of power in thos« EL (^2 ■CtL States, they undertook to repeal the ordinances by which they had bound them- selves in the Union by enacting ordinances of secession. They then expelled the United States authorities from the possession of their territories in all of their parts, except two small forts, Pickens and Sumter. In the mean time the Congress was in session and the President was in the Executive Mansion. They had full power to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and they had full power to call forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union" and suppress the insurrection. They did nothing, and for four mouths the people of the cotton States were left at the mercy of the conspirators, with no protection and no assist- ance. The Government was paralyzed, and the rebels, without let or hindrance, established a confederate government in fact and in full possession, which had the power to compel the obedience of the people to all its decrees and laws; and this was done with an iron hand. The people on their part, without organization, without means, looked in vain to the United States for aid and deliverance, but none came. They voted, when they had a chance, in opposition to the scheme of secession, but their votes were disiegarded and the usurpation went on to its com- pletion. The 4th day of March, 1S61, came, and Mr. Lincoln was inaugurated. There was no Congress. The Army was demoralized, the Navy was distrusted, and the Treasury was empty. No one knew what to do ; wise men hesitated ; timid men quailed ; and it was doubtful whether we would attempt to rescue the people, sup- press the insurrection, and put the Union again in possession. This suspense last- ed till the r2th of April, 1861, when the rebels, emboldened by the apparent weak- ness of the Government, opened fire upon Fort Sumter to drive the United States from the possession of their last foothold in South Carolina. The first shot settled the question forever ; almost every man in the North started as if struck by it, and rushed to offer his service to the President. War was imminent, and sides must be taken. Mr. Greeley, in his American Conflict, volume one, page 450, says : " Secession, as we have seen, had been initiated by the aid of the most positive assurances that, once fairly in progress, every slave §tate would speedily and surely unite in it; yet, up to this time but seven of the fifteen slave States, having a decided minority of the population , and a still more decided minority of the white inhabitants, of that 'section,' had justified the sanguine prom- ise. On the contrary the so-cailed ' border States,' with Tennessee and Arkansas, had voted not to secede, and most of them by overwhelming majorities ; save that Kentucky, Maryland, and Del- aware had scarcely deigned to take the matter into consideration. And, despite vice president Stephen's glowing rhetoric, it was plain that the seceded States did not and could not suffice to form a nation'. Already the talk in their aristocratic circles of protectorates and imported princes betrayed their own consciousness of this. Either to attack the Union, and thus provoke a war, or to sink gradually but surely out of existence beneath a general appreciation of weakness, insecu- rity, and intolerable burdens, was the only choice left to the plotters and upholders of secession. "And, though signally beaten in the recent elections of the non-seceded slave States, they had yet a very strong party in most of those States; stronger in wealth, in social standing, and in po- litical activity and influence than iu numbers. A majority of these had been able to bring the con- ventions or Legistures of their respective States to say. with tolerable unanimity. ' If the Black Republicans attempt to coerce the seceded States we will join them in armed resistance.' It was indispensable, therefore, to their mutual purposes that there should bs 'coercion.' " So late as the 4th— a month after the return of their 'commissioners' from the abortive peace conference — Virginia, through her convoation, by the decisive vote of 89 to 45, refused to pass an ordinance of secession." In March, Tennessee voted 91,803 Union and 24,749 for convention, {Ihid, page 481,) but afterward the Legislature entered into articles with the confederacy giv- ing it control of the military force and public property — Senate, yeas 14, nays 6, absent or not voting 5; House, yeas 43, nays 15, absent or not voting 18. This was the 7th of May, 1861, and an ordinance of secession was ratified by the peo- ple on the 8th of June following, under the following circumstances, says Mr. Greeley, page 483 — and I read with great pleasure from Mr. Greeley, because if there is any man in the country who ought to be authority with the dominant party in the ScLate, I think it is Mr. Greeley : "The network of railroads checkering the State, and especially the great line connecting Vir- ginia, through Knoxville and Chattanooga, with the cotton States, was instantly covered with rebel soldiers, and all freedom of opinion and expression on the side of the Union completely crush- ed out. Governor Harris, on the 24th of June, issued hii proclamation declaring that the vote of the 8th had resulted as follows : Separation. No Separation. East Tennessee 14, 780 32, 923 Middle Tennessee 58,265 8,198 West Tennessee 29,127 C,117 Military Camps 2,741 Total 104,913 47,238 "But a convention of the people of East Tennessee — a region wherein the immense preponder- ance of Union sentiments still commanded some degree of freedom for Unionists — held at Green- ville on the 17th, and wherein thirty-one counties were represented by delegates, adopted a decla- ration of grievances wherein they say : " We, the people of East Tennessee, again assembled in a convention of our delegates, make the •Tollowing declaration in addition to that heretofore promulgated by us at Knoxville on tlie the 30th and 31st days of May last. " So far as we can learn, the election held in this State on the 8th-day of the present month was free, with but few exceptions, in no part of the State other than E^stTeinie.ssce In the larger i)or- tion of Middle and West Tennessee no speeches or discussions in favor ofthcUnion were permitted. ■Union papers were not allowed to circulate. Measures were taken in some parts of Tennessee in defiance of the constitution and laws, which allow folded tickets, to have the ballots numbered in such manner as to mark and expose the Union voters," From the ssine volume, page 465, we may learn how North Carolina was carried into the whirlpool of rebellion. Here it is: ■'The State of North Caraliaa, though never deliberately and intelligently hostile to the Union, became a much easier prey to the conspirators. Her Democratic Legislature — reconvened at Ra- ieiifh, November 19, 1860 — had refused, a month later, to pass a bill to arm the State, though visit- ed and and entreated to that end by Hon. Jacob Thompson, then a member of Mr. Buchanan's Cab- inet; and had adjourned without even calling a convention. This, as we have seen, did not pre- vent Governor Ellis taking military possession of the Federal forts near Beaufort and Wilmington (January 2) on the pretext that, if he did not do it, a mob would! He proceeded to convene the Legislature in extra session, and to worry it into calling a convention for which an election was duly held. But the act making this call provided that the people, when electing delegates, might vote that the convention should or should not meet. They profited by the gracious permission, and while electing a Union convention by an immense majority; voted — to guard against acci- dents — that the convention should not meet; their vote — quite a heavy one — standing, for hold- ing, 46,672; against holding, 47,823; majority for no convention, 651. This vote temporarily checked all open, aggresive movements in the interest of disunion, but did arrest nor diminish the efforts of its champions. On the contrary, a great State rights convention was assembled at Ra- leigh on the 22d of .March, and largely attended by disunionists from Soutli Carolina, Virginia, and other States. Its spirit and its demonstrations left no doubt of the fixed resolve of the master-spir- its to take their State out of the Union, even in defiance of a majority of her voters. But they con- cluded to await the opportunity which South Carolina was preparing. This opportunity was the taking of Fort Sumter; when Governor Ellis proceeded to seize the United States branch mint at Charlotte and the Fedei'al arsenal at Fayetteville ; and thereupon to call an extra session of the Legislature. This session commenced May 1, and in a few days thereafter resulted in the passage of the following: " 'Whereas by an unwarranted and unprecedented usurpation of power by the Administration at Washington city, the Government of the United States of America has been subverted; and whereas the honor, dignity, and welfare of the people of North Carolina imperatively demand that they should resist, at all hazards, such usurpation ; and whereas there is an actual state of rev- olution existing in North Carolina, and our sister state of Virginia, making common cause with us, U threatened with invasion by the said Administration: Now, therefore, " ' Resolved, That his Excellency the Governor be authorized to tender to Virginia, or to the gov- ernment of the confederate States, such portions of our volunteer forces now, or that may be here- after, under his command as may not be necessary for the immediate defense of North Carolina. Here is his version of the way Arkansas ordinance was procured, to be found on page 486 : " The Arkansas convention assembled .about the 1st of March, and on the 16th was waited on by William S. Oldham, a member of the confederate Congressand a commissioner from Jefferson Davis, bearing a message from that potentate dated March 9, four daysafter the adjournment of Congress, and when the contents of Mr. Lincoln's inaugural were familiar to the entire South. The conven- tion listened to Mr. Davis's letter wherein he dilated on the identity of institutions and of interests between his confederacy and the State of Arkansas, urging the adhesion of the latter to the former ; and after taking two days to deliberate, a majority — 39 to 85 — voted not to secede from the Union. The convention proceeded, however, to resolve that a vote of the people of their State should be ta- ken on the 1st of August ensuing — the ballots reading 'seeession' or 'cooperation" — theconvention to stand adjourned to August 17, when if it should appear that secession had received a majority this should be regarded as an instruction from their constituents to pass the ordinance which they had now rejected ; and so having elected five delegates to a proposed conference of the border States at Frankfort, Kentucky, May '27, theconvention stood adjourned. Yet this identical convention was reconvened ujion the reception of the news from Fort Sumter, and proceeded with little hesitation to pass an ordinance of secession by a vote of 69 to 1. That ordinance asserts that this convention, by resolves adopted March 11, had pledgtd 'the State of Arkansas to resist to the last extremity .any attempt on the part of such power te coerce any State that seceded from the old Union.' The ordinance proceeds to set forth that the Legislature of Arkansas had, on the 18th October, 1S36, by virtue of authority vested therein by the convention which framed the State Constitution, adopted certain propositions made to that State by Congress, which propositions were freely accepted, rati- fied, and irrevocably confirmed as articles of compact and Union between the State of Arkansas and the United States, which irrevocable compact this convention proceeded formally to revoke and an- nul, and to declare 'repealed, abrogated, and fully set aside,' by the iilentical act which witdrawi Arkansas from the Union afid absolves its citizens from all allegiance to its Government." " On summing up the results of all the indications of public opinion, it is im- possible to dissent from the conclusion of Mr. Greeley's twenty- second chapter, page 351 : " The slave States and District which had not united in the movement were as follows : Statei. Free population in ISW. Slax-es. Total Arkansas 324,323 111,104 435,427 Delaware 110,420 1,798 112,218 Kentucky 930,'223 225,490 1,155,713 Maryland 599,846 87,188 687,034 Missouri 1,067,352 114,965 1,182,317 North Carolina 661,586 331,081 992,667 Tennessee 834,063 27S,784 1,109,847 Virginia 1,105,192 490,887 1,593,079 District of Columbia 71,895 3,131 75,076 Total. ., 6,764,900 1,641,478 7,346,078 "So that, after the conspiracy had had complete possession of the southern mind for three months, with the southern members of the Cabinet, nearly all the Federal officers, most of Governors and oUier State functionaries, and seven eighths of the prominent and active politicians, pressing iton, ajid no force exerted against nor in any manner threatening to resist it, a majority of the slave States, with two thirds of the free population of tlio entire slaveholding region, were openly and positively adverse to it; either because they regarded the alleged grievances of the South as exag- gerated if not unreal, or because they believed that those wrongs would rather be aggravated than cured by disunion." Now, to sum up, hers is a free population of over five and a half millions in the insurrectionary States, of which, Mr. Greeley asserts two thirds to have been loyal and true to the Union in spite of the extraordinary influences brought to bear upon them, leaving not quite two millions represented by secession. But to under- stand this in a still clear light, it is necessary to analyze this two millions and take a look at its elements before we undertake to decide upon its loyalty. Arkansas had a white populatian of 324,323 in 1860, and she cast a vote of 54,- 050, showing that the adult males over twenty-one years of age were almost ex- actly one sixth of the whole. Who were the other five sixths? "Women and children. Yes, sir, 270,000 poople in Arkansas, whom nobody would dream of charging with treason, who could not well commit it under any circumstances, much lees in those which surrounaed them. Again, 25,321 adult men voted against Mr. Breckinridge, against 28,732 for him, and I suppose nobody pretends but that those who voted for Douglas and Bell were Union men, whatever the others might be. But who were the others ? They were 28,000 of the rank and file of Am<>rican voters, and I will consider for the argumei I's sake that they were as intelligent as any equal number taken from any other part of the country. How many of them voted for Breckinridge with in- tent to destroy the Union? No man can say that if that had been the issue dis- tinctly pronounced, that 14,000 would have so voted, nor that 7,000 would have done so, nor indeed that any number would have done so, except the actual lead- ers of the movement. So much for Arkansas. Let us look at Tennessee next. Her white population was 834,000, and her votes in 1860, were, Bell 69,274, Douglas 11,350, and Breck- inridge 64,209, or a few more than one sixth of the whole, and showing a majority of morn than 16,000 votes for the Union candidates. Bell and Douglas. She had 700,000 or nearly, of innocent women and children, and 80,000 loyal voters at least, and if we add to these the thousands and tens of thousands who voted for Breckinridge without for one moment thinking of treason, among them the present President of the United States, whose loyalty has been tried in the fire, how many actually guilty conspirators can you point out in Tennessee? Will any one hazard the assertion that 10,000 or even 5,000 original conspirators could be found there? Let him hesitate. Next North Carolina. Her white population was 661,586, and her votes in 1860 were, for Douglas 2,701, Bell 44,990, Breckinridge 48,638, or nearly one for every seven and a half of her people, and all I have said of Tennessee may well apply to her. Virginia prejents herself in the same category with a vote somewhat larger for her population, and a majority of more than 18,000 for the Union candidates. And so I might go on, with every State, county, and neighborhood throughout the South, and after sifting the matter to the very bottom, it would be found that the number of the guilty contrivers of secession is so small when compared with the masses of the people, or even the masses of the voters, that it sinks into insignifi- cance. Nor is this strange. It is only what the world has always known, and the po-tulate upon which it has always acted. There never can be in any community as highly civilized as ours any very great number of men capable of the crime of treason, and it is well it is so, otherwise society would enjoy few intervals of peace- ful repose. War would be the rule and not the exception. The people in all ages have been disposed to yield themselves to leaders, and to fallow them, not always with a blind obedience, but with confidence that their trust would not be abused. How many responsible leaders were there in the seceding States when the United States authorities were ousted from the possession of their territories? How many guilty men controlled the movement up till the time they had the people wholly in their power? Because from that time forward you will remember that no man who had not taken part before, can be or ought to be responsible except in so far as he suffers in the war which follows. Were there ten thousand, or were there but five thousand? In answering this question let every man look to his own county or district, and let him fix the number of men in it who ought to be held for the disorders sure to result for an attempt of this. kind. I think he will find the number he would ever think of arraigning to be very few. Where, too, are most of those guilty men of the South to-day ? Is not much the larger number of them gone ; some dead in the course of nature, Floyd, Yanoey, and others ; some dead on the battle-fields, as Jackson, Barksdale, and others; some are in exile in foreign lands as Mason, Slidel', Price, WigfalJ, and others; so that those who remain are incapable of great mischief, or only of such mischief as we have ample means of preventing by recourse to the common and obvious legal remedies. If any man asks how it eame that the people, being in favor of the Union, could be overcome and led away into such a terrible rebellion as we have just put down without being themselves guilty, I will answer him that in this case their confidence was abused by their leaders; they were for a long time induced to believe that these were their friends, with no motive in view but the good of the whole country; that their zeal in their behalf was the result of excessive patriotism and not heated by ■an unseen fire; that they were their safest defenders against the greater strength of the North because they were loudest in their warnings of danger from that qua»- ter, and therefore they bestowed upon them all the offices and places in the gift of the strongest and most popular party in their midst. All usurpers achieve places of power by great apparent devotion to the interests of the people, and I suppose the cruelty of the tyrant has always been pitiless in the same ratio as his former patriotism was ardent. His shortest route to the throne is when he marches through the most crowded thoroughfares bearing aloft the flag of liberty ; and the devil is never half so successful and bloody in his crusades as when he puts on the armor of euperior'sanctity and walks humbly under the banner of the cross. Again, the people are easily misled by terror or overcome by fear. The v;"ick- ed and designing combine, contrive, and organize; the virtuous and unambitious pursue their avocations; the first multiply their power indefinitely by acting in concert according to a preconcerted plan; the latter, however numerous, are as an army without leaders and without discipline, an easy prey to their captors. Here, too, perhaps, lies the true secret of the necessity for government, inasmuch as it is the organized force of the people kept constantly on foot for the purpose of furnishing for them a rallying point from which to resist and crush other and inimi- cal combinations against the peace of society. Hence nothing so much aids in a revolutionary movement in a confederacy as that the insurgents should get holi of the governments of the States composing it, or some of them, because the treason is easy in proportion to the control the traitor can exercise over the insignia of power among the people. Let him carry the loyal flag, and thousands will follow it as though in loyal hands. Let him sign with the national seal, and. thousands will respond as though the impress was made by a loyal ofiicer. The Government of England halted at one timebecause James H had thrown the great fleal into the Thames] How to get along without that piece of iron was a puz- zle, but it shows the reverence men everywhere entertain for tiie insignia, the emblems, of power. Thus in our case, when the secessionists procured themselves to be made Gover- Tiors, judges, and legislators all over the southern States, according to their several constitutions and laws, they were in a position to command the obedience of the southern people wherever they were not protected by superior fort^e. Nor will it be found so easy for the common people to decide between the State and the United States when they are in conflict as mojt persons thoughtlessly suppose. Lawyers may be very clear; but the people are not all lawyers, and are not expected to judge correctly of either titles or jurisdiction; they usually follow those who are in possession of the tribunals to which they are accustomed. Hear Mr. Greeley on some of the machinery which may be brought to bear upon them by means of secret societies, organized with the sole view of overawing them, and compelling their co- operation in deeds of violence, and then let Senators say what they would have done themselves in such a reign of terror. I read from page 350, et seq: /' " Before the opening of 1861, a perfect reign of terror had been established throughout the Gulf ■States. A secret order, known as 'Kniglits of the Golden Circle,' or as 'Knights of the Columbian Star,' succeeding that knovfn, six or seven years ealier, as tlie 'Urder of the Lone Star,' having for its ostensible object the aquisition of Cuba, Mexico, and Central America, and the establishment of slavery in the two latter, but really oijerating in the interest of disunion, had spread its network of lodges, grips, passwords, and alluring mystery all over the South, and had ramifications even in some of the cities of the adjoining free States. Other clubs, more or less secret, were known as 'the Precipitators,' 'Vigilance Committee,' 'Minute Men,' and by kindred designations; butallofthem (were sworn to fideiity to 'southern rights,' while their members were gradually prepared and ripen- ed, wherever any ripening was needed, for the task of treason. Whoever ventured tocondemn and repudiate secession as the true and sovereign remedy for southern wrongs, in any neighborhood ■where slavery was dominant, was thenctforth a marked man, to be stigmatized and hunted down as a 'Lincolnite,' ■'submissionist,' or 'abolitionist.' One refugee planter from southern Alabama, himself a slaveholder, but of northern birth, who barely escaped a violent death because of an in- tercepted letter from a relative in Connecticut, urging him to free his slaves and return to the North, as he had promised, stated that he had himselfbeen obliged to join the 'Minute Jlen' of Lis neighborhood for safety, and had thus been compelled to assist in hanging six men of northern birth because of their Union sentiments, and he personally knew that not less than one hundred men had been hung in his Bection of Georgia, during the sii weeks which preceded his escape in December, 186a '^ And at this point I wish Senators to pause before determining, upon the guflt of the people of any State in circumstances like these. Let us see if the fault was on.' their side. Where were they to look for protection against all this terrible machinery of parties, secret societies, precipitators, vigilance committees, and minute-men, backed as they were by the State officers everywhere? What power had they established, to stand watch and ward over them at such a time? It was the Federal Govern- ment of the United States, having authority over the armies, the militia, and the^ navies of the United States. It was-, too, the very object of all these threats, and! was openly notified and cognizant of all these peparations against it. It was- bound by the very law of its own existence to defend' itself, and it was further bound, nay, it was of the very essence of its Constitution, to protect the freedom; and liberties of the people. It was created for that purpose, and was entitled to the allegiance of the people only whenWt performed its trust. U hat then, I ask, did it do? Ml". President, I tremble when I answer, nothing, nothing; but, on the other hand, allowed itself to be ignominiously stripped of its a/senals, forts, and public- property of every kind all over the disaffected region. STot a gun was fired, not a- sword drawn, to sustain its authority or vindicate its honor. Congress accuses the President, and the President accuses Congress, for these shameful derelictions of duty. I leave it to the future to decide between them; it is enough that we do now know that there never was such a great breach of public trust before. Never before had men entrusted with the government of a great empire counting millions- upon millions of people loyal and true to it abdicated their high prerogatives so- basely ; never before were a people so shamefully deprived' of that protection which was due to them as the consideration for their allegiance. And yet it is this people, thus betrayed by their leaders, by their State govern- ments, by tie Federal Government, thus defenseless in the very face of civil war, who voted every time they were free to do so for the old Union and the old flag; with a pertinacity and a resolution of which every lover of his country and its people ought to be proud. And* it is this same people who, after being rescued from the grasp of the conspiracy, are constantly held' up to the country as though they had been all traitors. And while the Federal Government is now in undispu- ted possession of all the national domain, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, with ample means and opportunity to seize upon and arrest all original conspirators and leaders in secession, all Knights of the Lone Star or Golden Circle, all vigilance committees, all precipitators and minute-men, with courts, judges, juries, marshals, etc., and all the machinery proper for their trial and conviction, yet no one has been punished, nor have I seen or heard of a single one of all the furious patriots- with which this Congress teams, and who never speak of the South without telling-; you it is swarming with traitors, who has made the slightest effort to enforce the law against any one of these really guilty persona. Not one of them has sued out" a warrant, not one has made an arrest, not one of them ha-s even asked that the law and the law alone shall decide; not one. And yet these same persons spend week, after week and month after month in devising unlawful measures and schemes for the punishment of the people, not as individuals in courts,, where they may be heard in their own defense, but as States and communities, in a Congress where Ih y are not represented, and where all are confounded together, loyal and disloyal, true men and traitors, innocent and guilty, tender women and blood"-stained minute- men, little children and grim demagogues, in one great mass, condemned as guilty, and punished as such -with a rigor that Austria has repented of and Russia aban- doned, it is hoped, forever. Mr. President, 1 am unable to express in terms sufficiently strong my condemna- tion of our cruelty to this rescued people. When I thiuk of the way we abandoned them in the outset, how we allowed them to get into the toils of the conspirator? 5, of the terrible war in which they were involved, of their desolate homes and de- vastated fields, I cannot think there is a human being wLo would say that they ought to suffer further. Whatever guilt may have been on their souls surely has been atoned for by what they have suffered in the war, and as the people thev are purged, and ought to stand purged in the forum of the nation. I say the people are purged; war always purges the people; but I want it dis- tinctly understood, that while I myself utter no cry for more blood, I will do all that lies in my way to punish any I think really guilty of treason in this rebellion. If I find one of this sort undertaking to thrust himself into the councils of the coun- try or to take the lead in public affairs, I will not 8pj>eal to the House of Represen- tatives nor to the Senate,nor to the President to prevent him; I will appeal to that which is higher still — the law, the expressed will of the American people. 1 will have him arrested by the law, arraigned by the law; I will offer evidence of his guilt to a jury of his peers, and I will not assail his State or its people. I will not involve the women and children of hia neighborhood in his guilt; nay, in my eyea his own wife and children shall be presumed innocent. He shall be heard in his defense fully, and confronted with the witnesses against him. lie may show everything which goes to show his innocence; he may show that the Federal Gov- ernment either did not or could not protect him ; that another government was over him which he durst not disobey. I would have all this done, soberly, sol- emnly, and patiently, in a court of justice, and aecoring to all xhe forms which have b«en adopted by us as befitting the dignity of the American people, so that all men should bow their heads reverently in presence of its majesty. If he was (.'onvicted, I would have him punished and made ignominious. Treason is a great, nay, the most heinous of all crimes, and ought to be punished; but it must be punished by the law, and not by Congress nor by the military nor by anybody but the law, ad- ministered by the judges and jurors in the courts. It is no answer to say to me that the courts are corrupt and the juries are tainted; the man who makes such an assertion asserts the infamy of his Government, the infamy of liis countrymen, and that the great Republic has failed to answer the ends for which it was established. The law is the will of the American people, and whenever the Government cannot or will not try and punish all offenses against that law, th^n the American people are at the mercy of offenders or tyrants. It is time we came to this, Mr. President. It will be the solution of all our difB- eulties, and relieve us from all our troubles; but as long as we endeavor to impress our people with the idea that the populations of the southern States are all rebels and traitors, that they are not to be punished in courts by the law, but in Congress by a deprivation of their rights as free peoples, then the further we go the worse we will fare, for the simple reason that we assume as a fact that which is a false- hood. It is not true that the southern people are now or ever were all traitors; and if the Government had given them the protection to which their allegiance entitled them, they never would have yielded themselves to rebellion. Let us, then, treat their people according to the great law of the Union, as free States, equal members in the Union, and if we punish at alt, let us punish individ- uals in the courts, where punishment alqpe can be inflicted. I now propose to ajiply the principles I have laid down to a solution of the ques- tion which now agitates the country, and I think they will be found effectual. And at the outset, I may ask in all sincerity, what the difference may be, in the eyes of the law, between putting down a great rebellion by armies in war and arresting a single felon who resists by a constable? Is not the difference to be found wholly in the number of persons engaged? Is not the object in both cases the same — to vindicate the laws? Is not the means the same, to use such force as to compel submission to the laws? Surely nobody can doubt this, " Let us see, then, what happens during the process. If the felon resists, the constable may kill him; so, if the rebels resist, the soldiers may kill them. When the felon yields, the constable turns him over to the law ; and no matter how heinous may have been his crime or how desparate his resistance, he has a right to be tried by the law and punished by the law. The constable being himself the mere creature of the law as such of- ficer, must yield his prisoner to the law; as a man simply, he has no power to touch a hair of his head. So it is with the rebel or rebels when they surrender to the President or to his generals; these have no power to touch a hair of the head of one of them; the law, which is supreme over Presidents, generals, and Congress, becomes the arbiter of their fate the moment they yield, and this for the most potential of all reasons, namely, that the American people have so willed it They have adopted it in their Constitution and enacted it in their laws, and no greater indignity could be offered to thf'm than for any one, no matter who, who should dare to substitute his will and his punishment upon any criminal for the law and its punishment; and no mat- ter how atrocious has been the crimes of the prisoner he has a right to appeal to the law against all people; this also is due to the law, because it wa« against the law he offended, and to the law he ought to make atonement. And now, Mr. President, this disposes of, or ought to dispose of, all the questions with which the country is so uselessly convulsed. These I propose to examine seria- tim, and show not only their legal absurdity but also their mischievous effect in preventing the pacification of the country. The first of these whimsies is that the rebellion destroyed the States whose people were engaged in it by a kind of incorporeal felo de se. not very clearly explained even by the authors of the charge. And, indeed, when we consider that the State is an artificial and not a natural person, a body-politic or corporation, existing merely in contemplation of law, not having a soul to be damned nor a body to be kicked, it is difficult to see how it could achieve the extraordinary feat of commit- ting suicide. It is said, however, this is done by forfeiture, as a punishment for crimes committed, not by the State I suppose, for folly has not yet gone that length, 8 but by its ofEcers and people. "Well, I have no objection to the punishment of iu- dividuals who commit crimes, but I would ask where it was or is the law that the State should die for the sins of the people. I guess, however, that those who advo- cate this theory really mean to say to the people of the rebel States, '"You have been so wicked recently that as a penalty therefore you shall not have a State at ail." But the people, wicked though they may be, still have a right to say, " Will you be good enough to show us where it is written in the Constitution or laws of the United States that we shall not have a State as a punishment for any crime or crimes whatever? If there is any such law we submit of eourse.'* Nobody has shown any such law. But perhaps the best answer to the felo de se hypothesis is in the fact that the States in question give the lie to it by persisting to be alive all the time they are alleged to be dead. And what is still more conclusive, not only alive but vigorous and in very nearly full functio-\ with territories, boundaries, inhabitants, constitu- tions, laws, Governors, Legislatures, and judiciaries, and more than all that, with the armies of the United States standing by, ready to defend them from all internal and external dangers. This is thought quite ample to repel the imputation of self- murder. The second sophism is equally fallacious, but far more cowardly, because being afraid to say to a living corporate body "You are dead," it says "You are in fine robust health to be sure, but for fear j'ou might overdo yourself we will take the task of government off your hands and govern your people ourselves as a conquered people." So you see it comes back to the old point precisely, namely, that the peo- ple are or ought to be deprived of their States as a penalty for crimes. Another class of these patriots disavow the dogmas of dead States and conquered peoples, but nevertheless sternly insist that having put down the rebellion at an enormous loss of men and money, we have now a right to impose terms upon the States in question before we restore them again to their old rights. Some of them call this requiring indemnity for the past and security for the future, a phrase that has about as much application to the suppression of an insurrection as it has to the operation of the courts of quarter sessions in dealing with riots. This demand is liable as usual to the same fatal objection which beset the others — it is without the sanction of either Constitution or law, or rather in direct contravention of both. We have seen that when the rebels surrendered they surrendered to the law, and if the law provided no mode by which we can impose conditions or make terms then we are at an end of it Again, there is another set still more metaphysical in their notions. They hold that although the rebel States are still States in the Union, yet, because they -!l him it was necessary then to have a certain amount of constitutional learning, or did you say it was enough for him if he could give and rtceive ihe countersign ? Do not your pay-rolls show you took his mark as a valid signature, as valid as the struke of his sabre and the thrust of his bayonet And yet you leave him to the mercy of the States. Why do you do this? How do you intend to appologize to the men who fought your battles? How do you expect to conciliate the Army by thus abandoning the unlettered soldier at a point where he may be disfranchised even by Massachusetts ? Again, the States are competent to deal with the question of the age at which the voter is qualified. They may fix it at eighteen or thirty, or at any other age, without penalty. They can do the same with regard to residence. They can re- quire the voter to reside in one spot ten days or ten years before voting, and yet you do not restrain them. « You leave, too, at the mercy of the States the poor man ; they have the right to dir-franchise him to any extent. Is he not, too, a man and a brother? And upon what pritjeiple can you punish his povertj' as a disqualification ? It may be the result of unavoidable misfortune, the le.-ult of the visitation of God, or the act of the public enemy. It may be from defective organization, or may have been from the very excess of his virtues. Yet no one has ever suggested an amendment of the Constitution to protect him against the State in which he lives. It is not a ques- tion of race and color. You talk of taxation without representation, and you apply it not to the whole community, but to certain classes of the community. If so, how do you exclude the thousands of women all over the country who are pursued by your tax-gath- erers with as much rigor as if they were all members of Congress? Yet they are at the will of the States disfranchised now, and most likely will continue to be so. Did it not strike the committee of fifteen that something might be done for this meritorious class of our tax-payers? Is it composed wholly of single men, widowed or celibate ? It involves no question of race or color. Why should the foreigner who seeks our shores to aid us in establishing a glorious Republic where the people shall alone bear rule, run the risk of having to stand back at the bidding of a State, deprived of his franchise? How could he help the cause of his exclusion? It is very clear that he could not come to this country before he was born ; and if that event happened in foreign parts, I do not see, sir, how he could avoid it or postpone it until be could be ushered in with the Declaration of Independence in his pocket, and be swaddled in the starry folds of the national flag. He comes as soon as he could, and surely stands on as fair footing as those who did not come at all, or had to be brought. But, Mr. President, I have an®ther objection to this amendment, which is fatal, I think. It will be observed that th« committee who have reported this bill were appointed by Congress in order to inquire into the condition of States in which these negroes reside, it being alleged here that their people were so traitorous, dia- bolical, and malignant toward the Fedei'al Government and the negroes that they ought not to be allowed the privilege of representation in Congress along with their taxation, and the committee was to report thereon. Now, after weeks of inquiry, I infer the committee thinks that alleu;ation true, because surely, if it did not, it would not keep eleven sovereign States, deprived of that first and dearest of all righta, standing outside the legislative Halls where the laws are made which are to govern them. I say, then, they must i ave found or believed the people of those States were very bad people, or they would not have kept them out. Well, sir, this august committee, which, as I said some dnya ago, carries at its girdle the keys of the Union, and upon whose terrible fiat the rights of sovereign States depend ; this committee proposes in this amendment to sell out four million (radical count) negroes to the bud people of those St&tes forever and ever. In con- sideration of what, I am asked — oh, shame, where is thy blush! I answer, in dust and ashes, for about sixteen members of Congress. Has there ever been before, sir, in the history of this or any other country, such a stupendous sale of negroes as that? Never, never 1 It is saying to the southern States, you may have these millions of human beings whom we love so dearly, and whom you hate so inteiisely, and about whom we have said so much, and for whom we have done so much ; you may do with them as you please in the way of legislative discrimination against them, if you will only agr«e not to count them at the next census, except as your sheep and oxen arj counted ; waive your right to sixteen members of Congress, and the great compromise is sealed; the long agony is over; the nation's dead are avenged ; the nation's tears are dried ; and the nation's politics are relieved of the negro. 11 Again, this proposition presenting an alternative to the States, we have a right to suppose its authors intend to be satisfied, no matter which horn of the dileniiua is taken; if the States enfranchise the negro they are satisfied ; if, on tlie otlier htnd, they waive their riglit to the sixteen members of Congress, they are satisfie 1 ; and if this latter should turn out to be a swap of negroes in exchange for increased po- litical power, then they are satisfied. "Call you that backing of your friends?" No wonder many of the friends of hu- manity threaten to "starve ere they will rob a foot further in such company." I admire their spirit, and will strengthen their firmuesn if it needs it. The conclusion then is inevitable that the committee are perfectly willing that the States sliall have unlimited rights over all people except the negro, the man distinguished by race and color, and as to him, Lhey can also have these rights if they will yield their present right to sixteen members of Congress. And I might ask, does any man doubt what the States ought to do, nay, what they will do in the event this amendment becomes a part of the Constitution? Will they on any account, much less on account of a member of Congress or two in each State, agree to share political power with the negro? vVill they consent to make him the custo- dian of the institutions of their fathers, himself the helpless, degraded ward of the Freedmen's Bureau? "Will they open the door for hi^ admission to a seat in their magisterial chairs, their legislative assemblies, or to wear the ermine in their courts of justice? \^ ill they consent to enlarge the field wherein passion sows and dema- gogues reap, wherein the tribal antipathies of the races will be the terrible levers to be used by the tribal demagogues on both sides ? Can they possibly accept this insidious invitation to antagonize their people in that most dangerous strife of all, the strife of politics, where the lust of ambition and the love of money engender together a brood of demons delighting in conflagration, massacre, and war? To suppose it, sir, is to suppose the country gone mad, ready to rush on to its own destruction. No midnight witches in the interest of revolution ever threw into their fearful cauldron such a quantity of black ingiedients as is here contemplated, and none could form such a charm of powerful trouble. No one wi o knows the strife of races can think of the consequences without a shudder. Mr. President, I have shown, I think, bej^ond the possibility of dispute, that this amendment cares nothing really for the interests, rights, and liberties of white people, and really verj^ little for black people, but that the great pui'pose disclosed by it is to punish the States in which negroes reside by diminishing their rights of representation, and in the same ratio increasing the political power of the States having no black population. In other words, it is a scheme to transfer political power in Congress from one section of the Union and give it to another section. Here, sir, we have reason to congratulate ourselves that the framers of the amend- ment were not as sagacions as they were bold, not as wise as they were enter- prising. Their work is palpably defective, even to effectuate their own purposes, and their machinery is so clumsy of contrivance as to render it useless. As I have said before, their object is to deprive certain States of a part of their political power or else compel them to allow negroes to vote; and to achieve this, they provide "that Whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abtidged in any State on account of race or color, all persons therein of such race or color shall be excluded from the basis of representation." Now, I submit there are many ways of denying or abridging the right in question besides putting it on the ground of race and color, which are not in themselves reasons for the denial or abridgment in any case, but are mere words of description by which a class oi people are excluded. Now, if that class can be described by any other equally precise and definite terms, then these may be discarded and the reason for the exclusion still remain as before. Now, the negro is not now, never was, excluded, either on account of his race or color; surely not on account of his race, for the large majority of the people every- where believe that he is of our race, descended from our Adam, and entitled to be made alive in Christ the same as other men are. Nor is it on account of his color for if &11 to be hereafter born were Albinos, as many are, it would make no differ- ence, so far as the real reason is concerned. What is really the true reason foi his exclusion ? It is not that he is not a man, or that he is a colored man, but that he is an inferior man — an inferior article of man. Now, if a State denied sufl"rage to negroes on account of general ignorance, vice, or what not, this amendment would not punish the exclusion; it cannot be construed beyond its terms. Another objection is the uncertainty of the clause. Is it meant that all of the colored race in a State shall vote, men, women, and children ? I suppose not; but if not, where is the abridgment or denial to bejjiu which begets the forfeiture? Suppose it is confined, as in Massachusetts or in New York, that would not be a denial; would it be an unconstitutional abridgment? And how long would it take Congress to decide it on an apportionment bill? Cromwell's democratic il 12 House worked three weeks on the meaning of the word " incumbrances ;" this is a much more knotty puzzle. Affain, would the denial of ihe right to blacVs forfeit the right to represettations for the yellow, and if not how are the several shades of color to be distinguished ? Will all the classes have to be ki^pt separate or not? These and a hundred other difficulties might be stated, and no deliberative assembly could solve them, what- eve a court might do under the maxim that construction must make the clause avail, and not destroy it. But could it be avoided? What would prevent a State from expending the francViise before the apportionment to all, and after it was made withdrawing it? Congress could not reapportion for ten years, and the same pro- cess would serve again to defeat this provision at the end of that time. I know, sir, that it will be said that these objections are fine-spun, frivolous, &e., but to all who have listened to the debates which arise here upon the true import of phrases the meaning of which has been settled for hundreds of years, they will not appear so. Who could have foreseen that the phrase ' to coin money" could have been construed to give the right to issue United States notes, that is, to " coin money out of lampblack and rags," of leather, cloth, or anything you choose with or without reference to intrinsic value? Who coiild have foreseen an elabor- ate argument to prove the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution did not warrant the rendition of slaves, but orly absconding white apprentices? No, sir, the rule is to cavil on the ninth part of a hair, and those who are ambitious of fame as Con- stitution-makers should look to it. But. sir, I now come to a different class of objections, which in my judgment are sufficient to make all prudent men hesitate in the face of a proposition of this kind, made at the time, in the manner, and in the interest this is made. First, the pro- position in itself is revolutionary, striking directly at the freedom of the several States, and if accomplished will overturn the Government down to its very founda- tions. Revolutionary, because it seeks to influeuee the free distribution of politi- cal power in the States by saying to them. " If you do not bestow a portion of it upon a particular class of your people we will deprive you of it to the same extent your deprive them." Now, if there is any one thing more than another vital to the existence of a free State, which, indeed is of its very essence, it is that the people of such State shall say of themselves, without exteinal dictation, who shall and who shall not be the depositories of their political power; in other words, who shall do their voting, who shall east their ballots ; and ony attempt on the part of any power outside the State to compel them in any way to do in that behalf what they are unwilling to do is just so much sheer tyranny, and sets such outside power over that inside, making it the master. What right would New York have to compel New Jersey to admit a certain class of her people to this privilege? Or Pennsylvania to com- pel Maryland ? Would not these weaker States feel that such an attempt would be fatal to their independence? They would say at once that this rigl>t of theirs was vital, and to yield it would be to yield their freedom itself. Then, if New York or Pennsylvania have no supervisory rights of this kind, in what way could they ac- quire them by joining wiih them the rest of the States or any number of them? The clause is revolutionarj" and destructive, just as m\ich so as to attempt to com- pel the people of a State to elect such officers as might be pointed out to her by the United State for that purpose, because everybody knows that the elector in the States is just as much the creature of the people, just as much elected and chosen by them to vote as the officers are elected to hold offices. What would be thought of a proposition to amesd the Constitution to compel the States each to send one negro member to Congress? Yet this amendment auiounts to just the same thing in a roundabout way. It really says to certain States, if you do not elect a few negroes, you shall not elect anybody else instead; we will diminish the number to which you are now entitled in the same ratio as you discard them. Mr. President, whenever the Constitution is amended in this part of it, then there is no United States; there will be no States ; all will be consolidated into one great central despotisim, in which the States v ill plr.y the part of provinces, and all the safeguard we now have in the freedom of the people will be gone forever. I know many will say this amendment is fair because it will not hUow repre- sentation for a class of people who have no voice in public affairs. But this, sir, is founded in misapprehension. Our system is not one of class representation in any case, but the representation of communities, and when the community is repre- sented all classes in it are represented, although the great majority have not, and many cannot have a representation of their own. The Irish and Germans of Pennsylvania never think of claiming for themselves a class representation, neither do the various trades and occupations, but all are looked upon as constituting a unit for the purposes of State government, a unit for counties, cities, towns, &c., and there can be nothing unfair in the fact that any class is excluded : it only shows that its power in the community is subordinate to one superior. 13 others say that by the abolition of slavery two-fifths is added to the basis of the late slave representation, which, being the rtsuii of an accident not contemplated at the time, ought not to be allowed to remain for the advantage of the slave States. To this 1 answer, that from all we can learn, the number ot these negroes in 1870 will more than likely be two-tifibs less than it was in 1860, owing to their increased mortality resulting from the war, from the change iu their mode of life, and the withdrawal of the master's care over them. But whether or not, the free- dom of the States is worth more a thousand times, c.^pt cially to the smaller ones, than all the increase of power they would gain by this amendment. I am opposed to it, however, on other grounds. It is proposed to be carried by a minority party, for it will be recollected that there was nearly a million of a popular majority against Mr. Lincoln in 1860, when ali the States voted. They are all now back again, and I am inclined to think, unless we change our conduct toward them, there will not be a large number of them disposed to vote with the Republicans in the future. You will be in a minority again, and the majority will manifest itself by a return to power and place. Do you suppose they will not be disposed to do a little tinkering at the Conatitution, too ? These patches of yours look very unseemly to them, and they may take a notion to rip them off and put on some of their own not quite to please you. Indeed, 1 can conceive how they might affect you or some ot you even on this very tender point of representation. They might take it into their heads to make the Senate national instead of Federal ; and seeing you can do so much, being a minority, what do you think they cannot do, being a majority? Besides, you are only able to do this to them by shutting them out of these Halls; they may be strong enough to do it to you even while allowing you to be present to witness the operation. Now, sir, I would much rather let ali this alone than run the risk of having the same bitter chalice come bacii to our own lips in the future. It must also be evident to any sagacious man that an amendment to the Consti- tution which can only operate upon a particular section of the countr}', and which is proposed by Congress at a time when that section has no representation there, would not be worth a straw. Communities do not submit to such things so tamely, and sooner or later they manage to come out victorious over all such attempts to take advantage of their weakness. God himself may aid them. Who knows ? Besides this, sir, it would not be hard to show that none of these projects for amending the Constitution come from the people, or are demanded by the people with that earnest and decisive significance which ought always to precede organic changes such as this purports to be. How many people have petitioned for this change? Certainly 1 should think fifteen or twenty thousand would cover the whole of them, liow small a part of the thirty millions to be affected ; and what a narrow foundation upon which to base a change of a Constitution? But that is not the worst of it. We do know that a very large majority of the Republican party are opposed to any change. They have made great sacrifices to enforce the Constitution. They look upon it as the ark of our Union covenant, and they will permit no meddlesome Uzzah to lay officious hands upon it upon pretense that it requires his aid to steady it along. Then it is equally clear that the other half of the people of the North, the demo- ■cratic party, is also opposed to this and all similar measures. In fact, upon negro suffrage they are a unit in opposition. But the worst opposition, and the one most to be respected, is in the States where it alone would be felt; and on the whole I think it may be safely said that but a very small part of the whole people can be said to favor it. 1 now come to the resolution of the committee which proposes to stop agitation and quiet the country by declaring that eleven States shall not have representation in Congress or either branch of the same until Congress shall have declared such State entitled to such representation. Now, let us for one instant contemplate this most extraordinary proposition. la it not a virtual setting aside or suspension of the Constitution itself until Congress shall be moved to declare it restored ? That instrument declares that — "Representatives'' #**»«= "shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers," &c. And by an act of Congress of March 4, 1862, a certain number of Representatives fifty-six, were apportioned to the eleven States in question, fixing by law their constitutional right in this behalf. The resolution before us sets all that at naught, and declares that these States shall have no representation at all till Congress shall so decide. The Constitution further declares that — "Ths Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State." 14 And this resolution declares that eleven States shall have no Senators at all till Congress shall so decide Now, it is well to know whether Congress or the Constitution is supreme in this respect. We have been in the habit of thiiking Congress was but the creatTire of the Constitution; that its title to rule and legislate for the people was under and by virtue of that instrument. How, then, does it assume to disrea:ard it? Has the Sabbath become greater than the Lord of the Sabbath ? Has the stream risen above the fountain ? But it is said these Slates have been in rebellion. Well, suppose they have. Rebellion is treason ; treason is a crime, and ought to be punished. But can Con- gress inflict that puaishment ? The Constitution saj's emphatically : "\o bill of attaindtr or ex post facto law shall be passed." Kow, if Congress were to ppss this resolution, it would be both ; because it is a bill which of itself inflicts the privation of right upon the people of eleven Statee as a punishment for their alleged treason, which is a species of attainder known as a " bill of pains and penalties," and which ha^ been held to be included in the pro- hibition of " bills of attainder." Again, even if that barrier was not in the way, there is another equally impassable, lying in this. Up until this time it has never been the law of the Uuited State-! that a community could be punished at all en masse, either for treason or anyshing else, and if Congress were tc attempt it now as a punishment for crimes already committed, it -would be null and void ; it would be an " ex post facto law," and one expressly forbidden. The whole is monstrous no matter in what light it may be viewed. We have seen how small a number of traitors there were even in the worst parts of the South, and that after the people of all classes had been left by the Federal Govern- ment at the mercy of these fiends, men, women, and children ; after they had suf- fered all the miseries of war as the consequence, then to turn round to them and say to them, " We will not punish the rebels who are guilty, and who have brought all these misfortunes upon you, but we will punish you who are innocent." Instead of saying to the traitors " We will hang you for treason," you say to the innocent people, " We will keep you out of Congress," Think of it We have no right to do this, either by law or in morals, and just as long as we persist in it, just so long will we be the allies of disunion, andenemi s to the peace of the country. We hear it said here very often that in order to enable us to judge cor- rectly and act advisedl}' in this matter we ought to have a geneial recognition of the State government* by Congres?, that we may act together and avoid conflict. All this is plausible, but mischievous, because there is really not a doubt that the present State governments are in the sole and undisputed possession of their sev- eral States, and are obeyed cheerfully as such. And the pretense tiuit they require investigation and legislation to restore their relations with the Federal Government is only urged as it- indirectly attains the end so much to be deprecated, namely, that of punishing the people in an unlawful and unconstitutional manner. Another and fatil objection to the couree proposed in this resolution is that it providts for the joint action of the House and Senate in a matter which it is of the greatest moment she :ld be kept entirely separate. If joint action can take place incases of this kind, then the advantages which the country expecied, and which it has realized, in the Senate of the United States, are lost to it peihaps forever. The constitutions of the two Houses are entirely different. The Mouse of Repre- sentiitives is national, representing numbers ; the Senate is Federal, representing States. The great States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, are therefore potent in the House, but in the Senate, Rhode Island, Delaware, V^ermont, and New Hampshire are their equals, and serve as a kind of breakwat^-r to prevent the efi"ects of the sudden impulses of such heavy population a& inhabit tlie States first named. The Senate is indeed the bulwark of the smaller States, ond they ought therefore to be the especial guardians of the Constitutions, because it is only by maintaining the strictest reverence for it they can expect to maintain their equal rights. I have been much surprised therefore to find Senators on this floor, whose interests of all others were most in danger, show such apatiiy with regard to these innovations, which if they are ever to become precedents wiii assuredly work the destruction of the lesser States. Now, the Constitution expressly provides that — "Each House shall he the judge of the elections, returns, and qualifications of its own mem- bers." A provision that must strike every one at first eight as neces.-ary if the bodies are to be a chei-k one upon the other. Because if the Senate bad t'.) decide who shall gt.1 into the House or who shnll not go in, the House would scon become the creature of the Senate and dependent upon it for its existence; and -so it the Senate 15 were to allow the House the same rights over its members. This resolution, however, very ingeniously selects only a single point upon which to apply the joint action complained of, and thpt is this : that both Houses shall jointly decide which are the States entitled to representation. That is the whole of it Now, Mr. President, can anything be clearer than that this very question has been already settled authoritaiively beyond dispute? Has not the Constitution set- tled it? Is it not to be found on every line and page of our laws — and especially in the act of March 4, 1862? Then, if this be so, the joint committee prevents the Senate from deciding on the elections, returns, and qualifications of itH members, because it gets behind the whole and denies the right of States to members at all. It does not deny but that they have Legislatures competent to elect — if it did the answer would be obvious: the Senate will decide that on the question of elections — but it declares at once, boldly, that although the people of these States are desirous of submitting to the laws they offended against, we will impose upon them a new penalty not known to the law. » Mr. President, I think I have shown beyond question that at the breaking out of the rebellion there was not any considerable number of people, in any of the States in question, who ever were guilty of treason to the United States, if we admit the law to be as I hold it is, namely, that if the legitimate Government of any country suffers itself to be dispossessed and a hostile Government to be estab- blished and put in possession in its stead, so that it cannot protect its citizens in their resistance to such hostile Government, then it cannot punish them for acts done afterward under the authority of and in obedience to the hostile Government; such acts cannot amount to treason and the law excuses them. I think I have also shown that the moment the rebels yield and surrender, that they are immediately in the custody of the law, and can only be subjectel to such punishment as it provides — to be inflicted upon them through the courts according to "due process" of law. I have shown that for any guilty part taken by the people in the late war, that the sufferings and losses they endured in that war were the natural and sufficient punishment; that after it they remain purged, and ought to be remitted to all their constitutional rights at once. That it is due to the dignity of the United States a? a great nation, if she pun- ishes the actual traitors who incited the rebellion, that it be done solemnly and according to the strictest form of law, in open courts, where the prisoners may have counsel and witnesses, so that they may make their defense, if they have any. That according to the Constitution and laws all the States are still in the Union; that secession ordinances could not repeal the one, nor war set a^ide the other; that they are neither dead by forfeiture or fdo de se, but are now in full and per- fect existence with all their municipal machinery in full play. That the proposition of the committee of fifteen to amend the Constitution is fundamental and revolutionary, and destructive of the freedom of the States and the liberties of the people ; that it is a threat to deprive them of their rights by compelling them either to admit negroes to the right of suffrage or to give up a share of their representation which is theirs by law and the last amendment to the Constitution. That the resolution now before us from the same committee is also revolutionary and destructive, being an attempt to suspend the Constitution and laws in regard to representation in Congress over eleven States of the Union until Congress shall see fit to restore them. It is a declaration on the part of the members of the present House and Senate, that having the means of keeping these States from being represented here, they are going to do so as long as they please; that no one of these measures can be justified as a punishment for the rebellion; that the Con- stitution forbids them as bills of pains and penalties, and as ex post facto in their character. Then, sir, here at the conclusion, I will endeavor to answer a question which has been so often put; and with that air of braggart triumph that indicates an answer impossible. The question is this: "Would you bring back here into the Senate rebels and traitors, the authors of all our troubles, whose hands are yet red with the blood of our slaughtered people? And if not, how do you propose to avoid it unless you deny these States representation for a time at least? ' To all this I answer, no, as emphatically as any other Senator can do; but I would keep them cu^ in a very different way from that proposed. I would keep them out by following the mode and seeking the remedy afforded by the Constitu- tion and laws, instead of adopting a cource forbiddt-n by boili and unjust in ittelf. I would keep out traitors, not beep out Siatts; 1 wu\ild punish criminuls, and not enslave communities; I would single out tht guilty, and njt confound the inno- «eQt with them. 16 l3 not this easy? When the traitor asks admis.^ion here, you can arrest him for his treason ; you can commit him for trial ; and the offense is not bailable. I sup- pose ever} body will agree that would keep him out, at least till he is tried. It has another great advantage, too; it is lawful and none can complain of it. After the trial, if acquitted, he is not a traitor, and his case presents no difficulty. If l.e is convicted, ittaiiited, and hanged, 1 suppose that would allay all fears of his retui-n Now, Mr. President, when I think how obvious and effectua' this plan would be, I am amazed that it should have ever entered into the human mind to contrive another Why is it not adopted? Sir, I am afraid to aeswer. I am afraid there are patriots who would prefer to let treason go unwhipped rather than they should lisk thfir own hold on power. It looks to me much like that; and if so, I am sorrythat tny man can be so short sighted as not to see the fatal consequences of such an exchange as this. Does it not say, your treason may go if you let us rule the country? 0*e word more and I am done. The country is alarmed, the people are anxious, and the political atmosphere bodes the coming of no common storm. What can we do to prevent it and bring back peace to the country arid harmony to the party? Is there no common ground on which we can stand ? Is there no common standard round which we can rally ? I think there is, sir. Surely, we ^lay go back to the Constitution which we have all sworn to support. We can go back to the laws and e .force them without dissension among oursf-lves. Then there are things which we may avoid doing. We may avoid new measures on which we cannot agree, and which only serve as wedges to split us further and further asunder. Mr. President, why these new measures ? Wlio is bound to the support of a new measure except the author of it? AVhat member of a party is bound to a new measure not in contemplation of the party at the time it was organized, at the time its p'atform was ^aid down, except the author; and if disseosion and division spring up from the new measure, who is responsible for that ? The man who stands on the record, or the man who introduces the new measure? The man who catches the foxes and ties the fire brand to their tails so ns to send them into the standing corn, or the men who do not ? These are questions that the country a'e beginning to ask. They wi'l ask who did this thing, who brought this about? Was the Freedman's Bureau in the Baltimore platform? Wts it in the Chicago platform! Where did the party agree to that as a party ? Where was that laid down as a line to which ali party men should come? The pretense is absurd. The Freed- men's Bureau bill is not now and never was a party measure, except with some few people who took it into their heads that it was a very good thing. Nobody blam- ed them for that; they had a right to believe that; "but other people who did not believe it are not to be ostracized on that account, particularly if those who did not believe it thought that in itself it was not only inexpedient and impolitic, but that it was uncorsiitutional. Now, Mr. President, I say the country is beginning to inquire who introduced this cause of dissension ; who started this wedge which is to drive and drive until it splits the great Republican party? I say it is per^'ectly plain that he is the man who started the new ineaiure, the man wlio persists in it, the man who ostracizes and denounces everybody who differs with him uboiit it. I think, Mr. President, that is so plain that he who runs may read. Certainly there can be no doubt about that. -^ ^ Then, in conclusion, I have only to say that if we refuse these moderate coun- sels, if we refuse to abandon these new things, the only remedy will be to take the consequence.^ and they sellom linger long behind the act. L. Towers, printer, cor. Sisth St. and Loui.siana Ave., Washington, D. C. r LIBRftRY OF CONGRES 013 789 922 P LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 789 922 A % X)eBm2l^te^