Class ^ J Book_lE.JA RECONSTRUCTION, SPEECH OP HON. HALBEUT E. PAINE, OF WISCONSIN, i IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY IG, 1868. The House having under consideration the bill ' R. No. 4.j0) additional and supplemental to an •:■■ entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient • .eminent of the rebel States," passed March 2, iMJr — Mr. PAINE said : Mr. Speaker: The President -will, of course, rrto this bill. He will probably give us the s\ne reasons which he has so often given ns forlvetoing and opposing our reconstruction ( iB. He will denounce, as in his Texas proc- ] niation of August 20, 18G6, and in his veto f our last reconstruction bill, and in his last n al message he denounced this legislation, ii consistent with the declaration made at . Id commencement of the rebellion by both i louses of Congress, that the war was not — "Waged upon our part in any spirit of oppression, lor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor . irp i?'5 of overthrfiwins or interfering with the iihU '.'T established institutions of those States, but y deiiJid and maintain thosupremacy of the Consti- I'Uou ;md all laws mado in pursuance thereof, and •, pr"-!' eve the Union with all the dignity, equality, iA rgi^tg of the several States unimpaired, and that i-iSO! !. .^is these objects ' wore' accomplished the war ogh' to' ceaae." T'-.'^-b resolutioa was adopted by the Senate .n motion of Mr. Johnson himself on the 2.jth ii'/ofJuly, 1861. A similar resolution had 'ten adopted by this House on the 22d of the jn month. The war had just commenced ; jiators and Representatives were staggering der the first thunderbolt of the rebellion. I at once they saw the country swept by the e of civil war. They knew not how soon all uld go to the bottom. They knew not how .any traitors were among the crew. In agony, , rnost in despair, they groped for moans and leasures to save or help their imperiled coun- .ryi As drowning men, they caught at straws. ;lt vould not have been surprising if they had Ibo accepted from Mr. Johnson a resolution vlch might possibly have involved them in luonsisteucy at a later stage of the struggle. But fortunately they did not become involved in any such inconsistency. We may well b6 amazed that they did not. For when nations embark in war they cease to be their own mas- ters. They may commence it, olfensively or defensively, and at its commencement may solemnly declare its character and purpose, but when it is once begun the resistless cur- rent of events sweeps away like sand-heaps their solemn declarations, and God only knows how soon or how often the character and issues of the struggle may change, into what unknown seas of strife it may drift, or what its end may be. It might have been true that a resolution which correctly set forth the character and issues of the war at the outset would fail to give a correct statement of its character and issues at its close ; for in a war involving mil- lions of comljatants, covering a continent and raging through a period of four years, what man or hundred men or thousand men could assume to determine the course of its stupen- dous events, rushing upon one another with tha speed of the lightning and the confusion of the whirlwind? What man or thousand men would be able to regulate its issues, shape its character, or fix its limit V It might well be that in a war of such proportions measures which at the out- set appeared unnecessary to the accomplish- ment of the grand objects of the struggle would be shown in the progress of events to bo abso- lutely essential to success. In such a case what patriot would say that a mere expression of opinion at its commencement by two hun- dred of its citizens should be permitted to inure to the ruin of the Ilopublic ? Wiiy, sir, if such a mistake had been made in the form of a statute law it would simply have been our duty to rei)eal it and save the nation. But this resolution never took the form of law ; it was not even a joint resolution : It was not even a concurrent resolution. The whole of it was that the two Houses of Congress adopted, Ti4 2 each on its own responsibility, substantially the same resolution. It was, therefore, only the expression of the opinion of some two hun- dred citizens of the United States. If it had been a law or joint resolution, and had pro- claimed issues which, although then actually subsisting, were subsequently changed by the overwhelming tide of war, would it not have been the part of statesmen and patriots to repeal the law or resolution ? Would it not have been for enemies of the Republic to insist that the law or resolution should stand unre- pealed, a permanent obstacle to reconstruc- tion and peace? Could we have absolved our- selves from our duty to save the Republic, to maintain the Constitution, and preserve the Union by the plea that we had promised rebels or anybody else not to do it? But, sir, it happened in this case that what these Senators and Representatives declared to be the purpose of the war in the beginning continued to be the purpose of the war at the end. I repeat that it would not have been etrange if this purpose had changed; and if it had changed this nation would not have been in honor bound to die rather than repeal the law ; still less would it have been bound to die rather than disregard a j^aper manifesto of two hundred of its citizens. Sir, the whole nation was ready to declare at the outset that the war was not waged for the purpose of emancipating the blacks ; and it was true, for not one soldier in ten entered the Army for that specific purpose. Now, suppose that the nation had in some form put that declaration on record, as did Mr. John- eon's Secretary of State, and afterward in the agony of the struggle had found that it must either free and arm the blacks or perish, where is the patriot who will say that it was the duty of the nation to withhold freedom and the bay- onet from the blacks and lie down and die ? Suppose that the Government had at the com- mencement of the war or at any stage of its progress solemnly declared that it was not the object of the Government to secure suffrage to the blacks in the rebel States and yet had afterward reached the conviction that in order to save the Republic it was necessary to give not only freedom and the bayonet but also the ballot to the blacks, where is the patriot to stand up and say that it would be the duty of the Republic to flounder forever upon a sea of half-suppressed rebellion rather than enfran- chise the blacks because their enfranchise- ment had not been the original object of the war notwithstanding it appeared to be a meas- ure absolutely essential to the accomplishment of that object? Consistency is, indeed, a jewel. But consist- ency requires no nation to stand upon a decla- ration of fact at the end of a war v.'hich is then false, though true at the beginning. Consist- ency does not require a nation to reject a meas- ure found necessary as the means of attainin the grand oljject of a war because such measur was not at first its object. Let us recur, sir, to the precise language ol this resolution. First, it is declared that "th war is not waged on our part in a spirit of op' pression." No impartial judge who shall cart full}' read the history of this war, commencing with the indignities and outrages heaped upori northern patriots by southern traitors for twentl years in the Halls of Congress, and ia everj' part of the Republic, from the St. Lawrence ti^ the Rio Grande, and ending in the horrors ot/ Fort Pillow, Andersonville, and New Orleans/ will venture to charge us with a spirit of op- \ pression. Until we were actually driven to ) the wall by rebel atrocities was it not the cease- ^ less jeer of southern rebels that northern men I were utterly destitute of even spirit enough to vindicate their own manhood? Oppression! Sir, pusillanimity would have been the appro- priate word but for the iron virtues which rebel outrages finally forged out of our yielding natures. There has been no spirit of oppres- sion on our part at the commencement of the war, during its progress, or since its rVise. Impartial history will record, as candi 1 r., ^n throughout Christendom will admit, tha, i •* ,r were such rebels treated with such aiu; 'iig tenderness when overcome. In the cau. oi liberty John Brown and his associates peri- .?»' on the scaffold for treason to the State of 'i ■ ginia. No scaflbld has yet arisen for or c*^ the leaders of those who in the interest o P most merciless bondage ever known on i rt^'' and in modes of unparallele'd atrocity pe v-^° trated treason against the American Uuiv It is next declared that the war wa.- lu' waged on our part ''for any purpose^ of oon quest or subjugation." This proposition h£i also been, from the beginning of the war to i'i end, in letter and in spirit true. Conquestanl subjugation were never our objects. , Tli(-t became necessary means for the accoihipi'ii- ment of our grand object, the maintenJam .or" the Union and the Constitution, and %i t led them as means and thus only. Nor •- ■ ,i expressed or implied in this resolution lat the nation ought not to or would not res* to such measures for the accomplishment ot ibe great purpose of the war. It turned out li^i the Republic could be saved only by con' ic- ing the rebel armies and subjugating the oi- federacy. If this sentiment of the resoU o.\ instead of being a mere opinion of indivi; al*. had been an absolute covenant of the Am r ' c:. i people, of perfect obligation, never to jiy conquest or subjugation a purpose of th; .■.-.» neither consistency nor good faith woul r-'- quire the nation to die or be forever rack • b" revolutions rather than use these mea -f when necessary for the accomplishment i h ■■ real object and purpose of the war, the f ■; i - tion of the country, inasmuch as this e>- B lution in fact contained no pledge tn cover the future exigencies of tlio gigantic struggle, but only a statement of a state of tilings then ex- isting, it is hard to regard with patience an attempt to perpetuate rebel State sovereignty upon such a lllmsy pretext. It is next averted that the war was not waged on our part _" for the purpose of over- throwing or interfering with the rights or estab- lished institutions of those States." What institutions? Of course, slavery lirst and fore- most. Does the President, notwithstanding all he said and did as emancipator of Tennessee, insist that by this expression we were bound at the end of the war to leave intact slavery as well as the rebel State governments? It is true that we did not enter upon the war with a purpose of abolishing slavery or interfering with the semi- sovereign powers of those States. But it is equally true that this resolution involved no pledge that if the fiei-y flood of war should ever sweep them away, we would instantly restore them ; it contained no pledge, express or implied, that if at any time the exigencies of the struggle should demand it, we would not ourselves de^itroy slavery and repudiate the rebel State governments. On this point, as on the others, the resolution only purported to set forth a statement of facts then existing; it gave no pledge of future conduct. If it had contained such a pledge it would have bound nobody except as a paper manifesto of a handful out of millions of citizens of the Republic. It is finally asserted that the war v/as waged "to maintain and defend the supremacy of tlie Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired;" and that "as soon as these objects" were " accomplished the war ought to cease." The President seems to perceive in this clause abundant reason for denouncing our repudiation of his provisional governments. I will not stop to discuss the logic or consist- ency which can justify the abolition of seven existing State governments by executive proc- lamations and the substitution therefor of mere creatures of the executive will, and can at the same instant denounce us for repudiating — not the State governments which existed at the capture of the rebel armies, for the President had already extinguished them — but the non- descript governments which he himself had set up in their stead. Certainly if this resolution was obligatory upon anybody it was obligatory upon its author, now President of the United States. To maintain the supremacy of the Constitu- tion and laws, and to preserve the Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the States unimpaired, was at the beginning of the war, ever since has been, and nt)w is, our object and purpose. It certainly has not been our purpose to justify or uphold the crimes of particular States at the cost of the rx'stcnce of the nation and the Constitution. It has not been our purpose to sacriflce the Union and the Constitution in order to shield particular States from the consequences of their owa crimes. It has not been our purpose to per- petuate by force the State existence of a par- ticular community struggling to throw itoff. It has not been our purpose to force back upon any jjarticular peo])le a State cxistcuice under the Constitution which they may have inso- lently thrown off. It has not been our purpose to enable eleven rebel States to trample under foot the dignity, equality, and rights of twenty- five. It was not our purpose so to use the mili- tary resources of the country that those eleven States, after the sacrifice of a million of loyal men and billions of treasure, could assume at once such an attitude of Slate sovereignty aa would enable them to commence the accumu- lation of resources for a repetition of their treason. It was not our purpose to reward crime by arresting from loyal and faithful States their undisputed, undoubted rights, and heap- ing upon traitor States such privileges and im- munities as are not conferred by the Constitu- tion even upon loyal States. No, sir ; such v/as not our object. It was our purpose so to wage the war that the dignity, equality, and rights of all the States should for all coming time be placed upon their true solid constitu- tional ground. This could only be accom- plished by vindicating the supremacy of the Constitution and the sanctity of the Union. We knew then, as v/e know iu)w, tliat to per- mit particular States to repudiate the Consti- tution and destroy the Union was not tiie true way to preserve the dignity and rights of the States under the Constitution. We knew that if the supremacy of the Constitution and the integrity of the Union could be maintained, then and then only would the rights and dignity and equality of the States be preserved, what- ever temporary penalties particidar States might pay for their attempts to subvert them. Ordinary statutes, enacted for the punish- ment of crime, aim to protect the rights of individuals. Can it be said that this object is disregarded when the man who attempts mur- der is arrested and temporarily deprived of hia weapons, his liberty, or his vote? llow else can you protect the rights of the rest of the world? How can you protect the rights even of the criminal himself except by vindicating the majesty of the law? If the law is set at naught not only are the rights of all other men imper- illed but even his also. For when his disal^iiity shall 1)0 remov(;d his restoreil rights will bo valuable to him still. IJut thi>y will perish with the law. It was so with the rebels. It was absolutely inevitable that wo should tem- porarily delay the restoration of their State governments or see the Union either jicrlsh at once or tremble, for how long a time God only knows, on a smouldering volcano of revolu- tion. In that event the rights — the qualified sovereignty guarantied by the Constitution to the States — woiald have been of no value to them or to us. But by vindicating the majesty and sanctity of the Union and the Constitu- tion against all enemies, whether individuals or States, we have preserved and perpetuated these rights not only to ourselves but alsC to the rebels, and the day will come when they will thank God that we have enforced a policy which, though to them a temporary annoyance, will prove even to them a permanent blessing ; the time may come when they will rejoice that we have reared a bulwark of national strength which they can interpose between their own rights and threatened wrongs from other States. The President, in his annual message, de- nounces our reconstruction legislation as unau- thorized by the Federal Constitution. We shall doubtless hear the same denunciations in his coming veto. I regret that a remark of the ablest champion of freedom on this floor has been misconstrued into acquiescence in the justice of this charge. When the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] arose to move the previous question on the passage of our amendatory reconstruction bill over the President's veto on the 20th day of last July, he said : "The President starts by asserting what, if true, makes out all the rest of his argument legitimately. He says that the Constitution of the United States is theoretically operative in the conquered southern States. If that were true then all we have been doing is rank usurpation, and all he has been doing is legit- imate action. I deny that the Constitution is theo- retically or actually in operation in any one of those States any more than it is in a Territory." This statement occasioned a profound sen- sation in this House and throughout the coun- trj'. ' ' Any more than it is in a Territory. ' ' Un- fortunately too many, both here and elsewhere, overlooked or forgot the qualification contained in these words. The gentleman did not then assert that the Constitution was wholly inoper- ative in those rebellious districts. He denied that it was operative there otherwise than in the Territories, which was tantamount to denying that it was in operation there as in the recog- nized States of the Republic. In this almost all loyal men in the country will agree with him. But this memorable speech has been tortured into a denial that the Federal Consti- tution was operative at all in those districts. It has been an overflowing fountain of aid and comfort to the foes of these reconstruction measures, and of sorrow and chagrin to their friends. If he had declared that the Consti- tution had no operation at all in those districts I could not have acquiesced in the declaration any more than in the proposition that the Con- stitution has no operation at all in the Territo- ries. But if the Constitution is in operation in those districts as in the States I do not think it follows that the President's policy was legiti- mate action, although it certainly does follow that ours was rank usurpation. The Presi- dent's course would be in that case no less a usurpation than our own. For neither the President nor the Congress has a right to deal with States as they have dealt with these dis- tricts. If, however, the gentleman from Pennsyl- vania had asserted that the admission that the Constitution was operative at all in those dis- tricts involved the admission that the Pres- ident's course was legitimate action and ours rank usurpation, then would the truth have been, I think, exactly the reverse of his prop- osition. For while it is very clear to my mind that if these districts sustained under the Con- stitution the relation of Territories, whether conquered or not conquered, the President's course was rank usurpation, it is equally clear that if they were in no sense under the Consti- tution it is not for us to denounce the action of the President as rank usurpation. I should be glad to know by what law we are to try his official acts in the premises unless by the Con- stitution of the United States. If these dis- tricts are not subject to but outside of the Con- stitution I should be glad to know by what rule the powers and functions of government to be exercised in this case are to be distrib- uted among its several executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Who is to say that this or that act performed by one of the de- partments of the Ooverninent is an invasion of another, a usurpation of anything or against anything, if such act is not to be tested by the Federal Constitution? Where else than in that Constitution do you read that Congress shall wield the legislative power of the nation '! If the work of reconstruction lies outside of it, who can say what the President or Congress or the Supreme Court may or maj' not do in the premises? Which Department can pre- sume to circumscribe the functions or powers of another? Will it be said that under the law of nations, without any constitution, all govern- mental power in this Republic, executive and judicial, as well as legislative, would i-eside in Congress? Show me, sir, the page of tlie law of nations upon which any sucii doctrine as that is written. Certainly it is for this law of nations to indicate what our Kepul^Hc, as one of tlie sovereign Powers of the world, maypr may not do. But never can that law be per- mitted to determine the interior distribution of sovereign powers and functions among the several departments of any government. It nowise concerns the law of nations whether these powers are centered in an absolute mon- arch or more or less distributed, as in a con- stitutional monarchy or republic. Tried by the law of nations, then, the President's career in the lately rebellious States is no usurpation aa against Congress. It is not for that law to de- cide between him and us. In thee5'e of that law it is a matter of absolute indifference whether he exercises our powers or we exercise his, or the Supreme Court usurps the whole. If, therefore, the gentleman from Pennsjd- vania had shown that the Constitution had actually nothing to do with these communi- ties, instead of convicting he would have honor- ably acquitted the President of usurpation ; he would have sounded the signal for a triangular contest between the several departments of the Government for the controlof these districts. If he is of the opinion that such a doctrine would, to use his own words, render reconstruction as easy as any problem in Euclid I humbly dif- fer with him. I think the result of such a tri- angular squabble would be that the base and the hypothenuse would get completely wrecked ■while the perpendicular would sweep triumph- antly around the circie. But if he meant, what his language obviously imports, that the Con- stitution was neither wholly inoperative in those districts nor operative there as in States, but as in Territories and only as in Territories, then, indeed, does his doctrine remove all diffi- culties from the case. For whether you i-egard them as sustaining to the Constitution a rela- tion analogous to that of mere Territories, or the relation of conquered Territories, you are alike free from embarrassment. If you treat them as Territories subject to the Constitution, your Constitution shows by what departments respectively the regulations for their govern- ment are to be framed and administered, and what all of these departments together may do. If you regard them as conquests, the law of nations shows what the nation may do in the premises, and the Constitution shows by what particular departments of the Government its several powers are to be exercised, yrhether you call them, then, mere Territories or con- quests, or both at once, you find that in either character they fall into the hands of Congress, the legislative department of the Government, and that all the powers of reconstruction spring- ing from both of these relations vest in Con- gress, which may at its option exercise one class or the other, or both, in the reconstruc- tion of the lately rebellious States. The President assails us for declaring in our military bill that these governments are not legal and at the same time authorizing the dis- trict commanders to use them. But there is no ground for any such charge. We found there certain political machines in operation which the President had manufactured by his seven memorable proclamations, and which he called State governments. And the question considered by the Committee on Reconstruc- tion, and afterward by the House, was whether we should at once annihilate these machines or so legislate that the district commanders could lawfully make use of whatever, if any- thing, they might find useful in them. If we had annihilated them we should have compelled each district commander to appoint without delay thousands of officers and to frame entire systems of general and local laws. This would have involved immense labor upon details which, if it could possibly have been per- formed at all, could only have been performed at the sacrifice of other duties which could neither be delegated nor deferred. Nor could the district commanders have appointed thou- sands of officers at once in those districts, with- out making many appointments of very bad men whom they would upon trial have found it necessary to remove. AVe decided, therefore, to permit the district commanders to use these officers and systems of laws, or not to use them, as they saw fit, making it their duty to remove all who should be disloyal to the Government or hinder the work of reconstruction. We framed such a law that these systems and officers, while so used, were made valid and legal. But this validity springs altogether from the act of Con- gress. It is derived from no State law, from no presidential act or proclamation. These officers and systems when so used are not State officers nor State governments nor State laws, but the creatures and temporai-y agents of the national Government. During the short time that reconstruction was to be in the hands of the district commanders it was necessary that peace and order should be maintained by the use of some system of rules and regulations and by the employment of officers of some kind to enforce them. We found governments, laws, and officers there in actual though unauthor- ized existence. We provided that the district commanders might use such oi them as they should find useful, and being so used they are made valid and lawful by act of Congress. The charge of inconsistency therefore falls to the ground. It is true that Congress has declared these governments illegal as State governments, but it is not true that Congress attempts to administer them as State govern- ments, whether legal or illegal. In its hands they are machines which as emanations of State sovereignty or executive usurpation had no legality or validity, but which while per- mitted by the district commanders or by Con- gress to exist stand as its own adopted means of reconstruction upon Federal law duly and constitutionally enacted. The President is quite correct when he says in his last veto message that it would be — "A novel spectacle if Congress should attempt to carry on a icpal State eoverumcnt by tbo agency of its own officers." Congress never did. I trust, sir, Congress never will attempt to carry on a legal Siute government by the agency of its own officers. But, sir. there would be no novelty in sucli an attempt on the part of the President. He now 6 insists that these communities were, when their armies were captured, just as truly and com- pletely States, and their governments just as truly and completely State governments as ever. And yet in May, June, and July, 18G0, he act- ually appointed seven governors to carry on these legal State governments, having removed ihose the rebels had chosen, and thenceforth actually did carry on these legal State govern- ments, as he called them, by the agency of his own officers, the governors so appointed. The President, in the same veto message, says : "It is yet more strange that Congresa attempts to sustain and carry ou au illegal State government by the same Federal agency." A more careful examination of the act would have shown him that Congress did not attempt to carry them on as State governments, whether legal or illegal. Congress has not attempted, 1 trust will not attempt, so indefensible an act. But such an attempt on the part of the Presi- dent would not be strange ; for two years ago he proclaimed these State governments — now so sacred in his eyes — so illegal as to be utter nullities, and yet proceeded to carry them on by the agency of governors of his own appoint- ment. No, sir, we have not attempted to carry on illegal State governments by Federal agen- cies as State governments. We found in actual existence illegal governments which had been substituted by Andrew Johnson for other ille- gal governments Avhich he had found in actual existence ; and such parts of these — such of their laws and officers as we have* found conven- ient to our hands — we have taken hold of and legalized by Federal statute, and used, not as State governments. State laws, or State offi- cers, but as temporary Federal agencies for the reconstruction of the rebel St#,tes. And these State governments being illegal wo could not without a gross violation of duty revive them instantaneously in the hands of their rebel administrators. Our duty to the Republic, yet rocking on a bloody sea of suppressed rebel- lion, beneath whose waves lay lost such price- less treasures of life and gold, forbade it. Our duty to the soldiers, both the dead and the liv- ing, forbade it. Our duty to the stern men and tearl'ul women who sent them forth to the bat- tle and followed them with their benedictions and prayers forbade it. Our duty to those southern patriots who bore aloft unsullied the fliig of heaven while they themselves walked in the infernal fires of southern treason, forbade it. Our duty to the faithful blacks who demanded that their fidelity to the Union should not drag them down into unwonted torments forbade it. Our duty to the human race, for whom we bore the ark of the covenant of human freedom, for- bade it. Nay, sir, our duty to the rebels them- selves and to their posterity, whose destiny is bound up with ours and our commou country's, forbade it. If we had done so, God who smote us with war and gave us the victory that sla- very might die and the nation live, would have cursed us for our cowardly bequest of wars and woes to future generations. The President complains that we have stripped him of many of his constitutional pre- rogatives while he still remains bound by all his constitutional responsibilities ; that we deprive him of the power to appoint officers, andyethold him to the correlative duty of taking care that the laws are faithfully executed. It is not to be denied, sir, that his conduct has compelled us to withdraw temporarily from the President powers with which, in the days of Washington and Lincoln, nay, even in the days of Fillmore and Tyler, the people were content to intrust him. But in this we have not vio- lated the Constitution. The President errs when he supposes that the duty to see that the laws are executed, and the power to choose and control officers are coextensive or inseparable. For, while the Constitution does make it his duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed, it does not empower him to appoint a single officer. He shares that power with the Senate. He may nominate himself, but he can only appoint by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. And yet, Mr. Speaker, tha Con- stitution does not require the Senate any more than the House to see that the laws are faith- fully executed. Now, this constitutional duty of the President is fully performed when ho uses such means as the law provides for com- pelling officers duly appointed to execute laws duly enacted. In his proclamation, that he '•' can never give his assent to be made responsible for the faith- ful execution of laws and at the same time surrender that trust and the powers which ac- company it," meaning the appointing power, he utterly ovei'looks the fact that the Constitu- tion gives this power not to the President alone, but to the President and Senate, or, at the op- tion of Congress, to the heads of Departments and the courts. In truth nine tenths of all the officers are appointed by the heads of Depart- ments and by the courts without the slightest possibility of interference by the President. Does this relieve him of nine tenths of his responsibility? Certainly it does if there is anything in his argument. But there is noth- ing in his argument. The Constitution in no way connects the power of appointment with the duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed. The President is just as solemnly bound to take care that the laws are faithfully executed by the ninety officers appointed by the courts or heads of Departments aa by the ten appointed by himself. In either case he does his whole duty when he sees that all who neglect to execute the laws are dealt with according to the law. The President observes in his last veto mes- sage that " another ground on which our recou- structiou acts are defended is this : that these ten States are conquerciterritory and their citi- zens conquered people.' He denies this very emphaticuUv, but gives no reasons. He con- tents himself with the bald assertion that the United States holds not a foot of land in those regions by conquest except such as may have belonged to the Federal Government. It might be sulliclent to meet assertion with counter assertion, but the error lies so near the surface that its exposure will necessitate but a mo- ment's delay. The Supreme Court in the prize cases decided that the late war of the rebellion had " such character and magnitude as to give the United States the same rights and powers which they might exercise in the case of a national or foreign war. " I belie ve these cases were reported and this syllabus drawn by the same hand which drew the President's last veto message. The opinion of the court contains these words : " It is not necessary that the independence of the revolted province or State bo acknowledged in order to constitute it a party belligerent in a war according to the law of nations." * * * * "'^'he law of nations is also called the law of nature; it is founded on the common consent as well as the com- mon sense of the world. It contains no such anom- alous doctrine as that which this court are now for the iirst time, desired to pronounce, to wit: that insurgents who have risen in rebellion against their sovereign, expelled her courts, established arevolu- tion.iry government, organized armies, and com- menced hostilities, are not enemies, because they are traitors; and a war levied ou the Governrueiit by traitors in order to dismember and destroy it is not a war, because it is an ' insurrection.' It is a propo- sition never doubted that the belligerent party who claims to be sovereign may exercise both belligerent and sovereign rights." The President speahs of the Supreme Court as "that august tribunal," and evinces the deepest reverence for opinions of that court, even when only gathered by far-fetched infer- ence from immaterial acts of mere routine. Let him not, then, treat with contempt this care- fully expressed opinion. For it is so sound and wise that he will in vain appeal from it either to the American people or to Christen- dom, either to the present generation or to posterity. Does the President mean that in the late war the United States had not the same rights and powers which they would have had in a war against a foreign enemy as the Supreme Court decided? If they had does he mean that the right to conquer the rebels was not one of them, or does he mean that we did not, in fact, conquer thein? If he admits that we had a right to conquer them and did con- quer them, does he mean that conquest in war does not give the conqueror the right to dis- pose of the conquered, subject to no limita- tions except those of humanity, of which he is sole judge? The meaning of the President is obscure. But if he asserts that in the late war we had not belligerent rights, I appeal from him to the undisputed doctrine of all the teach- ers of international law recognized and en- forced by our Supreme Court in the prize cases. If he asserts that the right of conquest is not a belligerent right, I appeal from him to that august tribunal of public teachers, who have written a contrary doctrim; upon the tables of international law. If he means tliat conquest does not give the rights which we have e.xer- ciscd in these reconstruction acts, all of them to their utmost verge, 1 appeal from him to the same august tribunal. If he means that v.-c have not conquered the rebels in fact, I appeal from him to Grant, Sheridan, and Sherman. Another reason which the President will probably give for his veto of this bill will be one which long ago became threadbare in his hands. He will, I suppose, inform us that we pretended to wage this war for the preservation of the Union ; that the measures of reconstruc- tion which we have adopted suppose the rebels to be out of the Union, and so our war has been a failure. Well, sir, I frankly admit that if we had waged this defensive war against the rebel- lion to compel these districts to enjoy the rights and privileges of States of the Union it would have been a most wretched failure. But, sir, we waged the war not to^arce rebels to enjoy privileges but to force them to perform duties. We waged it to compel obedience to the na- tional Constitution and laws and allegiance to the national Union, not to force them to retain the forms or enjoy the rights and privi- leges of State governments against their will. If, sir, it were true that nobody could owe alle- giance to the Union or obedience to the Con- stitution except citizens of regularly organized States, then indeed was the war a failure. But this is not true. The citizens of Colorado and Dakota and South Carolina and Alabama are just as certainly to-day subject to the national Constitution and within the American Union as are those of Wisconsin and Indiana. And the only reason why South Carolina and Ala- bama are to-day subject to the Constitution and in the Union is that the war was success- ful, and by the bayonet we forced them into .that condition. But, sir, we have not been stupid enough to expend so much of life and treasure to force them to enjoy any rights or privileges, whether of State semi-sovereignty or of any other kind. That concerned them vastly more than it con- cerned us. We were willing they should enjoy them; nay, we preferred that. But, sir, we never thought of fighting to enforce it. Our object was not, like that of our friends on the other side, to conduct the war in sucii a way as to preserve carefully to the rebels while fight- ting and when conquered all their States rights, privileges, organizations, and power in the Federal Government, so that as soon as conquered they might with the help of their northern friends rule again the nation they had failed to ruin, and as soon as possible there- after be prepared by the accumulation of fresh 8 resources, again to attempt the overthrow of the Union and the Constitution. We fought to save the nation, to save the constitutional government under which it exists, with its sys- tem of national, State, municipal, and individ- al rights fully and finally vindicated. Across our track we found the confederacy and the rebel State governments, and we smote it and them and suved the nation. Mr. Speaker, the first and second great pro- visions of this legislation declare the southern governments illegal as State governments and place these districts under military power. Its third great feature is that it secures the right of suffrage to the colored citizens of the Repub- lic. This also the President opposes. It is true that after the reconstruction of State gov- ernments shall have been consummated and the Federal arm withdrawn it will be theoreti- cally possible for the States to disfranchise them ; but this will not be a practical possibil- ity, for the blacks themselves will have a voice and a vote on the question of their own dis- franchisement, and for an indefinite period of time they will be so strong that it will not be done without their consent. Far, far hence will be the day when they will give their con- sent. Justice demanded this at our hands on the day when the dying echoes of the last rebel gun were sounding in our ears. But prejudice, timid and pusillanimous, stood in our way, as did green-eyed jealousy in the way of our Dem- ocratic adversaries. At last love of life, more potent than duty or prejudice, came to the res- cue. We saw that there was no safety, abso- lutely no safety, to the nation except upon the solid rock of loyal reconstruction ; that to such loyal reconstruction loyal majorities were indis- pensable; that we could not have majorities of white votes, and therefore must either have black votes or not hav^ the majorities. Thank God, the necessities of the nation thus rose up as handmaidens to duty. While future gen- erations must award to Congress the honor of this great step in human progress, they will not fail to record who was the President who used the power conferred upon hira by Union men to thwart and hinder it. And by this bill we entrust the execution of this plan hence- forth to the man whose duty it will be, as our next Pi-esident, to carry it to a final consum- mation. These are the main features of our work The rest are important, but subordinate. We have provided a system of registration intended, and, 1 believe, well calculated, to secure legal elections. We have prepared an antidote for the bane of presidential pardons. We have made the iron-clad oath the touchstone of offi- cial qualification. We have relieved the Attor- ney General from all responsibility and anx- iety about the execution of these laws. And finally, we have provided that our agents shall aim in the execution of the law to carry out our real meaning and not by so-called strict construction thwart it. And there stands our work. Red-handed rebels cannot now resist it. Their northern allies will be powerless to undermine it. Their presidential agent will be puzzled to evade it. Lukewarm, timid friends will not defeat it. The gates of hell shall not prevail against it. It will be blessed of God, and through it the Republic will be saved and purified, to be per- petuated, I hope and trust, to remote genera- tions. Printed at the Congressional Globe Office.