•JU."wav./, Ueot c.;' •ii-iS ^maying, the other day, that the whole coVitest grew out of a mere "misapprehension" between the North and South, then our war of four years, in which we professed to be patriots fighting for nationality and free- dom, is an insult to all the ages, a horrid mockery of the Almighty ; and we shall deserve, as we shall receive, the retri- bution due to our transcendent guilt. If, however, treason is a crime, and the highest of all crimes, including in it all lesser villainies, so that the rebels in compassing it had to run over the whole gami t of devilment and n.isehicf, ending their career in an infernal leap at the na- tion's throat; whj', then, at the end of this war you ought to make a fit example of these traitors, and thus render a repeti- tion of their crime difficult in the future. Suppose a man were to come among j'ou to-night, and could persuade j'ou that treason and loyalty were about the same thing; that right and wrong are converti- ble terms ; that the difference between vir- tue and vice, good and evil, is "all in your eye;" that God and the devil are the same personage under different names, and that it does not matter much under whose ban- ner you fight; suppose he could thus per- suade you to uproot the foundations of so- ciety and government, of everything sa- cred in heaven or on earth, he would bo the most execrable creature in the universe. If ho could indoctrinate you and the world with his ideas, ho would convert this beautiful earth of ours, "wrapped round will) sweet air and blest by sunshine,'' into a first class hell, and the d?vil would bo king, you dare not trifle with this ques- 5 tion of the adequate punishment of rebels. You lake the murderer here in Marion county, you indict him, try and convict him, build a gallows and hang him ; and the whole world says amen. The pirate, " the miserable pickpocket, boards a vessel oa the sea, murders a few sailors, steals a few ' ales of cotton, and the civilized world chases him to the gallows," as unfit to live. But Jeff Davis is not an ordinary assassin or pirate. He did not murder a single citizen, but he murdered in cold bhjod hundreds of thousands of men; he didn't board a ship on the sea, and murder a few sailors, but he boarded t!.e great ship of state, and tried by all the power of his evil genius to sink her, cargo and crew, with the hopes of the world forever, into the abyss of everlasting night ! And his guilt is as much greater than that of an or- dinary assassin as the life of a great Re- public is greater than the life of one man. Each one of these leaders was a national assassin, with his dagger in his hand, aim- ing it at the nation's vitals; aiming to plunge it into the white breast of the mother who bore him and nurtured him from infancy ; and his guilt is to be mul- tiplied and compounded by the millions whose interests were put in peril. INDICTMENT OF JEFF. DAVIS. Suppose you were to indict Jeff. Davis to-night, as our fathers indicted George III ; the indictment would read about in this way : He has murdered 300,000 of our soldiers ; mangled and maimed for life 300,000 more; he has duplit-ated these atrocities upon his own half of the Union, and upon his own miserable followers. He has organized great conspiracies here in the north and northwest to lay in rapifle and blood the towns, and villages, and cities, and plantations of the whole loyal portion of the land. He has sought to in- troduce into the United States, and to nationalize on this continent, pestilence in the form of yellow fever; an enterprise which, had it succeeded, would have startled heaven itself with the agony and sorrow it would have lavished upon the land. He has put to death by the slow torture of starvation in rebel prisons, 60,000 of our sons and brothers. He has been a party to the assassination of our martyred President. He has poisoned our wells; planted infernal machines in the track of his armies ; murdered our wound- ed soldiers; boiled the dead bodies of our boys in cauldrons, and sawed up their bon>.'; into jewelry to decorate the God-forsaken bodies of the " first families " of Virginia women. He has hatched into life whole broods of villainies that are enough to make the devil turn pale at the spectacle. He has done everything that a devil in- carnate could do to let loose "the whole contagion of hell" and convert the earth into a grand carnival of demons. But, gentlemen, we have caught him. By the providence of God, and through the vigilance of your soldiers, he is in your power to day. Now I would indict him, and pay him the compliment of a decent trial by the forms of law. I would convict him, and then build a gallows, and hang him in the name of God. [Applause.] Talk about mercy to Jeff. Davis! Why it is not in the dictionary 1 [Laughter.] It is like the Constitution in relation to the rebels, who have sinned away their rights under it by treason. It has ceased to exist, as to them. When you ask me to exer- cise raeroy at the expense of justice, 1 decline. I know nothing about mercy when you can only reach it by tramp- ling justice under foot. I don't ask vengeance. Davis has committed treason, and the Constitution says the punishment of treason shall be death. In the name o? lialf-a-million soldiers who have gone to the throne of God, as wit- nesses against "the deep damnation of their taking off" — in the name of your living soldiers — in the name of the repub- lic, whose life has been put in deadly peril — in the name of the great future, whose fate to-day swings in the balance, depending on the example you make of treason, I demand the execution of Jeff. Davis. And inasmuch as the gallows is the symbol of infamy throughout the civilized world, I would give him the gal- lows, which is far too good for his neck. Not for all the honors and offices of this Government, would I spare him, if in my power. I should expect the ghosts of half a million soldiers would haunt my poor life to the grave. And I would not stop with Davis. Why should I ? There is General Jjce, as hun- gry for the gallows as Davis. [Applause.] He is running at large up and down the hills and valleys of Old Virginia, as if nothing at all had happened; and lately I have heard that he has been offered the Presidency of a college; going to turn missionary and schoolmaster, I suppose, to "teach the young idea how to >• hoot" ! At the same time he is to write a history of the rebellioa. Gentlemen, I would not have him write that history. I would have it written by a loyal man, and I would have him put in a chapter giving an account of the hanging of Lee as a traitor. [Cheers.] What right has Lee to be running at large, while the Govern- ment thus confesses thai treason is no crime? What right has he to be any place, without repentance, except in the ninth, or lowest hell, where Dante says all traitors are found ? What right have you to cheat the Con- stitution out of his neck ? I notice that Wirz, some days before he was hung, sent for a copy of Baxter's Call to the Uncon- verted. I would give Lee a copy of the same book, but I would let him be hung, and leave God to determine what should be done with his soul. [Applause.] Nor would I stop with Lee. 1 would hang liberally while I had my hand in. I would make the gallows respectable in these latter days, by dedicating it to Chris- tian uses. I would dispose of a score or two of the most conspicuous of the rebel leaders, not for vengeance, but to satisly public justice, and make expensive the enterprise of treason for all time to come. I wish we could hang them to the sky that bends over us, so that all the nations of the earth might see the spectacle, and learn what it costs to s t fire to a free Government like this. [Cheers.] If these men are not punished, and you allow the infernal poison to sift itself down into the general mind thsit treason is no crime, in a little while we shall bo shaking hands with our dear Southern brethren, the Gov- ernment will get back intg its old ruts, and another horrid war will be the har- vest of our recreancy to our trust. CONFISCATION OF LAKGE ESTATES. But suppose you were to hang or exile all these leaders— for if you don't hang all of them you should put them out of the way — your work then, is only just begun.* You ought, in the next place, to take tlieir large landed estates and parcel them out among our soldiers and seamen, and the poor people of the South — black and white — as a basis of real democracy and genuine civilization. [Cheers.] Why, yonder is Bob Johnson, of Arkan- sas, an. arch rebel leader, who owns forty thousand acres of rich land ; enough to make four hundred farms for so many industrious loyal men. I would give the land to them, and not leave enough to bury his carcass in. And yonder is Jake Thompson, one of old Jimmy Buchanan's beloved, and beautiful, and blessed disciples; the man who stole our Indian bonds, and who is so mean that I could never find words to describe bim. lie owns forty thousand acres or more, and I would tak? it and divide it out in tlie way mentioned. The leading rebels in the South are the great land- lords of that country. One-half to three- fourths of all the cultivated land belongs to them, and if you would take it, as yuu have the right to do, by confiscation, j-ou would not disturb tiie rights of the great body of people in the South, for they never owned tiie land. I had tlic honor to prt- pose, in a bill I introduced into the last Congress, this identical thing. It has passed one House by n large majority, but has failed thus far in the other. If you don't do something of that kind, you will have in the rebel States u .'system of serf- dom over the poor almost a.s much to be doplored ns slavery itself. llich Yan- kees will go down there — and I don't want to abuse the Yankees, for thty have made this country what it is, but there are Yankees who believe that the almighty dollar is the only living and true God ; [great laughter,] and it is said some of ihem would wade into the mouth of hell after a bale of cotton. [Renewed laugh- ter.] I d(m't know whether that is so or not, for I have never seen it tried. But there are men v/ho would go down and buy up these estates, and establish a system of wages-shxf ery. of serfdom, over the poor, that would be as intolerable as the old system of servitude. You would hive the state of things in Mexico repeated, whore one man owns land enough to make a State as large as Rhode Island ; or in England, where one man can mount his horse and ride a hundred miles to the sea on his own land, and where all the land is owned by one five-hundredth part of the population. Themostdegraded class ofpeo- ple on the face of the earth, almost, are the English agricultural laborers, sunk so low in the scaTe of civilization that you can compare them to nobody so fitly as to the sand hillers and corn crackers of South Carclina and Georgia, whom even the negroes call the "poor white trash." You see, gentlemen, why it was that Eng- land built and furnished the rebels with iron-clads and other means ot warfare. They knew the success of the North would be the prelude to the overthrow of their landed system. They knew, in the language of Thos. Carlyle, that the success of the Union ca\ise in this country would send England to democracy' on an express train; and it will, if we arc faithful. She is on the brink of a volcano that threatens to swal- low her up. Any one o." these mornings the landless laborers of England may rise up under some bold captain, and march to the gates of power and demand a home upon the soil, and a ballot with which to defend it; and they may drench that land in blood if their demand is not heeded. Do you want to see her condition re- enacted in those fair regions of the South? No, you want no order of nobility there savethatof the laboring mass s. Instead of large estates, widely scattered settlements, wasteful agriculture, jiopular ignorance, social degradation, the decline of manu- factures, contempt for honest labor, and a pampered oligarch}-, you want small farms, thrifty, tillage, free schools, social independence, flourishing manufactures and arts, respect for honest labor, and equality of political rights. You can lay hold of these blessings, on the one hand, or these corresponding oursi;s on the oth- er, just as you please. Those regions are in your plastic hands, to be cursed with evils or endowed with blessings for all coming lime. Uo your duty in this gold- en moment, and the hills and valleys of the South will lift up their voices in thankfulness to the Author of all good for their new birth and glorious triinsfigura- tion; and the people of the South and tlie people of the North will become iigain one people, united iu patriotic aspirations for their common country. [Cheers.] SOMKrniNQ ABOUT NEGROES. But suppose you have hung or exiled the leaders of the rebellion, and disposed of their great landed estates in the way indicated ; your work is then only half done. Without something else, you will fail after all to reap the full rewards of your sutferings and sacrifices. In order to complete your work of reconstruction, you must put the ballot into the hands of the loyal men of the South ; and this makes it necessary for me to talk about this negro question a little. I am sorry about this, for you know how gladly I would avoid that subject if I could. I hardly ever allude to it in my speeches unless it gets right in my way, and then I only take it up to remove it, so that I can get along. [Smiles and laughter.] I warn j'ou, however, not to get excited at what I am going to say until you know what it is ; for maybe none of you will disagree with me, and it is not worth while to anticipate trouble. Let me say to you, too, by way of quieting your nerves, that I won't preach in favor of black suffrage to-night, nor wliite sutlVuge. All that I want is loyal suffrage, without regard to color. Now, that is a fair propo- sition. [Applause.] I will tell you another thing, by way of consolation ; I won't preach any of my "radicalism" to- night; I won't urge any of my fanatical notions. The fact is, I have got to be a conservative lately. I wish simply to present some of the old conservative doc- trines of the founders and franiers of the republic — men whose memories you all revere, and whose counsels you will be glad to accept if you are loyal; and every- body is loyal now, or ought to be. NEGRO VOTING IN THE PAST. During the war of the Revolution, that primitive era of the nation's life, that golden age when public virtue and pri- vate, swayed all hearts, negroe.'' voted in all the States, or colonies of the Union, except South Carolina, poor sin smitten, God forsaken spot, that might have been sunk in the sea forty years ago, without material detriment, and without, in my opinion, disturbing Divine Providence in His manner of governing the world. [Laughter.] In every one of the States, except South Carolina, the negroes had the right to vote, and in most of the States, exercised the right. Washington, and Jefferson, and Jay, and Hancock, and Hamilton every year went up to the polls, and deposited their ballots where the ne- itroes did theirs, and I never heard that ' ney weredefiled, or the Union particular- ly endangered. They stood up for the equal rights of all free men at the ballot- bcx, without respect to color. And after the war of the Kevolution was over, you remember that they had to go to work to reconstruct the Union, just as you propose to go to work to reconstruct your Union. Under the old articles of the Confedera- tion there was no bond of Union except that of patriotic sympathy, and the dog- ma of State rights came near "playing the devil" with them. Each State could do as it pleased. At the end of the war they were compelled to goto work and make "a more perfect Union," and inthiswork of m; king a better Union the free negroes had the right to vote in all the States ex- cept South Carolina. They voted under Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Jackson. In five of the New Engla.nd States, and in New York, they have been voting ever since. In Pennsyl- vania they continued to vote until 1838; in Maryland and Virginia they voted un- til 1832 or '33; in New Jersey until 1839 or '40; and in North Carolina and Ten- nessee until 1835. Some of my North Carolina friends here will remember that George E. Ba'Jger was elected to Congress by negro votes; John Bell, of Tennessee, also; and old Cave Johnson, on finding that he was about to lose his election, emanci- pated abont fifteen or twenty of his ovax slaves, and they wont up to the polls and elected him to Congress [Laughter.] Now I have thought that as the negroes are now all free down there, we might extend this Democratic precedent a little further. [Laughter.] Even Andrew Jackson, old Hickory himself — who was a good Dem.o- crat in his day, though he would not pass muster now — the old hero who praised the negroes for fighting so well under him at New Orleans, and who enjoyed their grati- tude and respect — when a young man, start- ing out as a candidate for the Legislature, called on the negroes to help him, and they helped him, and elected him. I think if old Jackson could do so naityhty a thing as to allow those negroes to vote for him, it would not disgrace a Copperhead to have one or two vote for him, if they were so crazy as to vote on that side. [Laughter.] And the word "white" that you have got to putting into your laws, is a latter-day device. During a good many years of the. nation's life, the word "white" was not in your laws of Congress, territorial bills, nor State codes. Washington and Jefferson, I am satisfied, believed as I do, that the negro himself would have been born white if he had been consulted. [Great laughter.] He came into the world under the best possible circumstances he knew how; and they never dreamed of the ineffable mean- ness of stripping a man of his political rights simply on account of the color of his skin. It was reserved for latter-day Democrats — the horse-stealing, the slave- 8 breeding Democrats of a comparatively recent period. When they got hold of the ropes of the r-^public and were run- ning it to the devil, and the slave power owned us all, the word "white" was incor- porated in your laws; and inasmuch as this hatred of the negro race caused slavery, and inasmuch as slavery has been abolish- ed, at great cost of blood and money, would it not be a good idea, some of these days when you have nothing else to do — say some Sunday afternoon for instance — for you all to sit down and see if y()U can- not purge your hearts of this negrophobia, which has caused all this tribulation in the land? I merely make the suggestion for you to tiiink about. But the point I wish you to keep in mind is, that I am preach- ing none of my radicalism at all. If you would- give the ballot to the negro in the revolted States, you v.oull be simply following in the footsteps of the framers of the Government — returning to that policy, the abandonment of which has brought upon us all the desolation of war. UIS CLAIM AS A SOLDIER. But I would give the ballot to the negro for another reason. We ''ailed upon him to help us, and he has helped us. We tried with all our miLht to save the Union, and to save slavery with it. We had got it into our heads that the stars of our flag ^vere for the whites, and the stripes for the blacks; that there was some sort of Siam- ese union between freedom and slavery, rendering them one and inseparable; that we had to save the Union, but that we must also save slavery with it; and our partnership with Satan came near ruining our cause. The fact is, men never make bargains with the devil without getting cheated. [Cheers.] So it was with us; we repudiated the divine counsel for two years uf the war, and when at last we con- cluded to deal justly — when the question became one of salvation or damnation to the white man ; when the Union was about to perisli in the red sea of war, into which our guilt and folly had tumbled it, we called on these wronged people to help us. They fout,'ht side by side with our white goldieri, fighting so well that our Generals praised them for their bravery and endu- rance. You remember that Father Abra- ham in his message told you that without the help of the negro population the Union would have perished; he freo^uently sai 1 that without striking at slavery and arm- ing the ncfgroes, foreign intervention and war would have been inevitable. Has it never occurred to you, when denouncing the negro, that the nation lives to-day, and did not perish, because of those black auxiliarii^h yo'.i called into the service? In traveling over the country, I ccn- Rtantly h<;ar some slimy copperhead say- ing, " Daniii the nigger,!" when not more than two years ago that same copperhead might have been seen perambulating tho c luntry, hunting up a negro to stand bet- ween him and the bullets of the rebels, to save his cowardly carcass from harm. We had 100,000 black soldiers, and they ena- bled that manj' white men to stay at home and raise supplies for the army. The copperhead hunted his black sub- stitute, found him, hired him to go; he went, fougnt liLe a hero, rushed into every ugly gap of death his commander told him to enter; and now, on his safe return the copperhead looks down upon him and says, " Damn tho nigger! — go back to your old master, I am done with you !" Is this a specimen of your magnanimity and manhood ? My conservative friends say to me, "Is it not strange that the soldiers are against negro suffrage in the South ?" Gentlemen, I know of no question of negro suffrage connected with our national politics, ex- cept as between the loyal negro, and the white rebels of the South. Now, gentlemen, have you a soldier among you who hates the loyal negro who fought fur his country, more than he hates the white rebel who fought against it? or Avho, if the ballot is to be given to the one or the other, would give it to the white rebel in preference ? c r who, if the ballot is to be given to the white rebel, would not checkmate him by giving it to the loyal negro at his side ? Have you any civillian among you who would espouse the ca«se of the white rebel in the cases I have sup- posed ? If j'ou answer these questions in the negative, then you are with me on the question of negro suffrage. Gentlemen, when, two or three years ago, the Government decided that the ne- gro was fit to carry a gun to shoot rebels down, it thereby pledged itself irrevocably to give him the ballot to vote rebels down when it should be necessary. And the na- tion never can go behind that act. If it could, after calling on the negroes to help save the nation's life, hand them over to the tender mercies of their old tyrants, the nation would deserve to perish for its wick- edness; and it would. So heaven daring an act could not be perpetrated in this^ land without receiving the retribution it would merit. Negro suffrage in the South is a chapter in the history of this contest as sure to come as was the arming of tho negro, and you who oppose it would do well to stand out of the way, for it will sweep over you as remorselessly as would tho tides of the sea. ins niGHT TO RKPRKBKNTATION. But I would give tho negro the ballot for another reason. Before the war broke out, tho South, on the basis of its negro population had eighteen members in Con- gress. Now they will have twelve addi- tional members, or thirty in all, based up- on a population that is dumb. Subtract ^ from the white voters in the South those of the white population that have l)een killed during: the war, and that have Iteen disfranchised since, and the voters of tliat section will not much exceed one-third of the whole. I always thought it bad enoufrh for one rehel to count equal to one loyal man, but when you put this trinitj' in uni- ty at my expense, I must kick against it. According to the census tables, thoiv; is a district composed of six counties in the State of Mississippi, containing a popula- tion of a hundred thousand people, three- fourths of whom are black. If these ne- groes are disfranchised, twenty-five thous- and white rebels will count equal to the hundred thousand white people in the Fifth District of Indiana. The vote of one Mississippi rebel, who ought to have been hung before to-day, will count equal to the votes of four loyal men in my district — four soldiers of the war, who have fought three years in the country's service. Are you safe under the operation of a provision so iniquitous as this ? It not on- ly disfranchises the negro, but it disfran- chises you. If one rebel's vote can equal the votes of two white men, it di franchi- ses, in eifect, one of them. It is like a two- edged sword ; it strikes the negro in one direction, and in the other it strikes you. REPUDIATION OF THE tTNIOX DEBT. If you tolerate this principle, if you don't give the negro the ballot, another consequence will come, and that is the re- pudiation of your debt. The rebels have contracted a debt of a thousand millions of dollars in trj'ing to whip us; and we have contracted a debt of more than a thousand millions of dollars in flL^"-ing them. If you hold their noses to the gri:;d- stone, as you ought to do, every doll '.r of their rebel debt is gone, and you will com- pel them to help pay our debt. They will hate that confoundedly, and will agonize day and night to find someway of escape; and they will not be slow in finding it. They are as unconverted to-day as ever, as I have proven by Parson Brownlow. They hunger and thirst for an opportunity to join hands with their old allies at the North ; and these allies, who only a year ago got up secret orders to murder you and usurp your State Government — most of you know them — are ready to join hands with their old masters. A small sum of money will buy Copperheads in Congress enough to give back to the South her ancient dom ination in the Union; and then they will repudiate our debt, and saddle upon your shoulders their debt, rendering us all the most pitiful vagabonds that were ever turned loose upon the world. Now, you white capitalists, who don't love the negro, but do love money, wheth- er you are willing- this state of things shall come about or not, it will come, unless you provide against it. You can save the country from this financial maelstrom sim- ply by dealing justly with the negro. DANGER OF INSURRECTiON. If you don't give the ballot to the loyal negro, and do give it to the white rebels, these latter, baling the negro to-day more than ever, b}- every memory of their hu- miliation, will make laws depriving him of his testimonj' in the courts, of the right to sul, of the right to own or hold real es- tate, of the rigljt to assemble for delibera- tion on their own aifairs ; thus making him sigh for the old institution of slavery as an alternative. In spite of all constitutional amendments that can be adopted, those States can do these things if only white men with rebel hearts are permitted to vote. The final result would be, that the millions of emancipated blacks would de- cline to be made sla'^es again. They would rise up in an insurrection such as the world has never seen. And we would be liable to be called upon to go down and cut the throats of those loyal negroes who saved the nation's life, at the bidding of rebels who plunged the country into war. I would not like to be invited to an enter- tainment of that sort, nor would j- ou. If you would prevent the necessity for it, unite with us in giving the ballot to the loyal negro in the South. TAXATION AND REPRESENTATION. I would give to the negro the ballot for another reason. Taxation and representa- tion ought, on principle, to go together. Our fathers fought for that principle seven years. Their title to glory and fame rests solely on the fact that they denied the right of England to make laws for those who were not represented in the law making power. Without this the revolutionary drama would be Hamlet with Hamlet omitted. You cannot deny the democracy or the republicanism of that principle, and you cannot decline to extend it when such a grand opportunity is ofi'ered. If you may disfranchise four millions of ne- groes to-day, you may disfranchise two millions of Irishmen to-morrow, and three millions of Germans the next daj', and the laboring many, the "filthy operatives," the next. You will soon have erected on the ruins of the Republic of your fathers, an absolute despotism extending over tha whole land. It is policy not to make this false step. Suppose you were to make a law disfranchising all the Germans or all the Irish, or all the short men, or all the tall men in Indiana, they would give you a hundred times more trouble than if you were to give them their rights. It wtuld tax all the cunning of your rulers to keep them down and prese.ve peace. Wher- ever there is a downtrodden race clamor- ing for its rights, the best possible thing to be done is to give them a voice in the gov- ernment. They will then feel, even if 10 things don't go just to suit them, that they have a vote and can help chan,,e it at the next election. Such H policy will make every man a column of strength, in support of the pub- lic edifice, instead of an element of weak- ness and a source of danger. COPrERHEADS AND REBELS. I would give the negrothehallot for an- other reason, and that is, that every rebel in the South, and every Copperheaci in the North is opposed to nrgro suffrage. If there were no other arguini;ut than this I would be in favor of giving the negro the ballot. \V'hen you know a man to be ir. sympathy with, and doing the works of the devil, have you any doubt as to whether or not you are on the Lord's side in fight- ing him? And when you hear the rebels of the South and Copperheads of the North denouncing negro futt'rage. can't you swear you are right, in fiiy. ring it, without the least fear of a mistake in your oath ? QUALIFICATIONS OF VOTERS. But there is an objection to the proposi- tion to which I wish to call your attention. It is said that the negroes are unfit to vcte — that thej' are too ignorant; and I have heard it said that they need a probation of ten or twenty years to prepare them for the ballot; that they must have time to acquire property, knowledge of political rights and duties, and then it will do to give them the ballot. I don't understand that argument. When you commit the negro to the tender mercies of his old tyr- ant who proceeds to deny him all the ad- vantages of education, the accumulation of property, and all social and political privileges, how soon will he become pre pared for the ballot? You might as well talk about preparinga man to see by punch- ing out his eyes ; or preparing hini for war by cutting otf his feet and hands ; or pre- parin the lamb for security by commit- ing it to the jaws of the wolf. If you want to prepare the negro for suffrage, take off his chains, and give him equal advantages with white men in fighting the battle of life. Don't charge him with unfitness, un- til you have given him equal opportunities witli others. Gentlemen, who made them unfit? I think it was the rebels. They enslaved them, degraded them, brutalized them, made tiiem what they are; and after their wickedness bus brought on this war, and they are ma.^^tered, and the question of restoring government lo the South comes up, then rchels complain of the vnfitness of the negroes to vote ! They made them un- fit, and "no man," says the legal ma.\im, "shall take advantage of his own wrong." Are you poing to be verj' nice or fast- idious in selecting a man to vote down a rebel 9 I think the negro just the man. I would not have a Letter, if I could. Of all men ho is the most fit. The rebel, I know, won't like it. It will hurt him lo make his bed on negro ballots He will get mad enough to explode, al- most. Shall I pour out my tears over hia sorrows? I will save my tears for a more fit occasion. He sowed the wind, let him reap the whirlwind. He is the architect of his own fortune ; let him enjoy it. It is ordained by Providence that retribution shall follow wrongdoing. Are you going to rush between the rebel and the conse- quences of his infernal deeds? Let him reap as he has sown. For one. I have too much to do lo vex myself about how ho will fare under negro ballots. 1 am sure he will ge'. alone; as well as he deserves, and I prefer to leave the whole matter with the negro, as the the tables are at last turned in his favor. But what is fitness to vote? It is a rel- ative t&rm. Nobody is jDCT/eci^y fit to vote. I have never seen a man that was. A man would have to know all about consti- tutional law, the difference between State rights and National sovereignty, all about political economy, all about the duties of the citizen, ail about a thousand things as to which wise men differ. He would have to be an angel or a god. If you will find such a man, i will set him to voting. He will see exactly into the right and wrong of every question ; he will be a good deal more infallible than the Pope. But no- body I have seen fills that bill. We are all more or less unfit to vote and to dis- charge all our duties. Thit is all you can say about it, and if you were going to get up a scale of knowledge and virtue from ze- ro up to 100, I would be totally at a loss to find the point of den^arcation below which nobody should vote, and above which everybody might vote. I would have to make a sliding scale at first, and then I would throw it awaj' r.nd let every man vote who was loyal and of proper age. Fitness belongs not so much to indiiidual men, as to aggregate manhood. Who was it that saved your country during this war ? Was it the wisdom of your President, of his Cabinet, or of Congress, or of our great statesmen ? Why, they all blundered, and you know how often, all the way through. You furnished the Government with the men, and the mone}-, and the braii.s. It was your 'aggregate practical common •vfn.'fi that inspired your rulers at Wash- ington with the policy which saved us. It is the people of the United States who arc the saviors of the Union. Somebody has said that the English Parliament is wiser than any man in Pailiament. Your Congress is wiser than any man in (;on- gress; the nation is wiser than any select few in it. Any few of the wise men, who know it all, would "run the machine into the ground'' so quick that j'ou would bo glad to get back to the government of the people, bp the people, /or the people. As your poet, Longfellow, has said: 11 "It is the heart, and not tho brain, That to the highest doth attain." Show me a man whose heart is right, and he will do to trust all the time. The negro's heart has been right all through this war; true as the needle to the pole. [Cheers.] He never betrayed a trust; al- ways knew the difference between a gray co;it and a blue one ; always knew the dif- ference between treason and loyalty ; and that is more than Jeff. Davis has found out to this day, with all his knowledge. It is true the negroes cannot read or •write much; perhaps not one in forty or fifty of the field hands can read or write. The same, if not more, is true of the "white trash." "When you talk about disfranchis- ing the negro because he can't read or ■write, you ought to apply your philosophy elsewhere. You have half a million of white men in the Union marching up to the ballot box who cannot write their own names. I believe that one-ninth of the adult people in Indiana can neither read nor write. You don't propose to disfran- chise them. The best educated country in the world is Prussia; everybody there is educated; and yet in Prussia, where you would suppose education had made free institutions, nobody votes. Education is not freedom. It does not fit any man in the world to vote. If it did, you ought to set Jeff Davis and the rebel leaders to vot- ing ever3r day, and disfranchise both white and black who cannot read and write. But if you did j^ou would soon have another war on your h",nds. The test will not d >. I recently wrote a letter to a friend, w' ait- ed for an answer, but did'nt rec: ive any. After a couple of weeks he came to me with the letter, saying, "I wish thee would read thy letter. I can't make it out. Thee can't write.'' The fact is, I never could write very well, and the rule would dis- franchise me, perhaps. Yet I might be perfectly fit to voto, and you might be able to write very neatly, a hand perfectly lovely to the eye, and yet you might '-e a miserable Copperhead, wholly unfit for the ballot. [Cheers and laughter.] The true way to fit men lor voting is to put the ballot into their hands. That's the the way to get at it. Suppose you want to teach your boy how to swim, and you won't let him go into the water for fear of drowning; he must stand on the land and go through the motions. How long, on a reisofable calculation, would it take to teach him to swim ? Y^ou want to teach these ignorant whites and stupid negroes how to vote. The first thing you have to do is to put the ballot into their hands. How can a man vote without a ballot? How can he cast a ballot if no man gives it to him? Give the ballot, and the ne- g'oes will say to themselves, "now we ar= invested with a power in the Government; we have a voice in deciding these great quest'ons ; we must read the newspapers and inquire of our neighbors who know more than we do." In this way they will learn something about politics, and how to vote intelligently. This is the true Democratic idea ; and until this ne^ro question came up, there never has been any test of fitness suggested, except that of age and sex. No test of knowledge or virtue has ever been hinted at by the Dem- ocratic I arty or anybody else till recently. Sir, I believe in the fitness of the people to govern ; and if you were to present to me the alternative of disfranchising a half million of our people, or of giving the bal- lot to ;i half million who have it not, I would give the ballot. In the one case I would open a vein, that might bleed the Republic to death ; in the other, I wou'd multiply the sources of public safety. I believe, religiously, in democracy ; in the fitness of the whole people to take care of the welfare of the whole people ; and while I would urge universal education, I would urge universal suffrage. HOW THE NKGROSS WILL TOTE. But I am told that the negroes will vote as their masters want them to. Do you believe it? Suppose they would; nobody would be badly hurt ; the matter would be no worse than now, for they all vote now through their old masters. But if half of them should vote the Abolition ticket, then half the rebel power would be de- stroyed; if three-fourths of them, then tbree-foui'ths of their power would be gone. But would they vote with their old masters ? They didn't fight with their old masters. You said if we put arms into their hands they would shoot at us. They never shot in the wrong direction yei. They knew exactly how to point their guns and bay- onets; and if they had brains enough to know that, how would it happen that they would become so oblivious that they would not know how to cast a ballot as well as a bullet? Did you ever know a stupid Irishman who did not know enough not to vote the Know Nothing ticket? Y'ou may take the lowest Irishman having the animal figure of a man, and you cannot find a man smart enough to make him vote any- thing but the Dimocv&\,\c ticket. [Cheers.] I believe it is possible the negroes might be persuaded to vote the Abolition ticket, considering the way they have been fight- ing. Every South Carolinian would be preaching negro suffrage with me to night if he thought the negroes would vote as he wanted them to. Doubtless the negroe? would sometimes vote wrong. When I remember that the slaveholders have been sharp enough to make fools of our wise men, have taken our great statesmen and molded them and licked them into the shape they wanted to have them, I admit that some of these stupid negroes migh t be induced to vote their old masters' tick- 12 ets. But wouW that be the first time men have voted wrong ? In my political ex- perience I have absolutely seen white men vote on the wrong side! Haven't you? I understand that even Democrats have voted wrong. To tell the whole truth, I understand that it was Democratic voting, bad Democratic voting, under the party lash, and in the i: terest of an institution alien to your welfare, bad, devilish, white voting that voted this country to the gates of death, and plunged it into this war. Why, the Copperheads are the last men in the worid to reproach t! e negro with being unfit to vote. If the Government should last a million years, no possible re- sult of negro voting could be worse than the result of Democratic voting for the last twenty years. I have known Republicans to vote wrong; Abolitionists, Freesoilers. I havp voted wrong several times myself, and I am sorry for it. We all make mistakes, and we all profit by our blunders. Could not the negro profit by his experience as well ? CONSTITUTIONAL PROTKCTION. It is said there is a way of avoiding this negro question by an amendment of the (3onslilution limiting representation in Congress to suflrage ; and then the rebels, in order to get back their power, will give the ballot to the negroes. This has been preached by respectable men and news- papers all over the country, and it has de- luded more men than any sophism I have encountered this j'ear. .But you cannot, in President Johnson's opinion, amend the Constitution without three-fourths of the States concurring, and these eleven rebel States being more than one-fourth, may not concur. And if you could thus amend the Constitution, it would take three or four years to accomplish it. But this question of suffrage and reconstruction is upon us and will not Avait. It meets us in December. Besides, the late slave- holders would as Eoon rush into a fiery furnace as to give the ballot to the colored people. Tlio leading men among them declare they would rather die than do it. It would be to Yankeeize and abolitioni/.e the wh(>le South. True, it would give back to the section her thirty voices in Congress, but they would be sent there by the Yankees and negroes and abi.litionisls, who would seethe old slave dynasty into "kingdom come" before they would see it restored. The whole idea isj)ure practical nonsense. The slaveholders could always have in- creased their power in Congress by simply giving freedom to their slaves; but they loved their domination over the negro more than they loved political power, and oven plunged the country into war in order to eternize their institution. The amend- iiicnt to the Constitution, as proposed, would be proper, and I shall vote for it ; but I would rather extend suffrage to rep- resentation than reduce representation to suffrage. The latter, as a solution of the suffrage question, is utterly futile. It is simply an attempt ta shuffle from our own shoulders a plain duty and saddle it on to the rebels, who never would perform it. NEGRO SUFFRAGE IN INDIANA. It is said that if we give the negroes t^e ballot in the South, we will have to give it to those in Indiana. Gentlemen, if In- diana had gone c t of the Union, and we, in trying to whip her back, had been com- pelled to call upon the negroes to help us, and when we had whipped her into the Union, we had not been strong enough to hold her there without the ballots of the negroes, you would have the case I am ar- guing as to the South. But if you secure equal rights and equal advantages to the negro, in the reconstruction of the South, under this inducement to our colored peo- ple to return to their sunny home, the ques tion of negro suffrage might never come in Indiana, if it thould come, 1 will be in favor of taking it up and dealing with it upon its merits. I am for taxation and representation everywhere throughout our country. But this question belongs to you, gentlemen of the Legislature, and Con- gress cannot touch it. Let me beg of you not to confound together very differ- ent questions. I confess and dejtlore the conduct of Indiana toward her colored people; but if our black laws were a thousand times blacker, it would be none the less my duty to the nation to plead for negro suffrage in the South. I do not do soon the ground exclusively of human- ity, or of justice to the negro, but on the more imperative ground of national sal- vation. I I'eel sure that the country can- not be saved and the fruits of our victory garnered, if the governing power in the South be committed to the fiands of the rebels. Let us settle this great national question, and then we shall be better pre- pared for minor ones. My conservative friends are grieved because I do not de- mand immediate negro suffi-agein Indiana as my "one idea." I am always glad to please these friends, and I am naturally amiable, but I must beg leave in this case to decline acceding to their wishes. NKGKO OFFICE HOLDING. Gentlemen, another objection I have heard to negro suffrage, is that th^y will hold all the ofhces in the South ; that the whites there will leave, and we shall no longer migrate there; tbat that region will grow blacker and blacker, electing negro Judges, negro Governors, negro Congress- men, «S:c., till the finale will be a war of races. This, 1 confess, is a dark picture. I cannot, however, feel alarmed. We Kadicals, dangerous as we are supposed to 13 be, will guard against these frightful results "What we deprecate is ha'te in reconstruc- tion. We have no thought, for example, of hurrying South Carolina into the Union with her ignorant negroes, and stupid and disloyal whites. "We want a season of pro- bation, giving us time to repeoplo the waste places within her borders ; time for Yankees and European- to take possession of the country and supply us with a loyal and intelliirent element. Then there will be no negroes holding ofBce unless a ma- jority of the people want them, and in th;it case a war of races will not be very prob- able. I have already referred to the policy of n gro voting in nearly all of the States for some thirty or forty years of our his- tory, and I believe it never led to negro office holding. Even in Massachusetts I remember no case of the sort. The only instance in my knowledge occurred in this State some twenty years 'go, in the election of a negro justice of the peace. Nor has negro voting ever led to social equality or miscegenation, to my knowledge. If my Democratic friends, however, feel in dan- ger of marrying negro women, I am in fa- vor of a law for their protection. I be- lieve the Republicans do not feel in any sort of danger. Gentlemen, seriously, the argument I am combating is worthy only of our Copperhead friends, and I hope no loyal man will ever defile himsell by wield- ing their despicable weapons. COLONIZATION — GEN. COX. But it is said, after all, that the true policy is not to give the ballot to the negro, but to colou'ze him ! Gentlemen, I trust I need not occupy your time with any argu- ment on this point. Certainly the poTicy of colonization in any foreign clime has found its place among the exploded humbugs of the age. Perhaps I should not wholly overlook the fact that Gen. Cox of Ohio has invented a new, and what he doubtless believes an improved plun of colonization, for Avhich, T presume, he means to take out a patent. He proposes to confine all the freedmen in some three or four States of the South, and hold them there as a dependency under the National Gov- ernment — a sort of African reservation. How he would get the two or three hun- dred thousand white people in those Stales out, having the right of locomotion and domicile, or how he would get the negroes in, having the same right, he has not told us. But if the whites were all out and the negroes all in, the real problem would still remain to be solved. Four millions of ne- groes huddled together, surrounded at every point of their border by a negro- hating, domineering white race, would furnish the world with a repetition, on a large scale, of those scenes of strife, border warfare, expulsion and extermination, vhieh we have seen enacted in the case of IT Seminole and Cherokee reservations. T need not dwell on this most impracti- cable of all projects, for by common con- sent it is rapidly passi ng out of the thoughts of men, as utterly unworthy of considera- tion. A MILITARY GOVERNMENT — NOBODT TO VOTB. There is another method of evading the question of negro suffrage which I some- times bear urged, and that is the establish- ment of a military government over the districts lately in revolt. The poor whites, it is said, are too ignorant to vote ; the negroes are in the same condition ; the rebel leaders are or should be disfranchised ; let us, therf fore, get up a military government, and let nobody vote. Gentlemen, I object to this policy -first, that a great standing army in time of peace is at war with all the maxims of our fathers ; next, that it would cost us irom one hundred to two hundred millions per year to maintain it, and you could not raise the money, having already a finanuial burden fidly sufficient for your shoulders; and finally, that a military government never would fit anybody to vote. Like the despotisms ot the Old World, it would unman, and dwarf, and par- alyze the people, rendering them more and more the mere helpless machines of the power that would use them. In fact, the proposition logi- cally contemplates the abolition of free institu- tions in all the insurrectionary districts, and is therefore utterly vicious. As I have argued elsewhere, the way to teach meu the use of the ballot is to give it to them, and the sooner you send them to school the sooner they will learn. DIVIDING THE UNION PARTY. Another objection to negro suffrage is that the agitation of the question will divide the Union party and aid our enemy. ''Don't spring it !" say my conservative friends, ''for God's sake don't spring it ! It will divide us and let the Copperheads of our State into power !" Well, gentlemen, I didn't spring it. The rebels sprung it when they brought on the war and necessitat- editsissues. The Government sprung it when it put arms into the hands of the negro. The < op- perheads spring it, and put it into their plat- forms, lly conservative friends spring it by im- ploring me wr)^ to sprinff it. [Laughter.] So the question is sprung. What will you do about it 'I "It will let in the Copperheads !" Suppose it should ; would that be any worse than lettin? in the rebels ? If we are to bring ourselves down to the level of the Copperheads in order to suc- ceed, meanly consenting to do their work, we may as well let them in regularly, at once. If the Union party can only be held together by trampling upon justice and the rights of man, the sooner we go to pieces the better. Don't ag- itate it! Keep still ! And so my conservative friends plead with me seventeen years ago. Their gospel was hush ! and as the slaves were in chains, if everybody would hush they would remain in chains, world without end. The same is true now of negro suS^rage. Agitation is the chosen means under Providence of carrying for- ward the truth, and the man who opposes it now is not for suflTrage at any time. "Be still ; wait till the country is ready for it!" But Providence has pretty much quit working miracles. Sup- pose He should send His lightning, as He did in the conversion of Paul, and instantly convert us all to negro sufi"rage. Then I suppose I would have leave to agitate it. But the first conserva- tive I would meet would say, "you are a fool I What are you talking about ? We are all with 14 jou !" Gentlemen, you see the miserable soph- istry into which men run in striving to escape a disagreeable duty. I say to you to night, the is- sue will not divide us. The heavens will not fall if justice is done. All through the war we disagreed as to arming the negroes, striking at slavery, and the confiscation of rejel property, but we so hated the rebels that we kept our eye on their guns, looking neither to the right nor to the left. So it will be now. If any Union man should leave us on this issue, and Join the enemy, he will very soon grow ashamed of hi> crowd and return, and on a decent piobation I would take him back. We shall not divide. This is my prophecy, and I prophesy further that in less than twelve months some of the men who now beg me not to spring the question will swear they sprung it first. ( Laughter. ) I form this opinion from my political experience. HAS CONGBKSS ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE QPES- 1 1ON? And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, I come to the most formidable objection of all, in the opin- ion of those who urge it, namely : that the ques- tion belongs to the States ; that Indiana can de- cide for herself whv> shall vote ; Ohio can ; Miss- issijipi cm; the eleveu revolted States, lieing.i.U of them i/i the Uni:,)i, can determine for them- selves exclusively who shall vote ; and that therefore, you and I have no concern in the matter. I bespeak your special attention to what I have to say, for I flatter myself I can make my views perfectly intelligible, even to my friend, Capt. Kilgour, who filed his bill of discovery against me. I agree, gentlemen, that the question belongs to the States, subject to the reserved right and duty of the United States to guarantee Republi- can governments to tho States. The States might so deal with the right of sufirage as to in- voke national intervention ; but I agree to the generally accepted proposition, ihat it is a State question. I agree further that the revolted dis- tricts are in the Union, in one sense. Their ter- ritory is there. I have not heard of its removal by the rebels, or by earthquake or other convul- sion of nature. I agree, too, that the people oc- cupying that territory arc in the Union. They are not the citizens of any foreign country. They are subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, and can no more run away from it than a man can run away from his shadow. Through their treason thev have lo^t their rights in the Union, bu'. the Union has lost nnneof its author- ity over them. 1 agn e further that no State can constitutionolly secede. Our fathers never in- tended that the Government might fall to pieces at the will or whim of any of its parts. All Governments are intended to be perpetual. No State, therefore, can conHitutl 7iall>/ secede, any more than any oni', of you can morally tell a lie, or commit suicide. If, however, you do lie, and we can prove ii, the lie is out, though you did it immorally ; and if you cut your throat, and the breath goes out of your body, I rather think you will be dead, seceded to another world, though you did not go there constitutionally, or at least according to the (lospel. Some of yon may have a theory that you would not be dead in the case su])posed, but 1 s))cak of the /'c.ct. Your theory tliat two and three make four would not change the fact of their sum. The truth of the matter was well slated by President Lincoln, when he said "that tho rebel States are utsidc of their proper constitutional relations to the Union. They ate, so to speak, outside of that constitU' itonal orbit in which they oucy revolved around the UnioB, as their center and sun ; and until re- stored, they can no more be States in the Union than a branch can live when severed from the tree. Toward the National Government they stand in the relation of territories, and are sub- ject entirely to its jurisdiction. My first witness on this subject is President Johnson. He appoints Provisional Goverr.ors for these States; but the Constitution knows nothing of any such officer, and he certainly has no right to appoint a Governor of any soit for any State ift the Union. North Carolina has just elected a rebel Governor, over Holden, and asks to be recognized at once as a State. The Presi- dent tells her to reconstruct awhile firt-t, and instructs Holden to hold on. Louisiana last year made a Constitution, elected a Governor, and sent Senators and Representatives to Wash- ington. Almost ev»ry body sa'd she was in. It was argued she had never been out, because the Constitution would not let heruo out. But Con- gress looked at these Senators and Representa- tives, and told them tiiey " were not good looking and could'ut come in." I believe the State o[ Louisiana is now under a military Governor. The President tells the rebels they must abolish slavery, repudiate their debt, give the negroes their testimony. &c , none of which conditions he can lawlully exact, if the States are in the Union as are Indiana and Ohio. He pardons a rebel 1; ader into a voter ; but if he can make voters out of rebel leaders, can't he make voters of loyal men ? And if in any one of these States, he deals with the question ol suffrage, is that Slate in the Union ? He tells the rebels that certain of them shall not vote ; but dorS not the right to say who shall not vote, imply the right to say who shall ? The President tells the rebels to organize govern- ments, elect members of Congress, and then sub- mit to Congre.-;s the question of their le^t0l ation. Rut could he do that as to Indiana? Ii we should make a new Constitution to-day, would it be any of the business of Congress ? Certainly we should not submit to any question as to i!ie ad- mission of duly elected members under the new organic law. Some of our pirtj' leaders say that the acts of the Executive and of Coogress since the war have proceeded upon the hypothesis that all these States are in; that once in the Union, al- ways in the Union. To show the lallacy of this, let me instance another fact. In the House of Representatives there are '.'C6 members, counting the States in revolt. A constitutional quorum is 119, if I am not mistaken. Rut ever since the war we have been legislating with a quorum jf 94, being a majority of the representatives from the States that have not rebelled It follows, fiom the theory I am opposing, that our tax laws, our conscrij)tion laws— our thousand and one laws on which I have been voting for fourj-ears —are null and void. You have pretended to fight rebels, while all the time you yourselves I were trampling the ('onstitution under foot. ! Your bonds and greenbacks have no value. Your constituiional amendment, soon now to be consummated, will have no validity, lor not two- thirds of Congress ever voted for its submission. Do you believe all this? Gentlemen you know I'etter. You dare not say it, nor can the nation. As I have already said, tlie-e rebel States are outside of their Constitutional orbit, and tliey never can get back into it without the consent of Congress. And right here is where the matter ot sulTrage comes under your jurisdiction. Car- olina, for example, asks admission. She must come as a territory, as to her rights. Sujjposo she asks to be restored with Slavery in her Con- 15 aUtution. I would see her in Paradise before 1 would vote to receive her. [Great applause;] Suppose she should ask to come in with polyga- my. Believing one wife about as many as one Christian can get along with, I would not receive her. Suppose she should come with cannibal- ism, the light of one Copperhead to eat another, a thiug not^very oafensive in itself; I would not vote fur a man-eating constitution, for loyal men might be the victims. [Renewed applause.] Carolin. asks to come in, and while I am think- ing of the question I remember a clause in the Constitution v\ hich say* " the United States ^hall gruarantee to everv State a republican form of Grovernment." What is a refublican form of gov ernment, is a political question exclusively for Congress. Well, I look at her Constitution, and find that it disfranchises two-thirds of her peo- ple, an I they the only loyal ones in her bor- der, and gives the ballot to one-third, and they rebels, wno ought to have been hung or exiled before to-day. Gentlemen, I would decide, with- out hesitation, that her Constitution was not re- publican i a form or in fact; and I would slam the door in her face. "* What would you do with her?" you ask. I would have Congress put a territorial govtrnment over her, and President Johnson to appoint a Chief Justice, a Governor, a Marshall, <&c., and in local politics, in electing justices, constables, &c., I would set the people to voting. If I should allow the rebels to vote, I would be sure to checkmate them by the votes of loyal negroes ; and thus I would train up the people, black and white, to the use of the ballot, tf they should fio astray the supervisory power of Congress would correct all mistakes; and after a while, when a papulation had been se- cured fit for State government, I would, if in Congress, vote to receive Carolina again into our embrace. Some of the States might be received sooner, and under less exacting conditions than others ; but in all I would want to be assured that no future harm to our peace could result from any lack of vigilance on our jjari, in prescribing necessary conditions. And thus, gentlemen, I think I make this question of reconstruction as plain as the way to your homes. Through your servants in Congress, the power is in your hands, unhindered by any constitut.onal difficu ty to do exactly what may seem to be required. I trust that "by this time even my fiiend from Delaware understands my position. And I care not what your theory is as to the status of the rebel States. Here on the admitted ground of the power of Congress to prescribe conditions of retum, and to guarantee republican governments, the whole question of suffrage is your question, and you cannot escape it it you would. THE LAW OF NATIONS INVOKED. And now, Mr. Chairman, if any gentleman desires me to fortify my position stUl further, to make my point still clearer, I will enderivor to gratify him by stating another proposition. I give you no mere opinion of mv own, but the voice of the nation itself, speaking through its highest judicial tribunal two years and a half ago, in a case invo ving the constituiioual rights of rebels and the law of nations applicable to the war. 1 am surprised that so many of our public men ignore this decision. The Supreme Court of the United States decided that although the revolt of the rebels at first was a mere insurrec- tion, a great mob, yet when it grew on our hands till we had to call out a milium of men to put it down and fit out six hundred ships to blockade a coast of twenty-five hundred miles, and in dealing with it recognized the right of blockade and the other ordinary incidents of a foreign war, then and thenceforward, it became a civil territo- rial conflict, like tjiat of a war with Mexico or France; eace with the South as lasting as her hills, and our Republic will be in reality, for the first time in her history, the model republic of the world. [General and long continued applause ] ^