SPEECH OH? 
 
 HON. CONKAD BAKEH 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF HIS NOMINATION BY THE REPUBLICAN 
 
 STATE CONVENTION, 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS, FEBRUARY 30, 1868. 
 
 The time has arrived when another of those groat 
 periodical contests which are incident to popular gov- 
 ernments is about to be inaugurated. The principles, 
 however, for which wo shall contend in the impend- 
 ing struggle are the same for which the loyal, liberty- 
 loving Union men of the country have been contin- 
 ually battling since the commencement of the Rebel- 
 lion in 1861. 
 
 However some men may desire to forget the record 
 of individuals and of parties during the years inter- 
 vening between the reduction of Fort Sumter and 
 the surrender of the rebel armies of Lee and John- 
 ston, the ghosts of the past will not down at their 
 bidding ; and the same men who made the Hartford 
 Convention do duty for them against political oppo- 
 nents who were in nowise responsible for its action, 
 must be made to remember that that Convention was 
 a pattern of loyalty when compared with the Chicago 
 conclave of 1864. 
 
 The Republican party would be false to itself and 
 false to the country if it permitted the so-called Dem- 
 ocratic party to assume the offensive now. That 
 party is still the prisoner in the dock, on trial for its 
 life at the Bar of the Nation, and no amount of de- 
 nunciation of the prosecuting officers, no amount of 
 special pleading, can divert the minds of the triors 
 from the real issue which is "guilty or not guilty" of 
 compassing the death of the Republic. 
 
 Men who, during the war, denounced greenbacks 
 as unconstitutional, and not possessing even the 
 righteousness of filthy rags, may now pretend to be 
 so enamored of them as to propose to inundate the 
 country with paper money by their unlimited issue. 
 
 Men who, at Chicago and elsewhere, denounced 
 test oaths as the invention of tyranny, may now pre- 
 tend to rely upon the iron-clad oath as a sufficient 
 security against the admission of rebels to Congress. 
 
 Men who, during the war, denounced the draft, and 
 boasted that they had never asked any man to volun- 
 teer, and who asseverated that the Union could not 
 be restored by force, may now resolve and re-resolve 
 that the Union has thus been restored, and that they 
 did it, but still the intelligent people of the country 
 will apply to them the infallible rule of judgment, 
 "by their fruits ye shall know them," and allow them 
 to take those eligible back seats to which thoir friend, 
 Mr. Johnson, so politely invited them in 186-L 
 
 The. restoration of the States lately in rebellion to 
 
 their practical relations to the Government of tl 
 United States, is the paramount question of the daj 
 on the proper solution of which all subordinate quel 
 tions in a large measure depend. Two distinct plan 
 of reconstruction are presented to the country — thj 
 one known as the Presidential plan, and which no^ 
 has the support of the Democratic party; the otho 
 known as the Congressional plan, which has the en 
 dotsement of the groat loyal Union Republican party 
 but for whose efforts during the war no plan of recon. 
 struction would now bo possible. The advocates o} 
 these two distinct plans of reconstruction difi'er both 
 as to the law and the facts which enter into any in] 
 quiry involving the merits of each. 
 
 The subject, therefore, naturally divides itself into 
 the two following questions, under which I propose! 
 to treat it: 
 
 1st. What are the facts affecting the merits of the I 
 two plans of reconstruction now proposed to tlio | 
 country? 
 
 2d. What is the legal status of the States lately in 
 rebellion, and what are the constitutional powers of 
 Congress and the President respectively over the 
 questions involved in their restoration? 
 
 If the facts are as the organs of Democratic public 
 opinion assert them to be, Congress might well, for 
 the sake of accomplishing a speedy restoration of the 
 revolted States, waive any irregularities in the Presi- 
 dential proceedings and ratify acts which are believed 
 to be beyond the scope of the constitutional powers of 
 the Executive Department of the Government. 
 
 What, then, does the Democratic party allege the 
 facts to be which should induce Congress to recognize 
 the State organizations formed under the auspices of 
 the President as legal, valid State governments? 
 
 It is believed no better or fairer method can be em- 
 ployed ol* ascertaining the position of the Democratic 
 party on these questions of tact than by allowing their 
 distinguished standard-bearer in this State, Senator 
 Hendricks, to state them in his own language. He 
 said, in his 8th of January speech, and substantially 
 reiterated the statement in a subsequent speech in tho 
 Senate: 
 
 1st. That after the close of the war the people of 
 the South "entirely acquiesced in the results of the 
 war, yicldiug obt-dience to law and respect to the mi- 
 thorir.v of the United States.'' 
 
 
2d. "That tbe people of all the Southern States 
 adopt the President's recommendations and elected 
 delegates to Conventions; Constitutions were made, 
 submitted, voted upon and ratified." 
 
 3d. "That in each State Constitution slavery was 
 prohibited; their debt contracted in the rebellion was 
 repudiated ; the right of secession was expressly and 
 in tbe most solemn manner abandoned, and their 
 several ordinances of secession were repudiated and 
 declared invalid." 
 
 4th. -'.These Constitutions were approved and rat- 
 ified according to the forms always respected, and were 
 acceptable tothe people both North and South." 
 
 If these propositions were true, or even true in the 
 main, the revolted States and their people would to- 
 day be represented in both Houses of Congress of the 
 United States. My present duty is to show that with 
 a few slight exceptions, which will be noticed, they 
 have no foundation in truth or in fact. In other 
 words, I put in an appearance for the Republican 
 party of Indiana and plead the general denial to the 
 whole compact. 
 
 Although the burthen of proving these propositions 
 is on the Democratic party, by whom they are 
 affirmed, I take upon myself, contrary to the ordinary 
 rule in such cases, the duty of disproving the affirma- 
 tions and establishing the denial. This I shall do, 
 not by an exhaustive review of the evidence, but by 
 such a reference to tbe principal links in the chain as 
 will suffice for the end proposed. 
 
 First, then, did the people of the South, after the 
 close of the war, yield obedience to law and respect 
 to the authority of the United States? 
 
 In entering upon this inquiry, it should be borne 
 in mind that there then was, and still is, on the Stat- 
 ute Book of the United States an act of Congress en- 
 titled "An act to prescribe an oath of office, and for 
 other purposes," approved July 2, 1862, by which 
 every person elected or appointed to any office of 
 honor or profit under the Government of the United 
 States (the President only excepted), is required, be- 
 fore entering upon the duties of his office, to take and 
 subscribe an oath that he had never voluntarily borne 
 arms against the United States since becoming a citi- 
 zen thereof; that he had voluntarily given no aid, 
 countenance, counsel or encouragement to persons 
 engaged in armed hostility to the United States ; that 
 hehad not sought or accepted, nor attempted to exer- 
 cise tbe functions of any office whatever under any 
 authority or pretended authority in hostility to the 
 United States; that he had not yielded a voluntary 
 support to any pretended government, authority, 
 power or Constitution within the United States hostile 
 or inimical thereto. 
 
 Before proceeding to show bow much obedience the 
 defeated rebels of the South yielded to this law, and 
 how much respect they manifested for the authority 
 by which it was enacted, I desire to express my grat- 
 ification that Mr. Hendricks seems to approve this 
 oath, and to have faith in its efficacy. 
 
 He said in his late speech, "that that man is too 
 stupid or too dishonest to merit the confidence of the 
 people who now tells them that red-handed rebels 
 could be restored to power. Since 1862 it has been 
 and now is," continues he, "the statutes law of Con- 
 gress thut no man shall be a member of Congress, or 
 hold any office under the United States, who engaged 
 in or gave aid to the rebellion." 
 
 As no doubt is here expressed of the constitution- 
 ality of this statute, no desire expressed to repeal it, 
 no want of confidence signified as to its propriety <>r 
 efficacy, I am constrained to believe that the Senator 
 has changed the opinion he formerly held on the same 
 subject. 
 
 I well remember that in 1864, in - his place in the 
 Senate, ho most emphatically condemned this oath by 
 comparing it with the odious religious test oaths for- 
 merly required to be taken by members of the British 
 Parliament. But be that as it may, Mr. Hendricks 
 now relies upon this oath to keep Congress uncontam- 
 inated by the presence of "red-handed rebels," and 
 thereby admits the validity of the act prescribing it. 
 
 How much obedience, then, did the people of the 
 South yield to this law? How much respect to the 
 authority of the United States by which it was en- 
 acted ? 
 
 Under the Presidential plan of reconstruction, and 
 under the lead of Mr. Johnson, all the rebel States, 
 except Texas, proceeded in the fall of 1865 to elect 
 Senators and Representatives in Congress. "When 
 they did this they were fully informed of the exist- 
 ence of the act of Congress prescribing the " iron- 
 clad " oath. 
 
 How much obedience did they yield to that law ? 
 How much respect did they evince for that oath ? Let 
 a few facts answer that question : 
 
 Georgia chose Alexander H. Stephens, late Vice 
 President of the rebel Confederacy, and Herschel V. 
 Johnson, late a Senator in the rebel Congress, to re- 
 present her reconstructed loyalty in tbe Senate of tbe 
 United States ; and her people elected two Rebel Gen- 
 erals to seats in the House of Representatives. 
 
 North Carolina sent as her Senators "William A. 
 Graham, fresh from the Confederate Senate, and Mr. 
 Pool, a member of the Rebel Legislature of that 
 State during the war. 
 
 In the House the people of the same State elected 
 a member of tbe Rebel Congress, a Colonel in the 
 rebel army, and a member of the Convention which 
 passed her Ordinance of Secession. 
 
 South Carolina chose as her Senators, a Confederate 
 State's Judge, and a staff officer of Beauregard in the 
 rebel army. 
 
 Virginia elected to the House two members of her 
 Secession Convention who bad acted as members of 
 that body after the commencement of hostilities. 
 
 These are mere samples of the kind of men which 
 the South chose as members of the 39th Congress, and 
 it is perfectly notorious that, as a general rule, in the 
 elections which resulted in the choice of such men, 
 loyalty to the government of the United States was 
 proscribed, while service in the Confederate cause was 
 a sure passport to popular favor. 
 
 With facts like these staring us in the face, it is not 
 difficult to determine how much credit is due to the 
 senatorial assumption that these people yielded obedi- 
 ence to the law and respect to the authority of the 
 United States. 
 
 But this is not the only evidence of the continued 
 rebellious temper and spirit of the people of the South, 
 and their utter want of respect for the authority of 
 the United States. North Carolina, for instance, made 
 the taking effect of sundry of her laws in relation to 
 freedmen to depend upon the withdrawal of the mili- 
 tary protection extended to this class of people by the 
 United States, thereby refusing to " accept tbe situa- 
 tion," unless permitted to dictate to Congress what 
 should be the character of its legislation in relation to 
 the recently emancipated slaves. Mississippi showed 
 her respect for the authority of the United States by 
 passing an act, approved November 21, 1865, as to a 
 certain class of offenses committed before the' war, 
 granting an amnesty to such persons, and to such 
 persons only, who had volunteered in the Confederate 
 army, and who did not desert said army. If a man 
 had served in the Union army, or enlisted in the 
 Rebel army and deserted, he was to be tried and pun- 
 ished for offenses committed before the war ; but if 
 
ho had served the rebellion without deserting, this 
 purged him from all guilt. Who so blind as not to 
 see that such legislation as this was out of pure re- 
 spect for the authority of the United States 1 Again, 
 by another act of the same date, Mississippi set apart 
 twenty per cent, of the entire revenue of the State, a 
 revenue proposed to be raised by the mo3t enormous 
 taxation, for a relief fund for the relief of destitute, 
 disabled Confederate soldiers and their widows and 
 children. Union soldiers who resided or might settle 
 in the State of Mississippi were to be taxed to pen- 
 sion those who fought to destroy the Government ! 
 Does not this discrimination in favor of Kebel soldiers 
 and against Union soldiers show a marvelous 'respect 
 for the authority of the United States? especially 
 when it is considered that by another law of the same 
 State, a Union soldier, if he happened to be a black 
 man, might be sold on the block into temporary sla- 
 very to pay a poll tax. 
 
 Again, maimed Bebel soldiers wore exempted from 
 the payment of poll taxes and license fees; but no 
 such exemption was extended to persons who fought 
 for their country. 
 
 Another very significant act, showing the respect 
 of Mississippi for the authority of the United States, 
 was the fact that her Legislature, on the 1st of De- 
 cember, 1865, obliterated the very name of the only 
 county in the State that had been loyal to the Gov- 
 ernment during the war, and re-baptized it in the 
 name of the chief of the rebellion, by giving it the 
 name of Davis. The name of the county seat of the 
 same county was changed to Leesburgh, in honor of 
 General Lee. Is it not a great outrage that a Legis- 
 lature so loyal as to pass an act like this, showing such 
 marked respect for the authority of the United States 
 should not be permitted to elect two Senators of the 
 United States to take their seats by the side of Mr. 
 Hendricks and assist him to represent true loyalty 
 and true constitutional liberty ? 
 
 The butchery at Memphis, and the slaughter at 
 New Orleans, speak in thunder tones in favor of the 
 proposition that the people of the South yielded obe- 
 dience to law and respect to the authority of the Urrt- 
 ted States ! Let me call your attention to a bill 
 growing out of the last named butchery, rendered by 
 the Chief of Police of the City of New Orleans to 
 the City Treasurer of that city, after the murder of 
 the members of the Convention. Thus it %eads : 
 "Comptroller's Office, 
 " New Orleans, November 18, 1867. 
 Office of tiie Chief of Police, 
 
 New Orleans, August 16, 1867. 
 City of New Orleans, 
 
 To Thomas B. Adams, Dr. 
 For cash paid for hauling forty six loads of dead 
 and wounded from around the Mechanics' Insti- 
 tute to Station House, at $,3 $138 
 
 Paid for carrying dead from Station House to 
 
 Work House yard, eight loads a $3 24 
 
 Paid for fifteen loads of wounded from station to 
 
 Freedman's Hospital, at $4.., 60 
 
 Paid carriage and cab hire for myself and aids 
 
 during the week of the riot 75 
 
 Here you see from an official document recently 
 brought to the notice of Congress by General Butler, 
 that these rebel officials of New Orleans account for 
 sixty-nine loads of dead and wounded Union men 
 murdered in cold blood. 
 
 The blood of these slaughtered ones crying from 
 the ground, must have inspired Mr. Hendricks when 
 he asserted that the people of the South yielded obe- 
 dience to the law and respect to the authority of the 
 United States. And yet these are tho people for gov- 
 
 erning whom gallant Phil. Sheridan was removed! 
 from command by the Presidont, to tho great delight 
 of the Democratic party, North and South. 
 
 But we are assured not only that the people of the 
 South did yield obedience to law and respect to the 
 authority of the United States, but that they entirely 
 acquiesced in the results of the war. 
 
 One of the results of the war, as is now conceded 
 on all hands, was the abolition of slavery in the in- 
 surgent States, and the consequent obligation to pro- 
 ect the f eedmen in their inalienable rights, among 
 which there is good authority for saying, are " life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." Indeed, the 
 founders of the republic are reported to have declared 
 that, "to secure these rights governments are institu- 
 ted among men, deriving their just powers from the 
 consent of the governed." 
 
 When Mr. Johnson assumed to bo the United 
 States, and arrogated to himself tho law-making 
 power of the Government, he was not unmindful of 
 the fact that slavery had been abolished in the insur- 
 rectionary States by Executive proclamation as a nec- 
 essary war measure, and that this abolition had 
 received the sanction of Congress and the people. 
 
 In his amnesty proclamation of May 29, 1865, he 
 required every rebel as a condition of pardon, to take 
 and subscribe the following oath, viz: 
 
 "I do solemnly swear, or affirm, in the presence of 
 Almighty God, that I will henceforth faithfully sup- 
 port, protecfand defend the Constitution of the Uni- 
 ted States, and the union of the States thereunder; 
 and that I will in like manner abide by and faithfully 
 support all laws and proclamations which have been 
 made during the existing rebellion with reference to 
 the emancipation of slaves. So help me God. 
 
 By the President's other proclamation of the same 
 date, (May 29, 1865,) appointing a Provisional Gov- 
 ernor for North Carolina, and providing for the re- 
 establishment of civil government in that State, one 
 of the qualifications prescribed for every voter was 
 that he should previously to voting, take and sub- 
 scribe the amnesty oath which has just been quoted 
 at length. 
 
 The North Carolina proclamation was the model 
 after which all the other reconstruction proclamations 
 subsequently issued were fashioned; the same oath 
 being required in each as a condition precedent to 
 the exercise of the elective franchise. The rebellious 
 people of North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama 
 Mississippi, Florida, and Texas, in reconstructing 
 under the Presidential plan, took this amnesty oath. 
 
 These facts, now passed into history, are reproduc- 
 ed to show that so far as swearing faithfully to sup- 
 port freedom as against slavery is concerned, the 
 people of these States did acquiesce in the results of 
 the war. 
 
 But to make his declaration good, Mr. Hendricks 
 must be prepared to show not only that they thus 
 swore, but that they also in good faith kept their oath. 
 
 In supplying the evidence on this point, it will 
 not be expected that within the limits of- a single 
 speech all the proofs of entire acquiescence will be 
 adduced as to all the seceded States. Instead of 
 attempting this, some scraps from the history of John- 
 sonian reconstruction in a single State will be submit- 
 ted as a sample of the whole. 
 
 Let Mississippi bo the model State selected, and let 
 the evidence bo drawn from her legislative enact- 
 ments passed in 1865, before the mooting of Congress 
 in December of that year. 
 
 The resuscitated rebel legislature of Mississippi 
 met in October, 1865, and was in session during that 
 month, the month of November, and a few of tho 
 first days of December of the same year. 
 
It was composed of men who had just sworn faith- 
 fully to support the abolition of slavery, and no wick- 
 ed Radical Congress had as yet done aught to provoke 
 them to do otherwise than as their own judgment 
 should dictate. 
 
 What then under these favorable circumstances did 
 they do? 
 
 By law they compelled all colored persons to 
 have homes, and by the same law rendered it im- 
 possible that they should have homes by making 
 them incompetent to even rent or lease, (much 
 less to own), lands or tenements, save in an incor- 
 porate town or city, and there they could only rent 
 under the control and with the permission of the 
 corporate authorities. The object of this legislation 
 was palpable ; it was to drive the emancipated 
 slaves to seek homes as tenants by sufferance, in 
 their old quarters on the plantations of their 
 former masters. 
 
 By the same act the freedmen and all other 
 colored persons, were also required to have some 
 lawful employment in order to legalize their 
 existence in the sovereign reconstructed State of 
 Mississippi. How then could lawful employment 
 be acquired or obtained ? 
 
 I answer that a colored person could only have 
 a lawful employment in one of two ways, viz: 
 first, by being licensed to live and to labor by the 
 police authorities of the locality in which he 
 might live, the price of license being fixed by the 
 local authorities, and varying from one to five 
 dollars, and being revokable at the pleasure of 
 those who issued it. Second, by contracting in 
 writing to serve some white man for a period of 
 more than one month, and by that contract re- 
 ducing himself to a worse condition than that of 
 slavery itself. This contract, necessary to legal- 
 ize the colored man's existence, was by law de 
 clared to be an entire contract, and if the employe 
 quitted the service of his master without good 
 cause before the expiration of his term of service, 
 he forfeited all wages then due, and was liable 
 besides to be arrested by any officer or citizen 
 and carried back to his master ; and for making 
 the arrest and delivery such officer or citizen was 
 entitled to five dollars reward, and ten cents a 
 mile from the place of arrest to the place of de- 
 livery, all this to be paid by the master, and 
 deducted from the future earnings of the fugitive. 
 And, lest there should be any failure to execute 
 this fugitive slave law, it was made the duty of 
 every civil officer to make the arrest and delivery 
 of the fugitive. 
 
 But these Johnsonized rebels well knew that it 
 would be a vain thing to enact that a colored man 
 could not legally exist in the State of Mississippi, 
 save as the stipulated temporary slave of some 
 white man, unless there were proper penalties 
 prescribed against the terrible crime of not hav- 
 ing a lawful employment. This omission was 
 supplied by the vagrant law of Mississippi, ap- 
 proved by Governor B. G. Humphreys, late a 
 General in the Confederate service, on the 24th 
 day of November, 1865, and still approved by Mr. 
 Hendricks and his party, as may be inferred by 
 the declaration that these people entirely acqui- 
 esced in the results of the war. 
 
 By this vagrant act, all colored persons, male 
 and female, over the age of eighteen years, who 
 should on the second Monday of January, 1866, 
 or thereafter be found without lawful employ- 
 
 ment or business, were declared to be vagrants, 
 and on conviction thereof, were to be fined not 
 exceeding fifty dollars, and imprisoned at the 
 discretion of the court, not exceeding ten days, 
 and if the fine was not paid in five days after 
 conviction, it was made the duty of the Sheriff 
 to hire out the convict to any person who would 
 for the shortest period pay said fine and all costs. 
 
 Look for one moment at the beauties of this 
 Democratic acquiescing legislation, passed by men 
 who had the oath to support the abolition of 
 slavery fresh upon their lips and upon their souls. 
 
 It embraces three propositions, viz: First, Col 
 ored persons must have homes or be outlawed ; 
 but lest they should get homes, they are prohibi- 
 ted by law irom renting houses or lands. Second, 
 If they have not homes they must have some 
 lawful employment or business ; but the law pre- 
 vents them from having a lawful employment or 
 business unless they are licensed or bound to 
 serve some white man in a written contract that 
 makes them worse than the slaves of their em- 
 ployers. Third, If they have no lawful employ- 
 ment or business, they are vagrants, and pun- 
 ished by a fine not exceeding fifty dollars, and to 
 pay the fine and costs the man or woman is put 
 upon the block and sold into temporary bondage. 
 
 Even Indiana Democrats would acquiesce in 
 such a result of the war as would still permit 
 their Southern brethren to sell colored people on 
 the block for the dreadful crime of being black 
 and having no license to live and to labor issued 
 by some rebel Democratic official. 
 
 Again, by the sixth section of this same vagrant 
 act it was made the duty of the police authorities 
 of each county to levy an annual special poll tax 
 of not exceeding one dollar on every colored 
 person, male and female,* between the ages of 
 eighteen and sixty years, to constitute a Fived- 
 man's Pauper Fund;, and by the seventh section 
 a failure to pay this tax was made evidence of 
 vagrancy, and it was made the duty of the Sher- 
 iff to arrest the defaulting tax payer and (without 
 trial) proceed at once to hire him or her out to any 
 one who would for the shortest time pa,y the tax 
 with the accruing costs. 
 
 Assessing a poll tax upon a woman, and then 
 levying upon the woman and selling her on the 
 block to pay the tax, affords evidence of finan- 
 cial genius and acquiescing loyalty that cannot 
 fail to command universal admiration. 
 
 The tax just mentioned, be it remembered, 
 was a special poll tax only applicable to colored 
 persons, and applicable to these without regard 
 to sex. Besides this, colored men with all male 
 inhabitants of the State, between the ages of 
 twenty-one and sixty, were subject to a State poll 
 tax of one dollar per annum, and if it was not 
 paid the Sheriff was to compel the delinquent to 
 work six days on any public road or bridge or 
 other public work ; and if there was no such 
 work in the county to be done, the Sheriff was to 
 hire the defaulting tax payer for six days to a-ny 
 person who would pay the one dollar tax and one 
 dollar additional for cost. This law in terms ap- 
 plied to white persons as well as black, but any 
 one can see that it was aimed chiefly at the de- 
 fenceless freedmen, it being well understood that 
 none of the white chivalry of the South could or 
 would be made to submit to the performance of 
 
six days of compulsory labor to pay a poll tax of 
 one dollar. 
 
 The crowning evidence of the entire acquies- 
 cense of the people of Mississippi in the results of 
 fhe war is, however, to be found in an act, ap- 
 proved November 29, 1865, entitled " an act to 
 punish certain offenses therein named and for 
 other purposes." 
 
 By this act a penalty of not less than ten nor 
 more than one hundred dollars is denounced 
 against every freedman, free negro or mulatto 
 who shall exercise the functions of a Minister of the 
 Gospel without a license from a regularly organi- 
 zed church, and should he fail to pay the fine and 
 costs for the space of five days after conviction, 
 he shall be hired out by the Sheriff or other offi- 
 cer, at public outcry, to any white person who 
 will pay such fine and costs and take such convict 
 for the shortest time. 
 
 Such was a part of the diabolical ingenuity 
 which these reconstructed rebels employed to 
 evade the amnesty oath they had just taken, and 
 to show their entire acquiescence in the results of 
 the war. Is it not marvellous that Mr. Hendricks 
 in searching for evidence of the acquiescence of 
 the Southern people in the results of the war, 
 should ignore these solemn legislative records, 
 and instead thereof rely upon the opinion of Gen. 
 eral Grant, formed on a flying railroad trip made 
 through the Southern States, and occupying as it 
 did but a few days? Is it not still more strange, 
 that the Senator should turn aside Irom this and 
 similar legislation, and adduce as conclusive evi- 
 dence of acquiescence, the opinion of his distin- 
 guished colleague in the Senate, expressed more 
 than a month before this legislation had been 
 inaugurated ? 
 
 Among lawyers it is accounted to be a sure 
 sign of a weak case when the barrister resorts to 
 inferior, secondary, or hearsay evidence in sup- 
 port of his cause, where the best evidence is at- 
 tainable. Such a course may enable the advocate 
 to exhibit his skill, and occasionally to make a 
 sharp point on his adversary, and may have vic- 
 tory, but cannot have truth for its object. 
 
 I present you not the opinion of this d'stin- 
 guished General, or that eminent statesman, as 
 to what he supposed to be the temper and spirit 
 of the people of the South, as regarded their 
 yielding respect to the authority of the United 
 States, and acquiescing in the results of the war; 
 but as infinitely better and higher evidence, I 
 submit to you what these people themselves, said 
 and did in their legislative assemblies 
 
 Mr. Hendricks, in the speech to which I have 
 alluded, for the purpose of working up the pas- 
 sions and prejudices of his party against a de- 
 spised and injured race, drew a fancy sketch, with 
 which he was so well pleased that he subsequently 
 held it up, in another speech, to the admiring 
 gaze of the Senate of the United States. In this 
 sketch he depicted the atrocious conduct of the 
 colored' men of the South waging a war of barba- 
 rians against the property and persons of the 
 white people, and in prosecuting this cru<d pur- 
 pose he exclaimed : 
 
 " Whatever may be the sympathies of the 
 North on the question of freedom from slavery, 
 you need not think they will be with the negro 
 in this horrible contest now imminent; for when 
 the Northern man sees the mother and children 
 
 escaping from the burning house that has shel- 
 tered and protected them; when he hears the 
 screams of beauty and innocence in the flight 
 from pursuinglust; if he ever venerated amotnerl 
 or loved a sister or wife, his heart and hand will 
 be for the pale-faced woman, and for the child of 
 his own race." 
 
 As a work of art, this picture lacks but one 
 element to make it a master-piece. That lacking 
 element is its utter want of truthfulness. It ought 
 to have been remembered, in drawing this pic- 
 ture, that a change of figures was necessary to 
 make it true to actual life. The brown-faced wo- 
 man ought to have been placed in the foreground, 
 with the Confederate white man, brutalized by 
 the contact and practice of slavery, in hot pur- 
 suit. 
 
 Such scenes as this have not been of infrequent 
 occurrence in the South; and if we may .judge of 
 results by the number of people in that section 
 who are neither black nor white, the pale-faced 
 man was generally successful in the chase. 
 
 Gratitude for the kind treatment extended by 
 the colored men of the South to the wives and 
 little ones of Southern Democrats, when they 
 were engaged in a cruel and atrocious war, waged 
 to perpetuate the bondage of the sable sons of 
 toil, and to overthrow the Government, ought to 
 protect them from such unfounded assaults from 
 any Democrat of the Chicago platform persuasion. 
 
 As an offset to this imaginary picture, let me 
 present to you another, not drawn wholly from 
 fancy, but which might have taken place under 
 the legislation to which I have called your atten- 
 tion, had not that legislation been stricken from 
 existence by the enactments of Congress and the 
 strong arm of military power. 
 
 Suppose a discharged Union soldier, with the 
 uniform of his country still upon his back, but 
 laboring under the double misfortune of having 
 given one of his limbs to his country, and of hav- 
 ing a black skin, to be a resident of Mississippi, 
 and to be assessed with tho'special poll tax of 
 which mention has already been made. Suppose 
 him not to have the money with which to pay this 
 tax; and suppose another discharged soldier, 
 wearing the Confederate grey, to have been ele- 
 vated, in consequence of his devotion to the rebel 
 cause, to the office of Tax Collector, by his admir- 
 ing fellow rebels. Behold the rebel soldier clutch 
 the black man dressed in blue, and place him 
 upon the block and expose him to sale, to pay a 
 tax from which the rebel auctioneer is exempt. 
 
 In witnessing such a scene as this, think you 
 that the heart or hand of the Northern man who 
 who venerates a mother, or loves a sister or wife, 
 would be in favor of the rebel man-seller ? 
 
 But again, 1 think I see in Mississippi two dis- 
 charged white soldiers, both maimed by wounds 
 received in battle, the one still wearing the loyal 
 blue, the. other the Confederate grey; each was 
 faithful to the cause for which he fought; the man 
 in grey, because of his fidelity to rebellion, is ex- 
 empt from paying a poll-tax, and has been elected 
 Sheriff of the county. Behold him march off the 
 Union soldier to perform six days of enforced la- 
 bor to raise a fund, one-fifth of which is to go to 
 the man in grey and other disabled rebels, to 
 compensate them for their sufferings in attempt- 
 ing to destroy the government to which both 
 alike owed allegiance. In whose favor would the 
 
6 
 
 heart and hand of the Northern man be, under 
 such circumstances, if not. himself at heart a trai- 
 tor ? Would he not, amid such surroundings, 
 sing " We'll rally 'round the flag, boys, we'll rally 
 once again," before we will tolerate the perpetra- 
 tion of such outrages under color of law ? 
 
 But I must proceed to other questions of fact 
 involved in the issue. 
 
 The Democracy assert, and we deny that the 
 people of all the Southern States adopted the 
 President's recommendations, and elected dele- 
 gates to conventions, constitutions were made, 
 submitted, voted upon, and ratified. How stand 
 the facts ? There are two classes of rebel States 
 that are still without representation in Congress. 
 In the first class is Virginia, Louisiana and Ar- 
 kansas, in each of which there was some sort of or- 
 ganization claiming to be the legitimate govern- 
 ment of the State at the time Mr. Johnson com- 
 menced his work of reconstruction. As to these 
 three States, he appointed no provisional govern- 
 ors, and provided for no conventions, but recog- 
 nized the organizations existing at the close of the 
 war as the legitimate governments of these States 
 respectively. 
 
 The Convention which amended, or pretended 
 to amend the Constitution of the State of Virginia, 
 met in Alexandria in the summer of 1864, at a 
 time when the greater portion of that State was 
 in the posession of the rebel armies. The record 
 shows that the vote on the amendment abolishing 
 slavery stood, ayes 13, to one nay. So that this 
 grand Constitutional Convention of Virginia con- 
 sisted of fourteen members, who represented the 
 people of Richmond, then the seat of government 
 of the rebel Confederacy, as well as all other por- 
 tions of the State then under rebel control. To 
 call such a meeting a convention of the people of 
 Virginia is to misrepresent its character, and to 
 trifle with the intelligence of the public, and 1 
 aver that the action of this convention never was 
 submitted to, voted,, upon, or ratified by any por- 
 tion of the people of Virginia, not even by the 
 people of the city of Alexandria. Can a consti- 
 tution so made or amended be binding on any 
 person? And yet this is the constitution under 
 which it is insisted that the present Virginia 
 State organization must be recognized. 
 
 What are the facts in relation to Louisiana? 
 In 1864 General Banks issued a military order 
 providing for the election of a constitutional con- 
 vention at a time when a great portion of the 
 State was held by rebel armies, and the conven- 
 tion which assembled under this military order 
 framed the constitution which the Democratic 
 party insist must now be recognized by Congress, 
 because the President has seen proper to treat the 
 State organization formed under it as the legiti- 
 mate State government of Louisiana. Congress 
 had more than once, before Mr. Johnson took 
 upon himself to recognize this organization, repu- 
 diated the whole thing, and Mr. Hendricks, by his 
 votes and speeches in the Senate, had concurred 
 in this action. 
 
 After the Presidential election of 1864, a joint 
 resolution was presented to the Senate, declaring 
 that the revolted States which, including Louisi- 
 ana, were named in the preamble, were not en- 
 titled to be represented in the electoral college 
 for the choice of President and Vice President of 
 
 the United States, for the term of office, com- 
 mencing on the fourth day of March, 1865. 
 
 A motion was made to except Louisiana from 
 the operation of the resolution, by striking the 
 name of that State therefrom, and thereby permit 
 her people to vote for President and Vice Presi- 
 dent. The amendment did not prevail, and Mr. 
 Hendricks, subsequently, in 1866, in explaining 
 his vote against striking the name of Louisiana 
 from the preamble, said: l I voted against strik- 
 ing it out, for I did not think the government es- 
 tablished there by General Banks at the point of 
 the bayonet, was such a government as we ought 
 then to recognize.." 
 
 What has occurred since, I ask, to make it more 
 worthy of recognition? It still has the same con- 
 stitution formed at the point of the bayonet, and 
 one which does not repudiate the debt created in 
 aid of the rebellion. If the people of Louisiana 
 were not in a condition to participate in a Presi- 
 dential election in November, 1864, by what pro- 
 cess of reasoning can it be shown that they were 
 in a condition to frame or amend a constitution 
 in April, 1864? 
 
 At the election for Governor, held under this 
 organization, in 1864, only 10,725 votes were cast 
 in the entire State, and yet this constitution and 
 government is said to rest on the broad basis of 
 the sovereign will of the people of Louisiana. A 
 glance of the facts'is sufficient to negative any 
 such pretense. 
 
 The State organization in Arkansas, stands on 
 no better or broader popular foundation. 
 
 The other class of revolted States, still unrepre- 
 sented in Congress, consists of those for which Mr. 
 Johnson appointed Provisional Governors, viz: 
 North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, 
 South Carolina, Florida and Texas. 
 
 How stands the fact as to the people of these 
 States electing delegates to these conventions 
 which framed the constitutions under which 
 recognition is demanded? 
 
 I answer that in no one of these seven States 
 did the great body of the people participate in 
 the elections by which these conventions were 
 called. Not more than one third of the white 
 men in each of these States who would have been 
 entitled to vote, had they never been guilty of 
 rebellion, took part in these elections ; and the 
 great majority of those who did vote, were cov- 
 ered all over with treason, while the loyal black 
 men were allowed no voice in the choice of dele- 
 gates. 
 
 Can a convention which rests on so narrow a 
 popular basis as this, be said to represent the sov- 
 ereign will of the people of eithqr of these States? 
 But waiving this, if you please, did all these 
 States repudiate the debts contracted in aid of re- 
 bellion ? Did each one of them, as is so confident- 
 ly asserted, expressly abandon the right of seces- 
 sion in the most solemn manner, and repudiate 
 and declare invalid their several ordinances of 
 secession ? 
 
 I assert that the record shows that the South 
 Carolina Convention never did repudiate her rebel 
 debt, and that neither South Carolina nor Geor 
 gia ever did expressly or impliedly in a solemn or 
 unsolemn manner, abandon the right of secession, 
 or repudiate or declare invalid their respective 
 ordinances of secession. On the contrary, the 
 record shows that both of these States simply re- 
 
pealed their respective ordinances of secession, 
 just as your Legislature might repeal an act at 
 one session and revivo the same act any subse- 
 quent session. 
 
 Each of these conventions did insert a clause 
 in the several constitutions adopted prohibiting 
 slavery, but it was done under Presidential coer- 
 cion as is manifest from the fact that their subse- 
 quent legislation disregarded all such inhibitions. 
 
 How then, in the next place, were these con- 
 stitutions submitted, approved and ratified accord- 
 ing to forms always respected, as is alleged in the 
 complaint of the Democratic party ? 
 
 I affirm, and the record of these conventions 
 j)rove the fact, so to be that not one of these con- 
 stutions, (except perhaps Texas), was ever sub- 
 mitted to a vote of any portion of the people for 
 which it was framed; nor was any attempt made 
 at such submission. 
 
 Leaving Texas out of the question, (as to which 
 1 am not advised), the only fact which does exist 
 that could give even the color of truth to the al- 
 legation that they were submitted, voted upon 
 and ratified, is the circumstance that, in the sin- 
 gle State of North Carolina, one solitary clause 
 prohibiting slavery, was submitted and approved 
 by a majority of those who were permitted to vote, 
 and who did vote upon the question. And in this 
 same North Carolina convention, a proposition 
 was made to refer in like manner to a popular 
 vote the ordinance repudiating the debt contract- 
 ed in aid of the rebellion, and it was promptly 
 voted down, because it was known that the peoplo 
 whom Mr. Johnson permitted to vote, would not 
 ratify it. 
 
 But, it is said that these constitutions were not 
 only ratified according to the forms always re- 
 spected, but that they were acceptable to the peo- 
 ple, both North and South. Where is the evi- 
 dence of the truth of this allegation?. I reply 
 that it is disproved by the fact that these States 
 (Texas excepted), sought admission for their Sen- 
 ators and Representatives into the Congress of the 
 United States in December, 1865, and admission 
 was denied them ; and the people of the loyal 
 States at the elections in 1866, sustained the ac- 
 tion of Congress. 
 
 I now confidently submit that I have disproved 
 every count in this Democratic declaration, and 
 that on these facts, we are entitled to a verdict, 
 andthat judgment should follow the verdict unless 
 there is something in the law of the case that 
 renders a contrary judgment necessary. 
 
 Let us now consider the question of law at 
 issue between us and our political adversaries. I 
 thus state them. 
 
 1st. We insist, in the language of Mr. John- 
 son's proclamation, that the rebellion which was 
 waged by a portion of the people of the United 
 States' against the properly constituted authori- 
 ties of the government in the most violent and 
 revolting form, deprived the people of each of 
 the revolted States of all civil government. Or 
 in other words, that the only civil governments 
 these States had, became, and were part and par- 
 cel of the rebellion, and perished with it. 
 
 2d. We further insist that these revolted States, 
 being utterly destitute of any civil governments, 
 were not competent to restore themselves, nor 
 was it competent for the President to restore them 
 to their practical relations to the government 
 
 end 
 
 its. 
 les- 
 
 but they having sought to destroy the nation, 
 and being overthrown in the attempt, the nation 
 alone through its law-making power, can, and 
 must prescribe (or at least sanction) the terms 
 and conditions of restoration. * 
 
 The Democratic position as I understand it, is 
 the reverse of those 1 have laid down. 
 
 1st. They say civil government was not de- 
 stroyed in the revolted States by the rebellion 
 and its overthrow, and that these States by their 
 own acts, could place, themselves in a position to 
 demand, as a matter of right, admission to repre- 
 sentation in both Houses of Congress. 
 
 2d. That if anything was necessary to be done 
 by the federal government to enable these States 
 to accomplish their restoration, it was an execu-/ 
 tive act to be performed by the President and not 
 a legislative act to be done by Congress, and it 
 being an executive act, the decision of the Presi- 
 dent is conclusive and binding on the other depart- 
 ments of the government. 
 
 In his recent speech in the Senate, Mr. Hen 
 dricks said, that, " upon questions of policy and 
 propriety, men may be educated by passing even 
 We may change our opinions in regard to qu 
 tions of policy and propriety according to the 
 changing scenes that are passing before us, but 
 so far as the law of the country is concerned, es- 
 pecially the higher law of the land, the constitu- 
 tion, itself how are we so readily to change our 
 opinions. Events do not change that. We are 
 not allowed to be educated by passing events m 
 regard to the proper meaning of the constitution 
 of the United State." 
 
 Suppose we subject Mr. Hend rick's own opin- 
 ions as to the legal and constitutional status of 
 these revolted States to the test he here lays 
 down and see whether he is not in process of edu- 
 cation on these grave questions. In his speech 
 made in the " circle," at Indianapolis, on the 
 Sth day of August, 1866, and reported in the 
 Indianapolis Daily Herald of the next day, speak- 
 ing of the status of the rebel States, he then said, 
 " I believe that during the whole period ©f the 
 rebellion the governments of the States con- 
 tinued to exist, and 1 look for the time when the 
 Supreme Court of the United States will say that 
 the acts of the State Governments during the 
 entire period of the revolution, which were not 
 political in their character, and which were not 
 to contribute aid to the rebellion, were legal and 
 valid, and that the acts of the confederate gov- 
 ernment, so called, wero ab initio void. For my- 
 self I do not believe that the President of the 
 United States had any occasion to re-organize the 
 State governments. That was my opinion about 
 it, but he thought it to be his duty, and the peo- 
 ple accepted his proposition, and the people gave 
 validity, power and authority to that to which he 
 could contribute neither." 
 
 Here you will perceive that the Senator uses 
 the word government in its proper sense, not 
 to signify a mere inanimate constitution or frame 
 work of government, but, as a vital, living organi- 
 zation, having power to make, execute and apply 
 laws to all the affairs of life. He furthermore 
 maintains that legal, living organization, of this 
 character existed in all the rebel States during 
 the entire period of the revolt, and that all the" 
 acts of government, legislative, executive aj 
 judicial, throughout the 'entire rebellion, w/ 
 
8 
 
 legal and valid, save only such as were political 
 or in aid of the rebellion. 
 
 Hence, when the war closed, according to our 
 Senator, Georgia, for instance, had a legal and 
 valid* Executive, a legal and valid legislature and 
 a legal and valid judiciary ; and all she had to do 
 was to transfer her Senators from the Confede- 
 rate Senate to the United States Senate, the same 
 legislature which elected them to the one elect- 
 ing them to the other. 
 
 On this theory these Senators while in the 
 i rebel Senate were there by virtue of an election 
 i by a valid legislature, but the act of their election 
 being a void act, they were void rebel Senators, 
 i and, upon the election of the same men by the 
 [ same legislature to the United States Senate, 
 they become proper and valid Senators of the 
 i United States. 
 
 i This theory is simple and easily understood, 
 but is about as reasonable and loyal as it would 
 be to contend that the acts of a woman who had 
 deserted her husband and lived in adultery 
 with another man were legal and valid acts as 
 against her husband, except only the single act 
 of violating the seventh commandment; and this 
 violation being illegal and void she could, of her 
 own motion, restore herself to the home and bed 
 of her outraged husband and he be bound to re- 
 ceive her. 
 
 If it is true that the rebel States had legal and 
 valid governments, including legislative, execu- 
 tive and judicial departments, at the close of the 
 war, it follows, as Mr. Hendricks says " that, there 
 was no occasion to re-organize their State govern- 
 ments." 
 
 It must be admitted that Mr. Hendricks does 
 not stand alone in this view of the subject, as 
 appears from the fact that Governor Brown, of 
 Georgia, on the 3d day of May, 1865, issued his 
 official proclamation calling an extra session of 
 the Legislature of that State to convene on the 
 22d day of the same month. The President did 
 not agree with Senator Hendricks, and Governor 
 Brown, as is manifest from the fact that, on the 
 14th day of May, 1865, the President, through his 
 military subordinate, Major General Gilmore, 
 issued an order annulling the proclamation and 
 prohibiting the meeting; and afterwards, on the 
 13th day of June, 1865, Mr. Johnson issued his 
 proclamation, appointing a provisional Governor 
 for Georgia, in which .he said " that the rebellion 
 had deprived the people of that State of all civil 
 government." 
 
 The Republican party then said, and still insist 
 that the President was right and Mr. Hendricks 
 and Governor Brown were wrong, on this ques- 
 tion so far as the validity of the State Govern- 
 ment of Georgia was concerned. That that 
 State had been deprived of all civil government, 
 and that the President only did his duty in an- 
 nuling, by military orders, the official acts of 
 Governor Brown. 
 
 But where stands the Senator now, lias he not 
 so far progressed in his "education" in constitu- 
 tional Jaw as to now stand on the President's plat- 
 form? Let his speech delivered in the Senate, as 
 printed in the Herald of this city issued on the 
 4th day of this month, define his present position. 
 In speaking of the President's reconstruction 
 measures, he says: " J.I is purpose then was to 
 aid the p< giving them the support of an 
 
 organization just as Congress, without any consti- 
 tutional provision on the subject, gives the people 
 of a territory an enabling act, not because Con- 
 gress has power as an original thing to establish a 
 territorial government, but because Congress has 
 power to admit new States into the Uni on. Con- 
 gress may do that which will enable the people to 
 form State Governments. So the Executive in 
 this case, in my judgement, very properly did 
 that which would enable the people to bring their 
 State into practical relations with the Govern- 
 ment." That is, according to the speech of 
 August S, 1866, the President overthrew, by mili- 
 tary orders, the valid, legal State Government of 
 Georgia which existed at the plose of the war, 
 appointed a provisional Governor, instead of a 
 valid existing Governor, and directed a conven- 
 tion to be called to form a new government, and 
 in doing all this he did a very proper thing to 
 enable the people to bring their State into prac- 
 tical relations to the Government; and the new 
 State government built upon the ruins of the old 
 valid State organization which was overthrown 
 by military orders, has suddenly become valid 
 also, and it is a gross outrage that Congress does 
 not recognize it as such. 
 
 Verily here is progress; but I am unable to 
 understand how it was attained without a change 
 of opinion on questions involving fundamental 
 principles of government. 
 
 If Georgia, at the close of the war had a valid 
 government, consisting of an executive, a legisla- 
 ture and judiciary, which was competent to per- 
 form valid, non-political acts all through the war, 
 why could not this valid organization enable the 
 people to bring that State into practical relations 
 to the Government? and what right had the 
 President to overthrow it? and when did the 
 great body of the- people ever ratify that over- 
 throw ? 
 
 To avoid the dilemma in which these different 
 positions taken by our distinguished Democratic 
 Senator at different times places him, he now re- 
 sorts to a new definition of government. It is not 
 now a living, moral and political organism having 
 the power and the instrumentalities wherewith to 
 make, execute and administer laws ; but on the 
 contrary, it has become an inanimate constitution 
 or framework of government, a dead parchment 
 into which, with proper Presidential aid, it is pos- 
 sible for the people of the State to breathe the 
 breath of life and make it a living political soul. 
 But lest I should do injustice to the Senator, let 
 him speak for himself. Thus he is reported : 
 
 "1st. I deny that at the close of the war there 
 were no State governments in the Southern States. 
 
 What was the exact fact in regard to that mat- 
 ter? No one disputes that at the commencement 
 of the war there were legal State governments in 
 the ten States now excluded from representation. 
 These governments were organized under consti- 
 tutions which the people had adopted. I submit 
 to Senators then, as a question of law, what be- 
 came of the constitutions at the commencement 
 of the war. 
 
 If the Senator will tell me, as a question of 
 law, what became of these governments organ- 
 ized under these constitutions, I will tell him 
 what became of the houses or shells in which 
 they lived, moved, and had their being. I think 
 
y 
 
 they both went together to the place where all 
 bad rebels go. 
 
 The same logic that will destroy the organized 
 machinery of government because of its partici- 
 pancy in rebellion, will reach the frame work of 
 the Government itself when it too was perverted 
 to the same criminal use. The Constitution of 
 South Carolina was just as much part and parcel 
 of the rebellion as the guns which that State 
 owned before the rebellion, and which she em- 
 ployed to demolish Fort Sumter. 
 
 Will any body tell me that these guns after 
 being captured by the National forces, and after 
 the suppression of the rebellion, as a matter of 
 right, immediately became the property of South 
 Carolino, because they were inanimate objects 
 and incapable of treason? Are we told that 
 every thing done to amend the Constitution of 
 South Carolina so as to make it the instrument of 
 treason, or to pervert it to the cause of rebellion, 
 was illegal and void, and that this Constitution 
 is therefore of unimpaired validity? I reply, so 
 was every act of Governor Magrath, of South 
 Carolina, done in aid of the rebellion, illegal and 
 void. If so, the rebellion being suppressed, and 
 the governor having ceased all opposition to the 
 constituted authority of the nation, and the Con- 
 stitution of South Carolina being no longer used 
 as an instrument of rebellion, why does the one 
 cease to be a valid Governor and the other con- 
 tinue to be a valid Constitution? 
 
 The treason that was so general and so atroci- 
 ous as to destroy the living organism, dragging 
 down to the grave with it the inanimate parch- 
 ment which constituted the House or shell in 
 which the vital organism called the Government 
 of South Carolina lived, moved, and had its be- 
 ing. 
 
 As well tell me that the body lives when the 
 spirit has departed, as to make me believe that a 
 mere inanimate frame work of a Government 
 can survive after its soul has been politically 
 damned for the blackest of treason. 
 
 But, again, Mr. Hendricks says: "A State 
 Constitution is the bond of its organization ; not 
 only the bond of political organization in the 
 State, but to some extent the bond that holds it 
 to the Federal Union. I do not clearly under- 
 stand (continues the Senator) how a State can be 
 in the Union without a State Government. I do 
 understand that if a State should cease to have a 
 Government, (if I may so express what seems to 
 be a paradox,) that the people would still be 
 under the law and authority of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment to the extent of the jurisdiction of that 
 Government. But, sir, a State to be a State in 
 the Union must be a political organization." 
 
 The words " political organization" are here 
 used by Mr. Hendricks not to signify a Govern- 
 ment in actual operation under a constitution, 
 but to signify the constitution itself. For immedi- 
 ately afterward he says: "Then, sir, when a 
 State constitution is once formed, and the State 
 under that constitution is admitted into the 
 Union, that State organization is not a separate 
 and independent thing, but in its organization 
 becomes a part of the Federal Union. The con- 
 stitution of the State, when the state has been 
 thus admitted, becomes a part of the National Union 
 and compact, and I deny that the people of that 
 State have a right to destroy their State Govern- 
 
 ment and thus cease to be within the Union. I 
 deny that a Convention of the people, that the 
 Legislature of the State, or any assemblage of the 
 people whatever, can voluntarily terminate the ex- 
 istence of a State Government, and thus cut off 
 their connection with the Federal Union. That 
 in my judgment, can only be accomplished with 
 the consent of all the States. Take the case of 
 Louisiana. The people formed her State Gov- 
 ernment; under that Government and Constitu- 
 tion she was admitted into the Union. Is that 
 Constitution of hers, (subject to her amendment 
 and her modification of course,) not a part of the 
 Federal system when she is thus admitted; and 
 is it possible that that bond of society, that means 
 of political organization can cease to exist, and 
 that there is no longer any State of Louisiana?" 
 
 I have made this lengthy quotation from Mr. 
 Hendricks' last speech so that his position may be 
 fairly stated ; so that you may not misunderstand, 
 and that I may not misrepresent him by making 
 a partial extract. 
 
 He says that he " does not very clearly under- 
 stand how a State can be in the Union without a 
 State government," here again using the word 
 Government not to signify a legislature, an exec- 
 utive, and a judiciary, operation under a Constitu- 
 tion, but to mean simply a Constitution. 
 
 A State certainly cannot be a State in the Union 
 complete and perfect in all its parts without hav- 
 ing both a Constitution and an organized govern- 
 ment in actual existence, porforming its func- 
 tions under that Constitution. But if we can 
 understand how a State may be a State in the 
 Union, and be in a condition of anarchy for the 
 want of all existing machinery by which laws can 
 be enacted executed and administered, can we 
 not as easily understand how this anarchy may 
 have gone one step farther and left the State not 
 only without a governmental organization, but 
 also without a Constitution ? 
 
 A State in the Union without an organized gov- 
 ernment, in a condition to perform its proper 
 functions is just as valuable practically to the peo- 
 ple of the State and of the Union without a 
 Constitution as with it. A State Constitution 
 without a government organized and in operation 
 to carry out its provisions is 'of no more value 
 than is faith without works, which we are assured 
 on the highest authority, "is dead being alone." 
 
 But Senator Hendricks says, "I do understand 
 that if a State should cease to have a government 
 (if I may express what seems to be a paradox), 
 the people would still be under the law and 
 authority of the Federal Government to the ex- 
 tent of the jurisdiction of that government." 
 "But, sir," continued he, "a State in the Union 
 must have a political organization." 
 
 Is it not as much of a seeming paradox that a 
 State should cease to have a legislature, an exec- 
 utive and a juaiciary, and still be a State, as it is 
 to conceive of a State without a Constitution ? 
 But Mr. Hendricks assures us that a State to be 
 a State in the Union must have a political organ- 
 ization. If he meant by this that a State must 
 have an organized government under a Constitu- 
 tion to be a State in the Union, then manifestly 
 the rebel States during the war had no political 
 organizations under the State Constitutions ex- 
 cept s'uch as were rebel through and through, and 
 bending all the power of these State organizations 
 
12 
 
 tive, (when the legislature cannot be convened) 
 to call forth such number of the militia of any 
 other State or States as might be applied for, or 
 as the President might judge sufficient to sup 
 press such insurrection." 
 
 The President recognized this call, and in 
 doing so recognized Governor King as the legiti- 
 mate Governor of Rhode Island. The question 
 was fairly presented to the Supreme Court in this 
 case whether the "Charter" Government or the 
 Dorr Government was the legitimate Government 
 of the State of Rhode Island. 
 
 Now the Court had to decide whether that ques- 
 tion was apolitical question or a judicial question. 
 If it was a judicial question, the court itself was 
 bound to decide it without reference to what any 
 other department had decided or might decide. 
 
 The Court in terms decided that it was a politi- 
 cal question and not a judicial question ; and that 
 the Constitution of the Unitecfc Statess in the sec- 
 tion containing the guarantee clause, had placed 
 the power to decide all such questions between 
 rival State governments in the hands of the po- 
 litical department, that is, in the hands of Con- 
 gress. But that because Congress had passed the 
 act of 1795, giving the President the power of 
 deciding whether the exigency had arisen upon 
 which the Government of the United States was 
 bound to interfere, his decision was conclusive on 
 the courts. 
 
 The court expressly say that Congress might if 
 they had deemed it most advisable to do so, have 
 placed it in the power of a court to decide when 
 the contingency had happened which- required 
 the Federal Government to interfere. But Con- 
 gress had thought otherwise, and had given the 
 power to the President. That he is to act upon 
 the application of the Legislature or Executive 
 of the State, and consequently he must deter- 
 mine what body of men constitute the legislature 
 and who is Governor, before he can act. And 
 that his decision, because Congress had given 
 him the power to decide, was binding on the Ju- 
 diciary. 
 
 I have said that this section contains three dis- 
 tinct clauses, each imposing a distinct duty on 
 the Government of the United States. They are 
 as follows : 
 
 First. To guarantee to every State in the Union 
 a republican form of government. 
 
 Second. To protect each State against invasion. 
 
 Third. On application of the legislature or Ex- 
 ecutive to protect each State from domestic vio- 
 lence. 
 
 I have insisted, too, that these three distinct 
 duties are primarily political or legislative du- 
 ties addressed to the political or legislative de- 
 partment of the Government, and can never, 
 under any circumstances, be performed by the 
 President, or by the courts, except as Congress 
 shall give them power to act. Let us test this 
 by a few questions. How is the President or a 
 court to protect a State from invasion without 
 authority from Congress to act? Can the Presi- 
 dent by virtue of his office levy and subsist 
 troops? Will the courts issue writs of capias 
 ad respondendum and arrest the invaders? I low 
 can either of these departments suppress an in- 
 surrection, or take one step in that direction 
 without an act of Congress ? Or suppose a ma- 
 jority of the people of a State shall, by a Conven- 
 
 llilllHiill 
 013 785 695 5 
 
 tion duly called, abi 
 
 stitution and, withou 
 
 on its ruins, in the 1 
 
 President, or the J 
 
 thing as it deserve 
 
 reason, as well as aut 
 
 are political duties which must be performed by 
 
 Congress, or by its authority. 
 
 But again, look at the position that the duty of 
 guaranteeing a republican form of government 
 only applies to present existing republican gov- 
 ernments. What would be the result if a State 
 should abrogate her Constitution without adopt- 
 ing another ? Where, then, is your existing 
 State government? Does that which destroys 
 the State government also destroy with it the 
 duty of the United States to guarantee to each 
 State a government republic in form ? 
 
 Or suppose that by repeated amendments the 
 State government is gradually but surely con- 
 verted into a monarchy ? Would the duty of the 
 United States cease because the very thing had hap- 
 pened which this clause was designed to prevent? 
 
 This is one of the very cases in which it would be 
 the duty of Congress to overthrow such an anti- 
 American government. 
 
 Or suppose a State to be without an organized 
 government, and if you please, without a Consti- 
 tution, does the duty of the United States to pro- 
 tect it from invasion cease at the very time when 
 protection may be most needed? 
 
 Mr. Hendricks is mistaken then, when he says 
 that the duty of guaranteeing a republican form 
 of government contemplates an existing State 
 government, republican in form. 
 
 It is true, as he says, that Mr. Madison, Mr. 
 Hamilton, and Judge Story do all teach that this 
 clause does contemplate a pre-existing State 
 government, republican in form ; but a pre-exist- 
 ing State government, republican in form, is one 
 thing, and an existing State government, republi- 
 can in form, is another, and a different thing. A 
 republican government may have pre-existed, or 
 once existed, and may new be supplanted by a 
 monarchy, and that is one of the very cases in 
 which the clause must be executed. 
 
 I now confidently submit, that I have clearly 
 established, that under the law and the facts, it 
 was the right and the duty of Congress to inter- 
 vene in the restoration of the revolted States, by 
 overthrowing the disloyal anti-republican organi- 
 zations called" into being by the mandate of Mr. 
 Johnson, and by providing the means which 
 would enable the great body of the people of 
 those States to re-organize local governments in 
 harmony with the government of the United 
 States. I do not propose to show that the action 
 which Congress did actually take to accomplish 
 these ends was right, constitutional and proper, 
 for that has been so recently done by Governor 
 Morton in the Senate, with a perspicuity of style, 
 a purity of diction, and a power of argument, 
 which it would be a vain thing for me to attempt 
 to imitate. That speech has never been answered, 
 for the. simple reason that it is unanswerable. 
 The premises on which he built that grand, logi- 
 cal structure, are as firm as the il everlasting 
 hills," and his conclusions are as inevitable as 
 one of the demonstrations of Euclid. ■ Long 
 may he live an ornament to the Senate, honored 
 of the nation, and the pride of his State. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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