THE STATUS OF THE INSURGENT STATES, 
 
 UPON THE 
 
 Cessation of Hostilities. 
 
 THE EIGHTS OF THE DISLOYAL-THE DUTIES OF THE LOYAL STATES. 
 
 A Speech, delivered "by 
 
 GENERAL BENJAMIN F. BUTLER, 
 
 BEFORE THE LEGISLATURE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 
 
 Wednesday, April 11, 1866. 
 
 The members of the Senate and House met in the Hall of the House of Repre¬ 
 sentatives at eight o’clock, P. M., pursuant to joint resolution inviting Major Gen¬ 
 eral Benjamin F. Butler to address the Legislature. 
 
 Hon. James R. Kelley, in introducing General Butler, said: 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives , Ladies and Gentlemen: 
 
 The name and fame of the distinguished gentleman by my side are too well 
 known to this Legislature, and the people of this State, to require any formal notice 
 or introduction at my hands. It is only necessary for me to present him to you, 
 and ask you to welcome to the capital of Pennsylvania Major General Benjamin F. 
 Butler. 
 
 SPEECH OF GENERAL BUTLER. 
 
 After the applause had subsided, General Butler spoke as follows: 
 
 Mr. Speaker , gentlemen of the Senate and House of Representatives of the Legislature 
 
 of Pennsylvania,'and citizens of the Keystone State: 
 
 I return my most cordial thanks for the high honor and courtesy shown me by 
 this reception. I must attribute it, and not in any terms of self-abnegation, to the 
 loyal feeling you have to the country, and as a recognition of an endeavor on my 
 part to aid in the struggle which has so lately almost happily terminated. We can 
 congratulate ourselves, if not on the return of peace, yet on the cessation of all 
 armed hostility to the Government of the Union. For four years we have been 
 called upon to send our bravest and dearest to the field of battle, there to peril life 
 in behalf of their country’s life and honor. That contest has terminated, and if 
 the anticipations of all during the dark and bloody struggle had been realized, that, 
 when war would cease peace indeed would come, and the authority of the Union, 
 as upheld by true loyal men, should be established, then, indeed, we should feel that 
 he blood of our sons had not been shed in vain. [Applause.] Therefore, it may 
 
be assumed that it is in the hearts of every one present, as it is in my own, to ask 
 each other in words like as of old, “Watchman, what of the night ?” for each hour 
 brings change, a new feature, a new thought in the political condition of the 
 country. 
 
 THE FIRST BLUNDER. 
 
 It is not with anger, hut with sorrow; not with doubt, but in the reasonable exer¬ 
 cise of judgment that I feel bound to say what I believe every true man wdll echo, 
 however painful that echo may be, that what we thought we had gained by the 
 struggle has not yet come to us; and to ask, if not, why not? On the surrender of 
 the rebel forces, when one hundred and sixty-eight thousand rebel prisoners of war, 
 in arms, were surrendered to the victorious armies of the United States, then num¬ 
 bering a million men; when every vestige of armed resistance was blotted out, 
 when their great leader, their representative man in the civil government of the 
 Confederacy, was captured at the head of his fugitive guards, and when the nation 
 shuddered at the most horrible assassination of its beloved and chosen President; 
 at that hour, when we hoped that cruel deed might be avenged, and just retribu¬ 
 tion, other than the execution of the poor, half innocent instruments of that crime, 
 in comparison with the crime of the great leader, might be had—at that hour we 
 saw before us a condition of things when as each man of you will agree with me, 
 I doubt not, we had but to impress the true stamp of our loyalty upon the South 
 and it would have received and retained that impress. Does any one doubt if at 
 that time Congress had been called together, and if the co-ordinate branches of the 
 Government had then agreed, as upon other extraordinary occasions, on a policy 
 of reconstruction (if reconstruction was needful), or a policy to settle the troubles 
 which now threaten the country quite as much, aye, and in the judgment of some 
 good men, more than war—I say, can any one doubt, if Congress and the Presi¬ 
 dent had at that time agreed (and they then did agree, if we may believe the public 
 declarations of both) that that policy, Avhatever it might have been, would have 
 been carried out and would have become the settled law of the land, to which eveiy 
 man North and South would have rendered willing obedience ? Suppose, for 
 example, that the President and Congress (they being called together as upon an 
 extraordinary occasion, and the Constitution gives power to the President so to call 
 them), had conferred wflth each other, and it had been enacted by the law-making 
 power, and rendered certain by Executive concurrence, that the great representa¬ 
 tive leader of rebellion, Jefferson Davis, who left the Senate of the United States 
 for the purpose of taking the head of the civil government of the rebellion, should 
 be tried for his crime, and, if found guilty, convicted and punished, as an example 
 to all others in like cases offending hereafter; and if General Lee, who, on the 19th of 
 April, 18G1, deserted his flag for the purpose of taking command of the armed forces 
 of the enemies of the United States, should be tried and punished, as every soldier 
 who deserts his flag to command the armies of his country’s enemies should be pun¬ 
 ished, by every law, civil, military, human, and, I might almost say, divine; and 
 if, too, it had been then proclaimed that every man who had left the army of the 
 United States, and every man who had left the halls of Congress or the civil service 
 of the United States to take part in treason, should leave the country for his coun¬ 
 try’s good within the next sixty days, and leave his property to make good, in some 
 degree, the losses he had occasioned; and that every other man who had served in 
 the rebel army or in rebel legislatures who desired to leave the country, should have 
 free passage to go and never return; and if it should have been further declared 
 that all men who had taken an active part in the rebellion, and thereby forfeited 
 their rights as citizens, should thereafter remain without any share of political power 
 in the United States, at least as long as it requires a well disposed foreigner to get 
 political rights; if each one of these measures had been adopted, does any one 
 doubt that peace, quietness, loyalty and justice to all men would now have reigned 
 in every State in the South? It' I am right, then may we not complain because we 
 see that the best thing to be done was not done; but as I have only sketched before 
 you substantially what the President of the United States, at that time, as I under¬ 
 stood, both from his public speeches and from his private declarations, said what was 
 the best thing to be done, we have a right, in all fairness of criticism of what has hap¬ 
 pened, at least to regret lie had not done what our judgments now tell us was best 
 he had done, and what his judgment at that time told him, and he himself told us 
 was best to be done. 
 
 ITS CONSEQUENCES. 
 
 What since has happened? The whole South, which then stood ready to receive 
 the imprint of our institutions, of our laws, and to establish equal justice and equal 
 
3 
 
 rights if we only wished it, now, under the state of things which has since super¬ 
 vened, has come up to do what? To claim their rights, their powers, and their 
 places in the Congress of the United States again, to make laws for us, and that, 
 too, in the spirit of hatred in which they so long fought us. Therefore the great 
 question to-day which divides the country, and divides the President of the United 
 States from the majority of those who supported him is this: Shall these men, 
 heretofore in rebellion, without any guarantee that they will not the next day after 
 we admit them again desert the seats in which we place them as they have done 
 once before, be received back and allowed to make laws for us? And upon that 
 question I will endeavor to give you some few of the reasons which lie uppermost 
 in my mind, why this should not be done. Upon no other question is there any 
 serious division between the President and the party which put him in power, and 
 between them and the opposing party, if so small a fragment as is represented in 
 Congress can be called a party. [Applause.] This is the division, and I think it 
 is a broad one—so broad that no loyal man, and no man who fought the fight of the 
 last four years can doubt where his place is now. Shall we receive these men back 
 without guarantee, without surety, without repentance even, to places which they 
 voluntarily deserted? [Cries of “That is the point,” “No,” “No.”] There are 
 reasons why I think every loyal man would say “No.” The first, not in signifi¬ 
 cance, and perhaps not in order, but the first we may discuss is this: What right 
 have they to come back? It is said in the first place that the States of this Union 
 could not secede from the Union; that we fought to prevent the States from seced¬ 
 ing, that we have conquered, and therefore the States not being out of the Union, 
 their delegates in Congress have their rights as the representatives of those States. 
 There are two answers to be made to that; first, that no Representative in Congress 
 represents a State—he represents a district, and no district as such, I believe, 
 attempted to rebel, but that would be a technical answer, and not one to be favored, 
 and as I may be told by an astute Senator, one that would hardly apply to the Sen¬ 
 ators who represent States, but the broader and wider, more statesmanlike and just 
 answer would seem to be that the question to be here decided is not whether the 
 State as a State is in or out of the Union, but whether unorganized communities 
 which were States, the whole people of which repudiated all their obligations as 
 citizens of the United States, and who took upon themselves new obligations to a 
 body which they erected, called the Confederate States, and who fought for four years 
 to get rid of the power and authority of the United States, and who, at one time or 
 another did get rid of that power and authority for a longer or a shorter time dur¬ 
 ing those four years—sought to make alliances with foreign countries and to dis¬ 
 member the Union in every form possible, and do every conceivable damage to the 
 rest of the country—whether these as States have a right in the Union as a parf of 
 the Government of the Union. The question is not whether their people have a 
 right to the protection of the Union, and not whether their Territory is within the 
 Union. I am one of those who repudiate entirely the idea which is now sent to us 
 from the South, and which I was very sorry to hear echoed, on the 22d of February 
 from the steps of the White House, that we, who do not think these fragments of 
 States shivered from their places by their own treasonable acts, ought to come back 
 at once without repentance to help govern us, are disunionists. We do not by any 
 means agree upon any possible proposition that we are disunionists, because for one, 
 I claim that not one foot of Territory of the United States was ever out of the Union. 
 [Applause.] I claim, again, that no citizen of the United States on its soil has ever 
 got out of the Union. I claim further that no citizen of the United States has ever 
 rid himself of a single obligation to the United States. [Great applause.] I claim 
 further that ho citizen has rid himself of one particle of the governing power of the 
 United States, as exercised over him either to restrain him in wrong or aid him in 
 right, or to make him do his duty both as a citizen of his State and as a citizen of 
 the United States. [Long continued applause.] But I am told I am a disunionist 
 because I choose not to recognize an organization which, by the people that made 
 it, was made hostile to the United States, and which fought the United States for 
 four years, as a part of the Government of the United States, and because I insist that 
 organization was not during all that time a living and vital part of the Government 
 of the United States. I ought not to be called a disunionist, because I only insist that 
 a rebel government, composed of disloyal men, with their bayonets at my throat, 
 are not a portion of those who are voting with me, and acting with me in the Gov¬ 
 ernment of the United States. [Applause.] I am one of those unfortunate per¬ 
 sons who are not gifted with the power to see why, if these rebels are now a 
 governing power of the United States without any further act on their or our part 
 
4 
 
 they were not equally a portion of the United States when they were carrying on 
 the battle of Manassas, for instance. I do not see why, if this theory is correct, 
 their representatives had not as much right to sit in Congress and vote against sup¬ 
 plies to the army of General McClellan as your representatives had. Indeed if this 
 theory he correct I do not see why, when a portion of the rebels came up to Gettys¬ 
 burg, they were not to be considered as carrying out their right to help the Govern¬ 
 ment of the United States, for were they not a portion of the Government of the 
 United States at that time? If they were not then but are now, pray tell me when 
 the change took place? When they laid down their arms? Could that bring them 
 back? 
 
 OPPOSITION TO THE PRESIDENT’S POLICY—NO DISUNIONISM. 
 
 If this theory be sound, I cannot understand how the proposition of Mr. Yulee 
 of Florida, in 1861, that the Southern senators and representatives should remain 
 in their seats to'prevent the enactment of force bills and the like, can be regarded 
 as dishonorable ; or why indeed the seceding senators and representatives are not 
 entitled to their full pay and mileage for the terms for which they were elected. To 
 adopt this theory, indeed, is to acknowledge that these senators and representatives 
 were kept out of their seats by a superior force tortiously exercised, and that every 
 act of the Government, from that time to this, save only the executive efforts to 
 re-instate the late rebels in power, was revolutionary in its character and therefore 
 void. 
 
 I know of no better way to illustrate this great topic of discussion than by the 
 simile of partnership. A number of partners join together in a partnership for the 
 transaction of business. After a while two or three of them, being in the minority, 
 choose to leave the partnership without the assent of the rest of the partners, pub¬ 
 lish and proclaim its dissolution; repudiate its obligations; refuse to pay its debts; 
 attempt to steal its property, bring suit to dissolve it and are beaten. Can they 
 take the partnership property with them against the compact by which the partner¬ 
 ship was formed? Clearly not. Can they bind the partnership? Clearly not. Can 
 they destroy the partnership? They can as far as they are concerned. Can they 
 get themselves out of the partnership? For all of the purposes of destroying their 
 own rights in the partnership, they can. Can they get back into the partnership? 
 No, not until the rest of the partners get ready, and upon such terms as they choose. 
 [Great applause.] 
 
 FEBRUARY TWENTY-SECOND. 
 
 Let us follow this a little further. I would not deal on this occasion with this 
 charge of disloyalty and disunion against the true and loyal men of the North, if it 
 were a mere newspaper slander, or if it came from any quarter less respectable than 
 that, the quarter from which it came on the 22d of February. I now here ask the 
 people of Pennsylvania whether they think their honored representative—and per¬ 
 haps I do no discredit to others to speak of him as their honored representative—for 
 there is no man in Congress more honored by the loyal men of the nation than is 
 he who represents Pennsylvania and who has been denounced as a traitor, although 
 he has stood by and seen his property in flames because of his devotion to his 
 country, whether they think him disloyal. [Applause.] 
 
 We have been denounced as disunionists because we insist that States can get out 
 of the Union so far as to destroy their rights as a part of the Government. Not 
 that they have a right to lay down their obligations to the Union. 
 
 It is charged that we admit to the right of secession. If States, after having re¬ 
 pudiated all their obligations, stole all the property of the Union within their bor¬ 
 ders, and fought as long as they could stand to destroy the Union, can come back 
 into the Union whenever they please, and take part in the Government without 
 anybody saying why or wherefore, I do not know why those that claim that right 
 for them do not admit their power to go out of the Union whenever they please, 
 and without anybody saying why or wherefore. If the right to come back at plea¬ 
 sure is claimed on the one side, I pray somebody to ansiver me why it does not ap¬ 
 ply equally well to the right to go out on the other. 
 
 How did those States go out ? How did the members of Congress representing 
 them go out ? Mark now, when I say “go out” I do not mean to say that they took 
 one single foot of the territory of the United States out from under the jurisdiction 
 of the United States, or made one hair white or black in the governmental relations 
 of any man to the United States, or of the United States to any man. 
 
 THE REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM. 
 
 But what did they do ? Whenever any one of them chose, he rose in his place 
 and said, “My State has gone out, and I am going out of Congress,” and took his 
 
5 
 
 hat and went to the Sergeant-at-Arms and drew bis salary, some times in advance, 
 and went home. Each did that at his own good pleasure, and I know of neither 
 law nor constitutional obligation that prevented his so doing. But having once 
 taken himself out of Congress, supposing his State did not agree to it and refused 
 to endorse his act, will anybody say that that man could return to Congress and re¬ 
 sume his seat before Congress declared that, he was again entitled to it ? No man 
 will say that. Suppose now, that every one of his constituents, or a great majority 
 of them, applaud his act, and say that he did rightly in thus leaving Congress, and 
 fully sustain him in what he has done, I say that as all must agree the man, 
 of himself, could not come back to Congress without a vote of Congress de¬ 
 claring that he was entitled to his seat, can that constituency who have thus with¬ 
 drawn their representative from the halls of Congress send another man to take his 
 place until Congress shall say that they may do so ? Will any man pretend to say 
 that Congress cannot properly inquire by what right that representative returns, and 
 whom he represents, whether a loyal or disloyal constituency ? That seems to be 
 the question at issue. Let me repeat it, because I think it covers the whole ground. 
 Suppose any member of Congress takes his hat and says, “I resign my seat and am 
 going home,” not forgetting to take the Southern road home byway of the office of 
 the Sergeant-at-Arms and drawing his salary, all must agree that that man cannot 
 come back to Congress until Congress shall readmit him. Suppose, then, that the 
 constituency of that man, by an overwhelming majority, asks him to do as he has 
 done ; desires that he should do so ; sustains him in doing it and keeps their repre¬ 
 sentative away for four years, and then sends another man to take his place, can 
 any one take the ground that Congress must not inquire by what right that repre¬ 
 sentative comes back ? Has Congress no right to protect itself against men getting- 
 up and leaving their seats, thereby destroying a quorum, and, as the case might be, 
 revolutionizing the Government ? No one can have any doubt on this question. 
 Does it make the case any the less .strong, because, for the past four years, the con¬ 
 stituency of those members have tried to destroy the Government by fighting against 
 it to the extent of the last man and the last dollar that they could raise ? It seems 
 to me not. Therefore, this proposition cannot be argued upon any of the rights of 
 or the loyalty of the representatives themselves. The delegate may be loyal, but 
 the constituency is disloyal. Is the disloyalty of the constituency to be represented 
 in the government of the nation, because their representative may happen to differ 
 from them and be loyal to the Government ? To test this let us reverse the posi¬ 
 tion. Suppose a truly loyal Southern constituency should, by mistake, elect a dis¬ 
 loyal traitor to represent them ; shall he be allowed his seat ? Clearly not. The 
 remedy for such mistake is to keep him out of Congress or expel him if he smug¬ 
 gles himself in, because he does not represent the loyalty of his constituency. If, 
 then, a disloyal constituency, by a like mistake, elect a loyal man—and they will 
 only do it by mistake—shall the disloyalty of the (constituency be represented be¬ 
 cause they have made a blunder and sent a loyal man ? No, he should be kept out 
 because he misrepresents his constituency. The right of representation does not 
 belong to the person of the representative, but to the district. If that is loyal it is 
 entitled to representation. After Congress shall have decided the position of the 
 State, if that is disloyal, the supposed loyalty—always questionable—of the man 
 claiming a seat gives it no right to take part in the Government. The loyal man 
 dying, or his term closing, the constituency would hasten to send one disloyal like 
 themselves. 
 
 This seems to me to dispose of the ad captandum statement sometimes relied on 
 that Congress ought, whenever it finds a loyal man sent up from any district in the 
 South, to admit him without inquiring whether his State is loyal and well-disposed 
 to the Government or not. 
 
 THE EFFECT OF THE SURRENDER. 
 
 Is it not true rather that it is the first duty of Congress, in the case of the rebel¬ 
 lious States, to inquire, “Is the constituency fit to be represented in the Govern¬ 
 ment ?” and then, “Is the man a fit representative of the district ?” 
 
 But there is another consideration bearing on this matter of right of these States 
 to a share in the Government. It has been decided by the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, as indeed it has been by every court in every civilized country, that 
 the war in which we were engaged was a public, territorial civil war, in which 
 every man upon the soil held by the enemy became, from the necessity of his posi¬ 
 tion, a public enemy— every man; that is the decision of the Supreme Court, and if 
 I have any of my old Democratic friends here, you remember how much we believe 
 in the decisions of the Supreme Court. [Laughter.] Now, then, has anything 
 
6 
 
 been done to alter the condition of these men from public enemies ? We captured 
 in public war all these enemies, all their lands, all their negroes, all their property ; 
 all became ours by the right of the conquerors ; and can you tell me why we did 
 not capture in war all their rights, constitutional and otherwise—if they had any ? 
 [Applause.] 
 
 They surrendered everything under the terms of the surrender with General 
 Grant and General Sherman—terms, too, sufficiently favorable for them, some peo¬ 
 ple think. What were' the terms of that surrender, by which they all are bound ? 
 The terms were that they might go home and live unmolested so long as they be¬ 
 haved well. Was any right given them by that surrender, either political, govern¬ 
 mental or otherwise ? By the surrender of their representatives in the field, every 
 right that the South as a people had was surrendered to us. If there are any loyal 
 men in the South, and I hope there are a few who have remained loyal during the 
 whole time, as individuals they may have other and different rights, but they are 
 not now distinctly asking Congress for admission. When the truly loyal men of 
 the Southern States, or any of them, white or black—men who have never swerved 
 in their loyalty to their country—shall ask it, I have no doubt that Congress will 
 admit their representatives. For one, I shall never make any objection. [Ap¬ 
 plause.] 
 
 I believe that the great controversy now is, whether the truly loyal men of the 
 South, who have always remained loyal, shall be represented in Congress, or those 
 who have been disloyal, who agree that they have always been disloyal, and who 
 now say that they would continue to be disloyal except that they surrendered to* 
 brute force, and accept the situation. Therefore, are we disunionistsbecause we are 
 unwilling that such men should be represented and make laws for us in the Union ? 
 
 REORGANISATION SHOULD BE UPON THE BASIS OF EQUAL RIGHTS. 
 
 There is another objection to their admission at present. I find that by their own 
 act society in these rebellious States is disorganized, and has to be organized anew. 
 In this the President does not disagree with me, nor with the majority of the loyal 
 men of the country ; for he proclaims that they must be organized anew, and ap¬ 
 points provisional governors over them, and gives authority and prescribes terms 
 for reorganization. It seems to me that rebellious States ought to be organized upon 
 the basis of republicanism and justice before they become a part of the Government. 
 
 Ah, I am afraid that I hear some, who have not yet quite come up to the true 
 standard of justice, say to himself the speaker is in favor of negro equality. I pray 
 you, my doubting friend, if such there be, don’t misunderstand me. I am for no 
 kind or class of sectional equality; I am for equal rights and justice to all men. 
 [Applause.] And therefore I say—(and this I understand to be the impregnable 
 basis of the Union party upon this question)—fix the standard of political equality 
 wherever you please, make such a qualification for a political franchise as you 
 please, and when any man comes up to the standard and has that qualification which 
 you have established, then let him vote. [Applause.] I believe in the words of 
 the lamented Lincoln, who expressed this idea better than I have ever seen it ex¬ 
 pressed anywhere else, that “every man has the right to be the equal of every other 
 man.” [Applause.] It is not quite correct to say that every man is lorn the equal 
 of every other man, because there are social differences among men—.differences in 
 wealth, differences in position, that make a practical inequality. Nor is it quite cor¬ 
 rect to say that every man is the equal of every other man ; but it is exactly right, 
 just, republican, and I had almost added divine, to say that every man has the right 
 to be the equal of every other man, if he can. [Applause..] And upon that prin¬ 
 ciple of democratic republicanism we take our stand, and sink or swim, live or die, 
 survive or perish, upon that principle of justice, before high heaven, the Union 
 party—I know no party but the Union men of the country—must stand if they ex¬ 
 pect either success in this world or the smiles of the other. [Applause.] There 
 would seem, therefore, to be a right somewhere in the Government’s right to have 
 this principle recognized in the reorganization of society and political communities 
 where they are disorganized. But, say some (and it is thought to be a.conclusive 
 argument,) in Pennsylvania, in Illinois, and in other loyal States, a difference is 
 made as to political rights, and therefore how can you insist upon an equal right of 
 suffrage in the South ? To that I answer, when Pennsylvania or Illinois becomes 
 rebellious and fights the Government for four years—loses all her political and gov¬ 
 ernmental organizations—gets all her rights captured, and then comes and asks of 
 me a new status in the country and to take a new share in the Government, then I 
 will be ready to prescribe, as a condition precedent, equality and justice to Penn- 
 
7 
 
 sylvania ; but until that time it is none of my business. [Applause.] I think such 
 must be the answer to the suggestion, and I have never been able to see any reply 
 to that answer. The people of the South ask us—having forfeited all their rights— 
 having, as rebels, no right on earth, save one—to be hanged—[applause]—we cap¬ 
 tured all their other rights—having no other right but that under any law, under 
 any constitution, holding everything else from the clemency of the conqueror—re¬ 
 ceiving everything else because we choose to give it to them—and thus only they 
 get it—come and ask of us political rights and a share in the Government. May we 
 not say, in the language of the old proverb, “that beggars should not be choosers,” 
 and that they should take such rights as we offer them, because they have no share 
 whatever in this Government, and are and must be but beggars at the door of this 
 Government, and of its Congress, and of its Executive. 
 
 WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 
 
 I hear some one say, “You are very severe upon the South ; you are very harsh.” 
 
 I pray you judge me. The worst thing I ever said of them I say to you here. I 
 would like to have seen,, if I could, two representative men tried by the laws of the 
 country they have outraged, and punished, as an example, if they were found 
 guilty; but two out of the thousands that might be dealt with under the laws; and I 
 desire to see every mischief-maker, in the olden time and in the present, who de¬ 
 serted his flag or his seat in Congress to aid in overthrowing the Government, sent 
 out of the country, with the loss of his wealth, as a small punishment for the great 
 crimes which he has committed, at a cost to us of half a million of lives and four 
 billions of treasure; and when I want everybody else who is not satisfied with the 
 government of this country to leave the country and “go at once, and not stand on 
 the order of his going,” and never come back, and that I do not desire that those 
 who have tried to overthrow the Government shall take part in the Government, 
 at least till after a reasonable probation, I trust I am not to be accused of being very 
 blood thirsty. I say further, that I am willing that even such men shall go to their 
 homes, and that those who have not sinned too much should enjoy their property 
 much better than some men whose property happened to lie in the march of the 
 rebel army to Gettysburg can enjoy theirs. That I am willing that every man who 
 took part in this rebellion should be protected in person, property, life, liberty and 
 the pursuit of happiness, except those who, in language that we all reverence, have 
 “sinned away the day of grace.” While I say I am willing-that the great majority 
 should be thus protected, I am not willing that they should come here and make 
 laws for me. That is what they claim, and it is to that I object, and upon that dif¬ 
 ference I stand and shall ever stand. [Applause.] 
 
 But why am I unwilling that they should make laws for me ? I have fought to 
 maintain the*right to say they shall not; I have given my son and my brother to 
 death; I have impoverished my country to achieve this right to say they shall not. 
 Every man here can say so. Every man here has the right to say so. You have 
 given your sons; you, young man, have given your father ; you, fair woman, have 
 give your husband and brothers, and perhaps one as dear as either ; you all have 
 taxed yourselves to an extent never before experienced by a civilized people, and 
 all for what ? All to vindicate the right of loyal men of the United States to make 
 laws for the whole United States against those who rebelled against the United 
 States, and that is all you fought for; and if you now yield, either through the Pre¬ 
 sident or through Congress, the right you have thus maintained, your brothers and 
 sons and husbands and fathers have been uselessly murdered, and your taxation is 
 a burden, a shame and a degradation that you ought not longer to support. [Ap¬ 
 plause.] If this right is lost, all is lost. We ask, and I put it to the fair judgment 
 of every man, leaving out all party predilections, is it too much to ask, after all this 
 sacrifice, simply that disloyal traitors shall no longer make laws to govern the loyal 
 people of the United States, white, black or gray. [Applause.] 
 
 THE EXPEDIENCY OF THE THING. 
 
 Beside the right which I claim, that they shall not make laws, look a moment at 
 the expediency. I judge these men at the South very much as I choose that they 
 should judge me. I believe that they do pretty much what I should do if I stood in 
 their place; and now I ask any man here—if you honestly, and thinking you were 
 in the right, had rebelled against the Government of the United States—if you had 
 given your sons and your brothers to fight against that Government—if you had 
 spent your whole substance in fighting against that Government—if you had only 
 yielded because you could not help it—because you were bound hand and fool, and 
 could resist no longer—I ask again, would you vote, if anybody was so foolish as to 
 
8 
 
 put a ballot in your hand for such purpose, to pay the debt -which the United States 
 had incurred in whipping you ? Now, I am sorry to say that I have so much of 
 “old Adam” in me that I would not. If I should say, as some of the men who live 
 in the South now say, that “I do not like you any better because you have whipped 
 us,” I should say, as they say, “I never agreed to pay your debt, and it is asking 
 too much of poor human nature to ask me to vote to pay the debt that you incurred 
 in whipping me.” [A voice—“We will make them pay it.”] [Applause.] 
 
 How shall we make them pay it ? By giving them power enough in Congress to 
 repudiate our own debt and force theirs upon us ? Therefore, because of the danger 
 of repudiation of the public debt, I say I would not like to have them to come in 
 and take part in the Government, because I hold that the national faith, beyond 
 everything else, is dear, and we have pledged our faith to our own citizens and to 
 foreigners that this debt, incurred in our extremity, should be paid, and though it 
 takes the last chair in the house and the last cow in the barn, it shall be paid. [Ap¬ 
 plause. ] 
 
 But if you allow the Senators and Representatives from the Southern States to 
 come into Congress, there is no man that doubts that they will vote for tlie repudia¬ 
 tion of our debt. They all, so far as I know, agree upon that, or if our debt be not 
 repudiated, they will vote that their own debt, incurred in the attempt to whip us, 
 shall be assumed by us; and as I said, if I were they I would not vote to pay the 
 debt incurred in whipping them; so you may be quite sure that I would not pay any 
 portion of the debt that they incurred in trying to whip us. Of that you may be 
 certain. So if that is saddled upon us it is virtual repudiation of the whole, both 
 theirs and ours. 
 
 If we admit these Senators and Representatives to Congress without requiring 
 further guarantees than they have yet offered, there is not a man in the country, 
 who has a dollar invested in any of the United States securities, but will soon find 
 that his investment is not worth half the value expressed on its face; there is not a 
 bank in the United States that is not in fact broken; there is not a savings bank 
 that is not bankrupt; there is not a man who invested in United States securities 
 that can reckon them -worth one dollar with any certainty. Therefore when they 
 call us “radicals”—we who are trying to do what we can to preserve the Constitu¬ 
 tion and Government from the hands of rebels—we who are trying to pay the pub¬ 
 lic debt of the country—we who are trying to preserve and maintain the dignity 
 and integrity of the Government—we should rather glory in the term, had it not 
 been used in a term of reproach; yet in truth we are the great conservative party— 
 the party preserving the rights of the Government—the power of the Government 
 —the obligations of the Government—the debts of the Government from the des¬ 
 truction of rebels and their associates. 
 
 THE PRESIDENT’S POLICY. 
 
 Noav then if we agree—and I am sorry that I have trespassed upon you patience 
 so long in putting forward this proposition—that it is not well to have these repre¬ 
 sentatives of the South in Congress without further guarantees, then let us see as 
 to the means of keeping them out. 
 
 The President of the United States—and when I speak of him I propose to do it, 
 as I trust I have done, with all the respect due his high office, and with no feeling 
 of personal unkindness—because I have known him for a good many years—I knew 
 him when we both voted for Breckinridge—[applause]—I remember him as long- 
 ago as when certain people voted that he should not speak where I am now speak¬ 
 ing—[applause]—and I have never received anything at his hands but personal 
 kindness and consideration—and while I know that I am following the honest dic¬ 
 tates of my judgment and experience, I am bound to accord to him the integrity 
 of purpose, therefore in all that I may say I want to be expressly understood as 
 dealing with the acts of a public officer, following out the best dictates of his honest 
 judgment—the President of the United States insists, as his policy, that these 
 rebellious States, having now repudiated the ordinance of secession (and I am sure 
 if that ordinance was void, I don’t see how the repudiation of it could make any 
 difference), and having passed the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery 
 (neither can I see how that can make any difference in their governmental relations 
 with the rest of the country, though I observe that many of them passed it under 
 protest), having done these two things, and having repudiated, as States, the con¬ 
 federate debt, that thereupon they are at once entitled to admission, by their repre¬ 
 sentatives, into equal power, in the House of Representatives of the United States, 
 and by their Senators, into the Senate of the United States, and that each Senator 
 
9 
 
 and each Representative has the same rights in this Government as your Senators 
 and Representatives from Pennsylvania have. 
 
 This I understand to be the proposition of the President, and I mean to state it 
 respectfully, as I would state the well matured theory of any high officer. What 
 further does he say? He says that whoever does not believe and act upon that 
 belief—that this theory or policy of his is the true one, he is a disunionist and a 
 traitor. Am I not right? And that Congress, or the Union majority of Congress, 
 who do not believe, and will not act upon this theory, are traitors, disuniouists, 
 seeking to disturb the peace of the country by factious opposition to the true inter¬ 
 ests of the country, and have in a revolutionary manner established a central 
 directory by delegating their constitutional powers to a committee of fifteen, whom 
 a high officer of the Government has dubbed as an “obstruction committee.” If 
 any gentleman thinks that I have not stated the President’s position with fairness, 
 I beg to be corrected. 
 
 WHAT MAY HAPPEN. 
 
 Now, if the President of the United States so believes, and I am bound to suppose 
 that he does, what is clearly his duty following out the logic of his position? His 
 duty, it seems to me, would be in some constitutional and proper method, to rid the 
 country of such a Congress with its factious central directory of traitors and dis- 
 unionists who are disturbing the peace of the country. Would not any one suppose 
 that that was his duty? Assuming now that he believes exactly wliat he says—and 
 I must believe that he does or he would not say it—that the majority in Congress 
 who are opposing the policy of at once admitting these Southern representatives, 
 are a factious, central directory (for I use his words), opposing and hindering the 
 establishment of peace in the country, and are traitors (and some he called by name 
 as traitors), what is his duty? What would you do, Mr. Speaker, if you were in 
 the Executive chair and had had to deal such a body of men as lie describes them 
 to be? I know very well, though I may be a little extreme, what I would do if 
 I found a body of traitors and disunionists attempting to disturb the country. I 
 shonld be active in season and out of season in devising ways and means to get rid 
 of them. How can the President get rid of them? If he believes what he says he 
 believes, he ought to disperse them. Any man who believes that Congress is of 
 the complexion and dangerous character that the President insisted that it was in 
 his 22d of February speech—and that speech was well considered, because he made 
 it the test of his support in Connecticut; [Applause.] I say any man so believing 
 ought to rid the country of such a body of traitors and disunionists. Therefore, I 
 say that if this well considered doctrine of the President, thoroughly determined 
 upon as stated, is the true doctrine, then Congress should be sent away from the 
 capitol to prevent further mischief, or at least this factious portion of it deprived 
 of power, for there ought to be no hundred and fifty men—traitors, disunionists, a 
 central directory disturbing the peace of the country—sitting anywhere. That is 
 very clear. 
 
 How can this be done ? There has been but one way suggested. Suppose 
 the President calls together a Congress, after this Congress adjourns (provided 
 it ever does adjourn), and twenty-two Senators come from the eleven seceded States, 
 combine with these fifteen Senators (including two from Pennsylvania) who favor 
 their admission, and when those thirty-seven men get together, thus making a 
 majority in the Senate, the President recognizes that majority as the Senate; and 
 ought he not thus to recognize them if they all have equal rights? He says every 
 Senator from a seceded State has as much right to his seat as your Senators from 
 Pennsylvania, and the Senators from Pennsylvania seem to agree with him, because 
 they are willing to act with him. If the President is right, by that plan, there is a 
 majority of the Senate, and the other thirty odd Senators who have been elected 
 from the North, become thus what he describes them to be, a mere faction. Then 
 suppose some sixty Representatives come up from the South, and they join with 
 some few Representatives from Pennsylvania—because I believe that Pennsylvania 
 is not so unanimously one way in the House as she is in the Senate [applause], and 
 joining with other northern democrats who believe the South are right—who hon¬ 
 estly believe they are right (because I propose to consider every man acting in high 
 governmental function as honest), and by that means, with the fifty representatives 
 who favor their admission (be the same more or less), they make a majority in the 
 lower House of Congress, which the President also recognizes as the rightful House, 
 when this is done have we not got a President and a Senate and a Congress with¬ 
 out counting a single loyal man? [applause and laughter]—I beg pardon for a slip 
 of the tongue—without counting a single man who votes as I think a loyal man 
 ought to vote ? [Applause.] Would this be a Congress according to all the forms of 
 
10 
 
 tlie Constitution? Would not the President, in organizing such a Congress, he hut 
 following out the exact logic of his well considered, oft repeated and reiterated dec¬ 
 larations? And when that time comes, I am going to leave you to reflect upon 
 what, if any, may he the constitutional remedy of loyal men. I do not mean to he 
 an alarmist, hut I do not think I am wrong in suggesting what seems to me a peace¬ 
 able, constitutional means of getting the Southern Senators and Representatives 
 back without any violation of the Constitution if the President’s theory of the 
 rights of these people is correct and against the protest of every truly loyal man. 
 
 Let me illustrate this a moment, because it is a little abstruse, and perhaps I have 
 not made myself quite clear. 
 
 Agreeing that all Senators and Representatives elected North and South have 
 equal rights (which is President’s doctrine), suppose upon the day of the first 
 meeting of Congress, by some accident, as the non-arrival of a train, only a majority 
 of Congress convene and organize, and the next day, when the rest of tlie members 
 come, a majority only of those who met the day before, taking advantage of the acci¬ 
 dent that prevented the arrival of the rest of the members, will not receive them, 
 and the Senate having acted in the same way, both Houses say, “we are organ¬ 
 ized—we are the judges of the qualifications of our members: we will not let you 
 in: you did not get here in season,” or for any other reason because a factious, 
 traitorous, central directory would do almost anything, good or bad, without a rea¬ 
 son. Now, then, under those circumstances, if that minority so left out should 
 meet with a few members from the sitting Houses, joining them to make a majority 
 somewhere else, would it not be the duty of the President, under such circum¬ 
 stances, to recognize the majority Houses so having met, approve their acts, send 
 his messages to them, and would not their acts become laws, and w'ould not the 
 other factious minorities be simply two debating societies, more or less valuable, 
 sitting when they happened to meet? Would not that be the exact parallel which 
 I put? Well, now, it is the misfortune of our Southern friends that the train which 
 should have brought them to Washington has been switched off for four years; it is 
 a pretty long time that they have been kept out of Congress, but now they claim 
 that they have arrived ; they are before Congress with full rights ; the President recog¬ 
 nizes their rights, but the majority of Congress refuses to recognize them. Why, 
 then, should not those who vote now in Congress for their recognition go into ses¬ 
 sion with them, and then the President can say to this new body of late traitors 
 and their sympathizers, I address my messages to you; I recognise your authority; 
 I execute your laws, and I do not recognize the other; when its members choose to 
 come in and sit with you, then they can have their share of the government, other¬ 
 wise they are simply a factious, traitorous minority. Each House it is true is the 
 judge of the qualifications of its own members, but the only question would be, 
 “ Which is the Congress?” and of that question the President is the sole judge, so 
 far as executive recognition goes. 
 
 A LOYAL CITIZENS DUTY. 
 
 That, you say, may not be done to-day. I agree with you; I don’t think that 
 there is quite courage enough to do that to-day ; there are not quite men enough 
 in the lower house, added to all that will come from the South, so long as a 
 negro is counted but three-fifths of a man, and is not allowed to have any voice in 
 whom he sends. But suppose—and this point I wish to put to every thinking man 
 in all fairness and honesty of thought—suppose in the next Congress your present 
 loyal, true men of the majority are not sustained, and there come to it from the 
 non-seceding States sixty or seventy men who vote or are ready to vote and act upon 
 the proposition that every one of those Southern members is as much entitled to his 
 seat as himself, and with that sixty or seventy, joined with those who may come up 
 from the seceded States, a new House and Senate, by the admission of twenty.two 
 members, are formed, leaving out every loyal man and rendering him powerless by 
 his vote to determine whether these late traitors shall come back, under such a state 
 of facts, not an impossible one—no, nor an improbable one—I ask tw T o questions: 
 first, what is your seven-thirty bond worth ? Another question I ask, if you desire 
 any remedy, what remedy can you have ? Therefore, I hold it to be the bounden 
 duty of every man to himself, to the faith pledged to the debt of his country, that 
 we all desire to pay—nay, more, to the country itself—to see to> it that the loyal men 
 of the House of Representatives and of the Senate in Congress assembled are fully 
 sustained by the people, so that no one of them be missing when the roll of the next 
 Congress shall be called. The question, “Who is President?” will then be of very 
 little consequence, because, as we have seen very lately, if a law is right, with such 
 majorities as we now" have, it can be passed, the veto of the President to the con- 
 
11 
 
 trary notwithstanding. [Great applause.] We need not fear to take the issue if 
 Congress remains true. The issue has been made in the weakest of our sister 
 States—Connecticut—and with the whole power of the Administration, not a thou¬ 
 sand Republican votes were swerved from their true allegiance to principle. [Ap¬ 
 plause.] 
 
 THE VETOES. 
 
 Let us spend a moment in examining the other differences between the President 
 and Congress. A difference has been shown in two vetoes—one of the Freedmen’s 
 Bureau bill. I think that there were defects in the bill; one of which (not the one 
 upon which it was vetoed, however,) would have been conclusive in my mind 
 against it. It gave the President power to appoint civilians as assistants in the 
 Freedmen’s Bureau, and in any number that he chose, in any State in the Union, 
 and I saw nothing in it to prevent him from making each former master, on every 
 plantation, an officer in the Freedmen’s Bureau, to take care of his own slaves, and 
 thus the old system of slavery would be revived. If that bill had been presented 
 to me I am afraid, if I had not agreed beforehand to sign it, I might vetoed it as 
 the President did. But upon that bill a fair difference of opinion existed, and 
 the Union majority of Congress, standing up to the question justly, said while 
 many of them were in favor of the bill, “We are not quite able to overcome the 
 scruples raised-in our minds by the veto of the President.” I do not think that had 
 he stopped there that any man—any Republican—would have had a right to have 
 shown any division with the President of the United States, however much he might 
 have been provoked to do it by the praisings arid pettings of that functionary by 
 the opposite party. But then camethe 22d of February speech, which, again, I say 
 is put forward, upon reflection, as a policy, and upon that the Republican majority 
 in Congress and the President cannot possibly stand together—one or the other 
 must yield. 
 
 Then came up the civil rights bill. This bill simply enacts that a negro, under 
 the laws of the United States, shall have the right to sue and to be sued, to take 
 hold and to transmit property, to make contracts, to sell and to buy as he chooses, as 
 other men may do. Now, is there any man who will say that this is not just and 
 right ? We do not now touch the vexed question of voting, but contend that the 
 same civil rights should pertain to the negro that we give to every other man, 
 whether foreign or native. Can there be any objection? These are the principles 
 of the bill. Were they vetoed ? Not quite. What was vetoed ? The machinery 
 by which these rights were to be preserved. The bill provided that the courts of 
 the United States should take certain extraordinary measures to give the negro pro¬ 
 tection in his rights against the unfriendly legislation of the States. Where did the 
 framers of the bill get that machinery ? They examined the statute books and 
 found a law of Congress, passed some years ago, under the light of the best talent 
 that ever was in Congress—passed by the Congress in which Clay and the other 
 great Southern luminaries in legislation took part—a very cunningly and well de¬ 
 vised system of legislation to protect the rights of the master in the slave against 
 unfriendly State legislation in the North. They put into the civil rights bill almost 
 in so many words the provisions of the fugitive slave law, which was framed to 
 protect the master in his right in the negro against all unfriendly legislation in the 
 North. Now, while some good Republicans might well quarrel with the constitu¬ 
 tionality of such provisions, yet it would seem that the Southern States were commit¬ 
 ted to them, for if these provisions of the fugitive slave law were constitutional to 
 preserve the rights of the master to his slave, against unfriendly legislation, it would 
 seem that they were equally constitutional to preserve the rights of slaves against the 
 master from unfriendly legislation. Therefore it is that you will find, upon compari¬ 
 son, that the machinery of the bill, by which the civil rights of the negro are to be pro¬ 
 tected, is almost word for word the same as the machinery by which, in 1850, the 
 master undertook to protect his rights to the negro against unfriendly legislation. It 
 was supposed that the whole Southern country was pledged to that, and that the 
 President would agree to that machinery, as, in his place in Congress, he had three 
 times voted that same machinery constitutional to protect the master in his rights 
 to the negro. [Applause.] Yet that same machinery, in the civil rights bill, he 
 vetoed as unconstitutional. It would seem, therefore, as if the President has objec¬ 
 tions to acting with the truly loyal party of the country in framing legislation to 
 protect the country against the acts of Southern traitors. If I am mistaken in this, 
 and I sincerely hope it will appear I am; if lie-, by his acts, shall show that he stands 
 where he stood one year ago—on the first day of May—when he declared the very 
 principles and measures which I have asserted here to-night for the restoration of 
 
12 
 
 the Union; when he insisted that treason was a crime and that it should be pun¬ 
 ished, and that traitors should be made odious, no man will more heartily 
 welcome him back into the ranks of those who elected him to power than I Will; 
 but until that time I must ask him to explain how and why it is that we are at so great 
 a variance, we standing where he stood a year ago, and he standing so nearly where 
 those whom he then thought should bff punished as traitors now stand. 
 
 You will remember, my friends, that he declared that treason was a crime and 
 ought to be punished. Has it been punished ? He said that traitors should be 
 odious. He has taken no step towards making them odious to my knowledge, ex¬ 
 cept in insisting that they shall have seats in Congress, and pardoning them for that 
 purpose. Perhaps, with his opinion of Congress, he considers that odium enough, 
 t Applause. ] But otherwise, I insist that he has carried out none of the pledges that 
 he made to delegations from every State in the Union a little less than a year ago. 
 When he does so, he shall find no more ardent adherent than myself. 
 
 Now, let us stand, not for men, but for principles—for equality and right and jus¬ 
 tice ; stand by those who fought our battles; stand by those who stood by us. But 
 why need I say this to the Legislature and State of Pennsylvania—to the Union 
 majority of that Legislature ? 
 
 I feel no unkindness toward any who differ from me, but I commend the Union 
 majority of that Legislature and the Union party of the State for standing by him 
 who stood by you, for I recognize in } r our candidate for Governor one of the best 
 soldiers of the war, and one of the foremost and truest and most valuable citizens 
 of your Commonwealth, of whom I can say from personal knowledge, (not paying 
 a compliment where none is needed,) that no man will find in him, when elected, 
 even a shadow of turning from the principles to which he shall declare himself 
 committed. 
 
 The issue between parties and under the same leaders is the same that it was in 
 the war ; the struggle is not yet over. Their first appeal was made at the ballot- 
 box ; it failed in I860. The next appeal was made on the battle-field aided by the ^ 
 election of 1864; that failed in 1865. In 1866 and 1868 the appeal is again, and for 
 the last time, if we are true, to be made to the ballot-box. Let true men stand 
 shoulder to shoulder then, as we have in the past, and once for all and forever 
 shall the doctrines of secession, disunion, injustice, rebellion and treason be settled. 
 [Great applause.] 
 
 Mr. RUDDIMAN moved that the thanks of the Heuse be tendered to Major 
 General Butler for his able and eloquent exposition of the principles of the Union 
 party. 
 
 On the motion of Mr. Ruddiman, 
 
 The yeas and nays were required by Mr. BARRINGTON and Mr. DAYIS, and 
 were as follows, viz : 
 
 Yeas —Messrs. Adaire, Adlum, Allen, Armstrong, Baker, Bemus, Brown, Came¬ 
 ron (Susquehanna,) Danks, Davis, DeHaven, Denues, Freeborn, Ghegan, Glass, 
 Grinnell, Herron, Hoffman, Hood, Humphrey, Irwin, Kerns, Kinney, Lee, M’Afee, 
 M’Creary, M’Elroy, M’Kee, M’Kinley, M’Pherrin, Mann, Marks, Mechling, Meily, 
 Negley, Osterliout, Pennypacker, Pillow, Quay, Ross, Rotlirock, Ruddiman, Seiler, 
 Shaffer, Sharpies, Slienk, Shirk, Shuman, Slack, Smith, Stehman, Sterner, Stam- 
 baugh, Sturtevant, Subers, Thomas, Tyson, Waddell, Wallace, Watt, Welsh, 
 Whann, Wingard, Woodward and Kelley, Speaker —65. 
 
 Nays —Messrs. Barr, Barrington, Boyle, Calvin, Cameron (York,) Collins, Braig, 
 Crosland, Donnelty, Earley, Eldred, Grady, Harner, Headman, Houck, Jacoby, 
 Josephs, Kline, Koon, Kurtz, Lawrence, Long, Markley, Meyers, Missimer, Nel¬ 
 son, Pershing, Quigley, Rhoads, Robinson, Rose, Satterthwait, Seybert, Tharp and 
 Weiser—85. 
 
 So the question was determined in the affirmative. 
 
 The House then adjourned.