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amendment, entitled "A bill to provide for the restoration of the States lately in insurrection to their full political rights," it is required, as a condition-precedent to the admission into Congress of the Senators and Representatives from such State, that it shall have modified its constitution and laws in conformity with the amendments.

By "citizens of the United States" are meant persons of color, they being declared such by act of Congress. The "privileges or immunities" of citizens are such as Congress may by law ascertain and define. I presume it will not be denied that under this amendment,ifadopted, it would be for Congress to define and determine by law in what the "privileges and immunities" of citizens of the United States consist, in like manner as Congress has already, under the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and conferring the power to enforce its abolition by appropriate legislation, determined that the emancipated blacks are "citizens of the United States," and defined in what their civil rights as such citizens consist.

An act of Congress to define the privileges and immunities of citizens could and doubtless would be made to include the privileges of voting, serving upon juries, and of holding office. Those privileges must, then, be incorporated into the constitution and laws of each of the States excluded before they have complied with the terms prescribed. Civil rights are limited to suing and testifying in courts, and being amenable to the same punishments as other citizens. "Privileges and immunities" are a much broader and more comprehensive term, and may, by definition, include suffrage, jury duty, and eligibility to office.

It might, indeed, be argued that even in the absence of a declaratory law, these franchises are necessarily conferred upon all "citizens of the United States" by the simple terms of the amendment itself. With such a law, negro suffrage and eligibility is at once enforced over the whole country; in the excluded States by virtue of the provision requiring them to modify their constitution and laws as a conditionprecedent to representation; in the loyal States by virtue of the provision giving Congress power to enforce the provisions referred to by appropriate legislation.

as the people of those States can do for many years to pay their share of the Federal taxes, and the danger of their assuming the debt of the exploded confederacy or the payment of claims for emancipated slaves is, in my judgment, wholly imaginary.

A few words with respect to the present condition and future prospects of the southern States generally, and I have done.

As to the disposition of the people of these States, there are two lights to guide us to a judgment. One is by way of inference or logical deduction from the necessities of their situation; the other is positive testimony. After all is said about rebels that can be said, they are but human beings governed by like motives and actuated by self-interest with other mortals. Obviously this interest prompts them to renew and strengthen their allegiance to the Government. The surrender of slavery has left them without a motive for rebellion. Loyalty, which means habitual obedience to law, is man's normal condition in society. These people must necessarily settle into that condition, if not prevented by maladministration. Their strongest desire now is naturally to be completely restored to the full enjoyment of their political privileges as members of the Union. This desire has increased with the difficulties thrown in their way. I was not of those who wished to see the Representatives elected from these States resuming their seats in this Hall on the first day of the session as though nothing had happened. I was perfectly willing to have them subjected to an ordeal of reasonable delay, one result of which would be to increase their appreciation of the privilege they sought. It is their interest now to overthrow the dogma of secession, since a legitimate application of it results in fixing their status as aliens and subjugated. The only interest they ever had in upholding it was as a means of protecting, in the last resort, their peculiar institution. They will gradually, but surely, become fixed in sound principles of constitutional construction, from the very necessities of the situation.

It seemed at one time absurd to suppose that the present generation could ever form a sincere attachment to the Federal Government or any department of it. And yet the forgiving disposition manifested by our lamented President Lincoln caused the death of him whom they had loathed to be sincerely mourned as a calamity to the South. The unexpected clemency exhibited by President Johnson, compelled by the exigencies of his great office and the moderate counsels of Mr. Lincoln's Cabinet, to leave harsh and vindictive utterances, hot from the boiling caldron of civil war, unreal

It is no recommendation to me that this covert introduction of negro suffrage is so artfully framed as almost to escape observation and avoid odium. I would much rather vote for a direct, honest, manly proposition that all men could understand at once, than for an equivocal process accomplishing the same result by machinery. If it is wise, statesmanlike, patriotic, or proper to take from the States the qualized in time of peace, soon won for the execuifications of voters, and to enforce at this time over the length and breadth of the land universal negro suffrage and eligibility, then, sir, let us make the issue visible and face it like

men.

The second and fourth sections relate to the basis of representation and the repudiation of the rebel debt and of claims for emancipated slaves.

That relating to the basis of representation is founded upon a correct principle, and if submitted in connection with a proposition looking to the immediate and unconditional admission of the representation of Tennessee and Arkansas would probably remove all difficulty. No special objection would be made to the fourth section, although I regard it as wholly unnecessary. The idea that under any combination of parties in the future this Congress would ever entertain a proposition to pay the rebel debt or compensate the owners of emancipated slaves is too trifling to govern the action of statesmen. As for the individual States, they have all, or nearly all, incorporated such a provision in their constitutions, and if they had not they are not able by any process to escape the payment of their proportion of the national debt. The collection laws of the Government operate directly upon individuals and upon property in all the States. It will be as much

tive department of the Government the confidence and even affection of the majority of the southern masses. Their interest in the legis lative branch of the Government will return at once with their admission to a participation in it.

After a careful and anxious survey of the situation, made under an awful sense of responsibility to my country and to history, with no personal predilection or private interest that I am aware of to warp my judgment toward the conclusion it has reached, but with prejudices and interests all bearing in an opposite direction, I am constrained to believe that all further guarantees, by way of constitutional amendment or otherwise, as conditions-precedent to a cautious and discriminating admission of loyal Representatives from States and districts whose inhabitants have been in insurrection, but who now present themselves in an attitude of loyalty and harmony, are unnecessary, impolitic, unstatesmanlike, and prejudicial to the peace and welfare of the country. The guarantees we have, and which I deem sufficient, are:

1. The constitutional amendment abolishing slavery and conferring upon Congress ample power to enforce it; and

2. A loyal army of one million fighting men, just as determined to stamp out treason should it dare to show itself in the future, as they have

proved themselves able to deal with it in the past.

The direct testimony as to the actual condi tion of the southern people is of course conflicting. I have, however, seen nothing which has materially shaken my confidence in the evidence of Lieutenant General Grant. His opportunities for observation have been ample, his judgment is not biased by partisanship, his sound common sense, his knowledge of human nature, his keen penetration and almost intuitive discernment of character are the most solid pillars upon which his great reputation

rests.

His testimony is substantially corroborated by that of Major General Sheridan, furnished at a later period. General Grant testifies as follows:

"I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men of the South accept the present situation of affairs in good faith. The questions which have heretofore divided the sentiment of the people of the two sectionsslavery and State rights, or the right of a State to secede from the Union-they regard as having been settled forever by the highest tribunal-arms-that man can resort to. I was pleased to learn from the leading men whom I met that they not only accepted the decision arrived at as final, but, now that the smoke of battle has cleared away and time has been given for reflection, that this decision has been a fortunate one for the whole country, they receiving like benefits from it with those who opposed them in the field and in council.

"Four years of war, during which law was executed only at the point of the bayonet throughout the States in rebellion, have left the people possibly in a condition not to yield that ready obedience to civil anthority the American people have generally been in the habit of yielding. This would render the presence of small garrisons throughout these States necessary until such time as labor returns to its proper channel, and civil authority is fully established. I did not meet any one, either those holding places under the Government or citizens of the southern States, who think it practicable to withdraw the military from the South at present. The white and the black mutually require the protection of the General Government.

"There is such universal acquiescence in the authority of the General Government throughout the portions of the country visited by me that the mere presence of a military force, without regard to numbers, is sufficient to maintain order. The good of the country and economy require that the force kept in the interior, where there are many freedmen, (elsewhere in the southern States than at forts upon the sea-coast no force is necessary,) should all be white troops. The reasons for this are obvious without mentioning many of them. The presence of black troops, lately slaves, demoralizes labor, both by their advice and by furnishing in their camps a resort for the freedmen for long distances around. White troops generally excite no opposition, and therefore a small number of them can maintain order in a given district. Colored troops must be kept in bodies sufficient to defend themselves. It is not the thinking men who would use violence toward any class of troops sent among them by the General Government, but the ignorant in some places might; and the late slave seems to be imbued with the idea that the property of his late master should, by right, belong to him, or at least should have no protection from the colored soldier. There is danger of collisions being brought on by such causes.

My observations lead me to the conclusion that the citizens of the southern States are anxious to return to self-government within the Union as soon as pos sible; that while reconstructing they want and reguire protection from the Government; that they are in earnest in wishing to do what they think is required by the Government, not humiliating to them as citizens, and if such a course were pointed out they would pursue it in good faith. It is to be regretted that there cannot be a greater commingling at this time between the citizens of the two sections, and particularly with those intrusted with the law-making power."

Mr. Speaker, it is not well that the people should be deceived in this matter, nor can they be. The question is simply one of union or disunion. Let the issue be frankly made and squarely met. Let the great contest be made under no doubtful colors, with trumpets sounding no uncertain sound, and may God defend the right!

For myself, I wish no new war-cry. I want to see no new motto emblazoned upon the victori ous flag of my country. I will recognize none that has not been with it under fire. "Liberty and Union!" words embroidered there by the eloquence of Webster, are still proudly borne upon its folds. Let them remain there, with all the added signifiance that the great war for liberty and Union has imparted; with univer sal liberty achieved for all the inhabitants of the land, and Union, unconditional Union, the determined aim of all who rally around it.

Mr. INGERSOLL. I had fondly hoped, Mr. Speaker, when Lee surrendered to General Grant, and Johnston surrendered to General Sherman, the last armies of the rebellion, that we had heard the last of southern chivalry, and that we also had heard the last and seen the last of northern sycophancy and northern flunkyism. I had fondly hoped that there had been evinced enough of heroism and patriotism in the northern people in meeting and overpowering the rebel armies in that one grand, continuous "onward march" for four years in maintenance of the integrity of the Republic to have inspired those men who in former years had been the subservient tools of the southern aristocracy with something like an appreciation of true manhood, so that they would, either for shame, or by virtue of the heroic example that had been set them by the true men of the North, have been willing to have remained in silence, and let the work of reconstruction be performed by those who had saved the country by arms, or at least not have shocked the country again by that flunkyism, that subserviency, that sycophancy, that has ever disgraced that class of the northern people in their pliant yielding to every demand of the South. I had hoped that those examples of heroism would have had at least a silencing effect upon them, and that they would not have thrust themselves forward as the willing tools of their former masters.

But, sir, in this I have been mistaken; my fond hopes have not been consummated. I have been mortified beyond expression to find in the North that same set of men now advocating with the same reckless energy, and the same lack of honor and of principle, anything and everything which the reconstructed rebels tell them to advocate. They are as ready and willing to-day to subserve the purposes of the whipped yet arogant rebels as they ever were. They are as ready to join hands to-day with them as they did in the passage of the odious compromise measures of 1850, just as they would have joined hands with them during the rebellion if they could have reached over the line of loyal bayonets between; just as they did join principles with them in their Chicago convention and platform in 1864 for the sake of restoration to political power, or even for the moiety of power that might be granted them by the generosity of the South; but what can you now expect of the men who in time of war sympa thized with the enemies of the country? The old battles for liberty and justice on the one side and for slavery and tyranny on the other are upon us again, and we must fight them out. The clash of arms it is true has ceased, the physical battle has ended between the North and South, but the old battle of ideas is upon us still. The honest-hearted, patriotic, highminded, honorable men in the North who are contending for principle have the same opposition, the same obstacles, to meet and overcome that they had before the rebellion. We have advanced, it is true, but there is great work yet before us. The rebels were not made rebels in a day, and they cannot be made patriots in a day. They were the legitimate offspring of slavery after an incubation of at least half a century, and now some are so crazy as to suppose that they can be turned info patriots in an hour. In my opinion, they must be born again. The only difference is this: during the war the rebel had a musket, now he has none. The difference is in the musket, not in the rebel. Mr. Speaker, if the northern people had been united upon the great principles upon which this war was prosecuted, and in the prosecution of the war at any time during the rebellion, it would have insured the complete and immediate overthrow of the rebel power and the establishment of peace upon the broad principles of eternal justice. We lacked that unanimity, and hence the terribly protracted struggle, involving the sacrifice of half a million noble men and millions of treasure. It required all the energy of the honest-hearted and patriotic people to maintain the arm of the Government against the rebellion, aided and encouraged as it was

by the copperhead party; and now that the war has ceased it requires all the same energy, all the same patriotism, all the same devotion to principles, to maintain the legislative power of the country against the power that has been defeated on the field of battie but which is now attempting to usurp the Government, and in this wicked attempt they are aided, I regret to say, by the Executive of this nation; in fact, he is their leader; without him they would be powerless for evil. We have not only the defeated rebels to fight in this contest, together with their natural allies the copperheads in the North, those who sympathized with them and would have fraternized with them, but for the line of loyal army that interposed between them and their rebel friends, but we have in addition the executive power and patronage of this Government.

But, sir, we are not dismayed nor disheartened. We have been used to temporary defeats, to severer trials than this. We have gone through a storm of war and blood without intimidation, and, sir, as God loves liberty and justice, as the American heart throbs in response to the sentiment of universal liberty, just so sure this same power that was unconquerable in war will be successful in peace, and we shall triumph at last over southern aristocracy and chivalry, over northern sycophancy and flunkyism, and the President also. They will all have to succumb to the heroic and invincible power of northern patriotism, fighting as we are the battles of universal liberty and universal justice.

No, the northern patriots are not disheartened. They have given freely of their blood and treasure; they are now submitting to taxation by reason of the burdens that have been imposed by the war without a murmur; they have submitted to it all without complaint, and with an endurance and a confiding trust that have no parallel in history, and they are ready to endure and suffer whatever may be necessary for the glory and unity of the Republic. They will not suffer the fruits of their great victory, won at such enormous sacrifices, to be bartered away. They will reap the fruits of their victory; they will reestablish the Republic on the principles of justice, and they will never permit any rebel State to be represented in the Congress of the United States until it shall establish a government that is republican in form, and recognizes the rights of mankind, irrespective of color, within its local jurisdiction.

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In my opinion, Mr. Speaker, there has been a false issue presented to the people. The President of the United States has done what he could to present an issue to the people that is calculated to mislead and deceive them. He has disguised his real purpose. He talks plausibly (so do all imposters) about "harmonious relations," taxation without representation," occasionally mentions soldiers and sailors," and now and then even ventures to use the word "patriotism.' But what is all this for? Look at his acts, and then say to me, if you can, that the dearest object of his heart is not to secure representation from the rebel States, so that he may receive their support as a candidate for election to the Presidency in 1868, and receive their vote in the Electoral College. Under a pretense of restoring the Union he is playing a game for the succession," otherwise he would demand guarantees from the South that the commonest prudence would declare necessary before they are clothed with full political power.

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The President and his friends continually persist in declaring to the people that the issue now is, whether or not a State can secede; whether or not the States of the South have been out of the Union or have continued in it; that the question now is, in what way we shall "restore" those States to the Union, or, in the language of the President, "restore them to harmonious relations with the Government;" for the President denies that they have ever been out of the Union, and his present friends sustain his side of the issue.

Now, so far as the practical question for our action is concerned, so far as the interests of this Republic are concerned, so far as the interests of liberty and of justice and of universal right are concerned, it is an immaterial issue whether they are in or out of the Union. So far as the legislation of Congress is concerned, so far as the future status of the States that have been in rebellion is concerned, it matters not whether they have been out of the Union or not, or whether they are in the Union or not. We have heard too much already about States in and out of the Union, and not enough about the rebels in those States.

The question is not, whether those Stutes shall have representation in Congress, but whether the rebels in those States shall be so represented, and allowed to vote here with reference to a restoration of those States to the "harmonious relations" we have heard so much about. It is a matter of supreme indifference to me and to the loyal masses of this country whether those States, technically speaking, are in or out of the Union. But it is a question of vital importance to the country whether those unrepentant rebels shall be represented in Congress, and by their power here defeat the objects of the loyal majority in Congress, defeat the restoration of the Union upon a loyal and humane basis. This is the real issue.

And so far as my voice can go I will use it for the purpose of unmasking the deception that the President of the United States would impose upon the people of this country. To what does it amount to whether I insist that the States are out of the Union, if I allow them to be represented here? Or what does it amount to if I concede that they have never been out of the Union, if I consent to their being represented here? Nothing in the world. They will admit that they are out of the Union, if you will admit them to representation in Congress; and they will not even thank you for insisting that they are in the Union unless you also admit them to representation in Congress; the power to vote loyalty down is what they want. The question is, whether the rebels (who would control absolutely the power and future destiny of those States if they are admitted into the Halls of Congress) are in a fit condition to be allowed representation here. You know, Mr. Speaker, and I know, that when a State, no matter how long it has been in rebellion or what the effect of that rebellion may have been upon that State or its people, is once admitted to representation in Congress it is placed on an equal footing with the other States of this Union, and has the same rights in Congress and out of it that any loyal State has. If you let the President carry out his programme of restoration, then farewell to your intervention by Congress; farewell to the restraining power of the Freedmen's Bureau; farewell to your constitutional amendments and your "civil rights;" farewell to any and all legislation here which interposes in behalf of the true Union men of the southern States.

When you admit these rebel States to representation here they care not whether you consider them as being in the Union or out of the Union so long as you give them a voice here again. And when you give them their votes here you give them a power which, when united with their northern sympathizers in Congress, will overwhelm the Union party and Union measures and reform (I should say deform) this Union in accordance with their own ideas. Are you, the million of brave and patriotic soldiers who survived the shock of war; are you, the patriotic men who defended and sustained our Army against the assaults of the "fire-in-the-rear" party, ready for this kind of restoration? The sacred blood of our martyred heroes cries to Heaven against it.

I take the ground, admitting, for the sake of argument, most distinctly, that no matter if a State cannot get out and never was out of the Union, yet by the rebellion of its people against this Government, by waging open war upon its

lawful authority, every citizen within such State would become thereby an alien enemy to the United States, and liable to be treated by this Government in all respects as one who never was a citizen of this Government, a foreigner domiciled within its territory, to say nothing of the right of the Government to hang them as rebels and enemies. If that position is correct, then it follows that if within any certain State all its inhabitants become alien enemies the Congress of the United States is alone vested with power to establish a government for them, to make laws for them, to control them so long as they shall remain alien enemies or simply aliens. I lay this down as an axiom in our Government: that when a person is an alien enemy, either by being the subject of a foreign jurisdiction or by virtue of his own treason, he remains an alien enemy to this Government until Congress relieves him from that disability. The President's position is, that a citizen of the United States may be a rebel belligerent firing at the life of the nation to-day, and a lawful citizen to-morrow, and entitled of right to representation in Congress!

that alien as opposed to citizen means foreign as respects country. Indians are the subjects of the United States, and therefore are not in mere right of home birth citizens of the United States; but they may be made citizens by some competent act of the General Government, by treaty or otherwise."

Now, sir, with reference to these rebels who inaugurated a rebellion, who formed a de facto government, recognized by the civilized Powers of the world as entitled to belligerent rights; which was recognized by our own Government as entitled to belligerent rights; they became enemies, and alien enemies, although not foreign-born. And, sir, I hold, in accordance with the law which I have read, that the character of alien continues until relieved by competent authority of the General Government.

I read now from the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, as recorded in 2 Black's Reports, page 666, to show that the inhabitants of the southern States did, by virtue of their rebellion and treason against the United States, become alien enemies, and that is an independent fact, without reference to the status of the rebel States in their relation to the Union:

"A war may exist where one of the belligerents claims sovereign rights as against the other.

"Insurrection against a Government may or may not culminate in an organized rebellion, but a civil war always begins by insurrection against the lawful authority of the Government. A civil war is never

solemnly declared: it becomes such by its accidents -the number, power, and organization of the persons who carry it on. When the party in rebellion occupy and hold in hostile manner a certain portion of territory; have declared their independence; have cast off their allegiance; have organized armies; have commenced hostilities against their former sovereign, the world acknowledges them as belligerents, and the contest a war. They claim to be in arms to establish their liberty and independence, in order to become a sovereign State, while the sovereign party treats them as insurgents and rebels who owe alle

An alien enemy, being such by virtue of his rebellion and treason, forfeits all the rights that he ever enjoyed under the Constitution and as a citizen of the United States. He forfeits the right to vote; he forfeits the right to be represented in Congress; he forfeits the right to hold office; he forfeits every right except such as he may exercise under the law of nations; and the fact that he may have been born in this country only adds a deeper blackness to his crime; he is entitled to only the same protection, and that, in fact, only by the courtesy of the Government, that would be accorded to a subject of Great Britain, or any other foreign Power, if he were simply domi-giance, and who should be punished with death for ciled within the jurisdiction of the United States. Let us not forget that these rebels were the most favored of our citizens. Their every interest had been generously protected and fostered by the Government always; and now, after they have sent to untimely graves half a million of the nation's bravest sons; after they have deluged the land with blood and covered it with a shroud of woe, in the names of Fort Pillow, Libby prison, and Andersonville, they demand representation in Congress, and Andrew Johnson and William H. Seward say they ought to have it.

Mr. Speaker, am I right when I declare that the people of these rebellious States are alien enemies to this Government? If I am, when and by what means did they become alien enemies? Was it by act of the Government of the United States? No, sir. Was it by their own act of war? It was. If, then, they were ever alien enemies to this Government, when did they cease to be such; or are they not alien enemies to-day? They are alien enemies this day, unless by act of Congress they have been recognized as being otherwise. The President cannot change an alien into a citizen. The Constitution has vested no power of naturalization upon the President. Congress alone is vested with that power. A foreign-born subject is required to reside in this country for five years before he can become a citizen, unless he has served in the Army; then why should these native-born rebels receive so much more consideration than a foreigner residing peaceably among us with the intention of becoming a citizen?

Sir, let me lay down in connection with this subject this proposition of law: that in order to be an alien to the United States Government it is not necessary that a man should be foreign-born. He may be an alien although not foreign-born. And I hold, sir, that the people of the southern States did, by treason and rebellion, become alien enemies to this Government. By their warfare against the Government they became its enemies; and by the laws of war they became alien enemies and liable to be treated as such. Let me read, upon this point, from Lawrence's Wheaton on International Law, page 899:

"In the United States it is incorrect to suppose

their treason.

"The laws of war, as established among nations, bave their foundation in reason, and all tend to mitigate the cruelties and misery produced by the scourge of war. Hence the parties to a civil war usually concede to each other belligerent rights. They exchange prisoners, and adopt the other courtesies and rules common to public or national wars.

A civil war,' says Vattel, 'breaks the bands of society and government, or at least suspends their force and effect; it produces in the nation two independent parties, who consider each other as enemies, and acknowledge no common judge. Those two parties, therefore, must necessarily be considered as constituting, at least for a time, two separate bodies, two distinct societies. Having no common superior to judge between them, they stand in precisely the same predicament as two nations who engage in a contest and have recourse to arms.'

"This being the case, it is very evident that the common laws of war, those maxims of humanity, moderation, and honor, ought to be observed by both parties in every civil war. Should the sovereign conceive he has a right to hang up his prisoners as rebels, the opposite party will make reprisals, &c.; the war will become cruel, horrible, and every day more destructive to the nation."

The Supreme Court say:

"As a civil war is never publicly proclaimed eo nomine, against insurgents, its actual existence is a fact in our domestic history, which the court is bound to notice and to know."

The true test of its existence, as found in the writings of the sages of the common law, may be thus summarily stated: When the regular course of justice is interrupted by revolt, rebellion, or insurrection, so that the courts of justice cannot be kept open, civil war exists and hostilities may be prosecuted on the same footing as if those opposing the Government were foreign enemies invading the land.'

The law of nations is also called the law of nature; it is founded on the common consent as well as the common sense of the world. It contains no such anomalous doctrine as that which this court are now for the first time desired to pronounce, to wit, that insurgents who have risen in rebellion against their sov

Not at all. The character of any criminal does not change when, being detected and overtaken. he acknowledges the crime and proffers to make restitution; he is a criminal still. The rebels were only defeated in carrying out their traitorous designs because they were met and overpowered by the heroism of the northern people. Let us illustrate this a little further. We will presume that the people of Mississippi in 1860 were peaceful citizens; in 1861 they were rebels; in 1862, 1863, and 1864 they were belligerents; in 1865 they were subjugated: in 1866 the Government arrests the leaders for treason. But, say the rebels, you cannot try us for treason; although at first we were rebels, we afterward established the "confederacy," and you recognized us as a de facto government, as alien enemies, as belligerents; you waived the right to try us for treason in thus recog nizing us. Well, we reply, if that is so, we will dismiss the charge of treason, and treat you as conquered public enemies, as aliens. No, no; that will not do; we will not submit to that; we claim, that notwithstanding you had the lawful right to fight and subdue us, that as soon as you wrested our arms from us we were at once transformed into citizens of the United States Government we sought to destroy, and are now entitled to representation in Congress and all other rights we ever enjoyed under the Constitution, We deny your con clusions, and we propose to contest the point with you before the people.

Mr. Speaker, in my opinion we would have but little trouble in settling these difficulties, or finding a solution of the problems which now weigh so heavily upon the country, had the President of the United States but conscientiously and honestly discharged his duty. Had he had more judgment and less ambition, more patriotism and less egotism, had he desired to subserve the interests of his country rather than his own, we would have had an easy deliverance from our troubles. When the sur render of the rebel armies was made, Andrew Johnson was President of the United States. He had exercised the authority but a few days. He had no experience in the administration of the Government, but he had ambition. He had a desire to make himself conspicuous be fore the country and before the world, and consequently, blinded by his ambition and crazed by his egotism, he refused to do what the simplest-minded man knew he ought to have done under such circumstances. You all remember the condition of the country at that time. He ought to have called the Congress together at once in special session, called together the representatives of the party who, confiding in his honor and his patriotism, based upon what he had publicly said on all occasions from the very inauguration of the rebellion, elected him Vice President.

Had he thus called the representatives of the people together to counsel and advise with, it would have been an easy matter for Congress at that time to have shaped the legislation of the country to a solution of these difficulties, and adjusted a basis of reconstruction satisfactory alike to the loyal people of the North and the subjugated people of the South. The lat ter were willing at the time of the surrender to accept almost any conditions which would have spared their forfeited lives and their for feited property. They were thoroughly whipped;

eign, expelled her courts, established a revolutionary they were subjugated, and they were ready to

government, organized armies, and commenced hostilities are not ENEMIES because they are traitors; and a war levied upon the Government by traitors in order to dismember and destroy it is not a war because it is an insurrection."""

In this opinion the court declare that these rebels, these traitors, these insurgents, who have been prosecuting this war against the Government, are ENEMIES, to be treated in the light of public enemies, or alien enemies, entitled to the same rights as though it were a foreign war originally, and no more. And now I ask, when the character of an alien once attaches to the rebellious party, when does that character cease? Does it cease simply because they acknowledge their defeat on the battle-field?

acknowledge it. From the published speeches the President had made previous to their subjugation, and immediately after, they never dreamed of finding any clemency in his heart. They simply expected the rights and privileges belonging to a vanquished foe. They never dreamed of being regarded as citizens of the United States, entitled to the right of represen tation in Congress, and the right to "restore" the country they had moved heaven and earth to destroy.

No, sir, they never dreamed of it. The leaders expected to be hung, if they put any reliance upon the oft-repeated utterance of Mr. Johnson, that they should be hung, for he

had declared time and again that he would hang them; that he would make treason odious; that it was the greatest crime known to the calendar of crimes; that traitors should be punished. This he had declared, and they knew it. With an army to back him, and loyal people to sustain him in carrying out these declarations, they never dreamed of finding clemency and encouragement and protection, as the sequel has shown they have found, at his hands! Not only protection, sir, but promotion! and he has given them to understand that they have a constitutional right to deliberate in the councils of the Government they attempted to disrupt and overwhelm; that they have a constitutional right to make laws which are to determine the future status of the States and the people of those States who have been engaged in this formidable rebellion against the Government. Under the President's programme they are becoming much emboldened of late. Many of the southern papers insist upon it that all acts of the present Congress are illegal and void, for the reason that the eleven southern States are denied representation in Congress. They even go so far as to advise the President to call the southern representatives to Washington, and have them go in a body and claim their seats; and in case opposition is offered to this proposed outrage, they tell the President to apply the bayonet and clear the House of the radicals! This is easily enough said, but it will never be done. The New York News, referring to this subject of representation in a late number, said: "The radicals oppose their admission. They bar the doors. They stand armed with stolen and unlawful weapons to dispute the passage of duly elected members of Congress to their rightful seats in the national Legislature. Then why does not the Chief Magistrate of the Republic interpose his authority to prevent this outrage against the representatives of the States and of the people? He has the power to do so. He is Commander-in-Chief of the armies of the United States, and has at his disposal an armed and disciplined force amply sufficient to preserve the peace at the seat of Government, and to enforce obedience to the laws beneath the roof of the Capitol of the Republic. Let a day be fixed for the representatives of the southern States and people to take their seats in Congress. The seats are there ready to receive the rightful claimants. Let them enter, take possession of their own and fulfill their official functions. Should violence be offered them by any man, or number of men, under any pretense whatsoever, let the President send a detachment of Federal troops to preserve order in the Capitol.

If radical conspirators attempt to support their usurpation by force, the consequences be upon their heads. It is time that the Republic should have a complete and constitutional Legislature. We have been ruled too long by faction. We have been too long subject to the caprices of fanatics. The country must be permitted to resume its normal condition, and if revolutionists stand in the way, the executive arm is strong enough to sweep them from the path of restoration."

composed of the members of the southern States and such members of the present Congress as are ready to sustain his policy. In such a congress there would as large a Senate and nearly as large a House, while with such a body to sustain him he can even more justly represent the Government, and throw the radicals, who shall accept the issue, into the defensive attitude of an adversary faction."

Is this "bringing forth fruits meet for repentance," that the President used to talk about? How do you like this picture of "reconstructed" rebels?

Ah! sir, this failure on the part of the President to call Congress together was a great misfortune to this country; the greatest which ever befell it, perhaps, with the exception of one. It was a greater misfortune when Booth, the assassin, sent his bullet, with unerring certainty, through the brain of that purest and best man, who, by his pa triotism and by his virtue, ennobled and elevated that country for which he died. That was one of the great calamities which befell the country. Ah! how little did we then know how much we lost. The next, as it has turned out, was that Andrew Johnson was Vice President! Had Andrew Johnson been an honest man, and had he been with us, from principle, in this contest, it would, sir, have softened the rigor of that first calamity to the American people.

But Andrew Johnson was never with the Republican party on principle; never, sir. In the first place he was for maintaining this Union, as can be proved by his last speech in the United States Senate, with slavery; for he deemed slavery secure only in the Union. In that speech he distinctly avowed that he was going to fight for slavery in the Union;" he was satisfied that in the Union was the only safety for slavery, and that outside of it was certain ruin. He emphatically declared that "the institution would be perpetual if southern men stood together in the Union."

Andrew Johnson is essentially a southern man. Born, reared, and educated in the South, he has the prejudices of the southern people; he has their animosities, their hatreds, and their superstitions. He, however, was never recognized by the leaders of the South, who inaugurated the rebellion, as one of their peers, so he sacrificed nothing of a social character when he refused to go with them. He had never been with them as one of the spokes in their political wheel. Andrew Johnson to-day is filled with the poison of the malaria of slavery which he inhaled in his infancy, and during the ripening years of his life, and this I say in extenuation of his present position. He

The Richmond Whig gives the following talked loudly, eloquently, and well with refer

advice to Mr. Johnson:

"Call together a Congress composed of members from all the States of the Union, as well those of the South as those of the North, and that if the radical members should refuse to attend, that he shall recognize the northern conservative members and the Southern members as the lawful Congress to sit in the Capitol and legislate for the country. The Whig does not see how this programme could be accomplished peacefully and supposes that the radical sectional Congress, as it terms it, would continue its sessions, appeal to the people, and proceed to muster an army if the United States Army should not side with it. In that case the Whig believes that the President would be prepared to meet force with force."

The Enquirer of the same date, discoursing on the same subject, says:

"It is evident, indeed, that a violent collision be tween Congress and the President is inevitable, and is imminent, if the true spirit and intent of the Constitution shall remain true, and its forms abused for the usurpation of power. In this issue the President has thus far been altogether in the right, and has evinced all the moderation. Congress has been wholly in the wrong, and has displayed a corresponding violence. That the public peace is yet unbroken is due to the President. It depends upon Congress whether it can be permanently maintained, for we take it for granted that the President will not yield himself an unresisting victim to revolutionary violence, whatever garb it may wear, or allow the Constitution, to defend which the sword has been given him, to be overturned or destroyed. A congressional coup d'état can be met by a presidential coup d'état, and in the collision the hardest must fend off as to what should be the President's pillow." The Charleston South Carolinian says: "There are obvious steps to the more firm establishment of this Government in the call of a congress

39TH CONG. 1ST SESS.-No. 151.

ence to the odiousness of the rebellion and the blackness of the crime of treason while it was his interest to do so. While he could remain in the United States Senate, or so soon as he resigned that position receive the appointment of military governor of Tennessee, and go there and maintain authority and power, and receive the emoluments of office, he could talk as loudly in favor of the maintenance of the Union, and for the suppression of the rebellion, and that traitors ought to be punished, and all that, as any man. I do not know but he has excelled almost any other in his denunciations of treason, and in his assertion that it must be punished, &c., and that the people must be taught that treason is the crime of crimes.

But, sir, so soon as Andrew Johnson finds himself clothed with executive power and with the immense patronage of his position, and so soon as he had surveyed the political field, he says to the people of the South" All my denunciations against you are nothing but gammon. I am talking that for New England. I never mean to carry out any of my threats against you. You take care to sustain my policy, and in 1868 I will be the candidate for the Presidency. I will see that none of your necks are stretched for treason; I will see that none of you suffer; I will take care of the South if you will let me humbug the northern people by these denunciations against the offense

of treason. Do this and it will all come out right.'

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Mr. Speaker, I believe the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. HOGAN] delivered a speech on this floor a few days since, in which he challenged the Union party, or any of its representatives in this Congress, "to show wherein Andrew Johnson had been a traitor to the pledges and professions he had made during the rebellion." Is it to be expected that any one is to be gammoned by any such " gasconade" as this? Are we to be told, and is it to be believed, that Andrew Johnson occupies today the same position that he held in 1864 and has held from 1861 up to within the past few months? There is a radical difference between the Andrew Johnson of to-day and the Andrew Johnson of a year ago; there is also an antagonism between the men who elected him and the men who now support him. Is not Andrew Johnson to-day trampling upon the principles he sustained and proclaimed a year ago? I proclaim here that he is, and I will prove it by his own record. Why, sir, if the Andrew Johnson of to-day is the man we elected Vice President then we have most wonderfully transformed ourselves. Somebody has been transformed. Either the Democratic party that denounced him as a traitor and a scoundrel of the deepest dye has been transformed, or the Union party or Mr. Johnson has been "transmogrified." Somebody has changedthings are not now as they were. That party which recently denounced him now sustain him, from Vallandigham down, filling the air with huzzahs in his praise. Unless the entire Union party has been transformed in a brief period there has a change come over the spirit of the dreams of the Democratic party, and over its actions, too. Is it the Union party or the Democratic or Andrew Johnson that has changed?

Sir, the Union party has not changed, nor has the Democratic party changed. The Democratic party is the same uncompromising foe of progress, civilization, liberty, and justice that it ever was during the rebellion, and the Union party stands to-day where it has always stood, undaunted and invincible, neither intimidated by threats nor seduced by patronage, the constant and untiring friend of liberty, union, and universal justice! God bless the Union party, say I!

There is nothing in common between the Democratic and the Union party. There is an antagonism which is irreconcilable between them; an antagonism as great as that between the Union party and Andrew Johnson. That antagonism does not exist between the Democratic party and the President. Andrew Johnson is doing all he can to sustain the Democratic party. He has abandoned his old friends. He has betrayed the party that gave him a name and a position among the potentates of the earth. He has betrayed the principles that he himself advocated within the past four years. He has given the lie to the sentiments which he expressed during the war on vital and important questions!

Sir, no man can make me believe, nor the Union men of this country, that the Democratic party which opposed the war, which created the Chicago platform of 1864, declaring the experiment of restoring the Union by war a failure; the party which strove to get up

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a fire in the rear" of the loyal heroes fighting to put down the rebellion; no man can make me believe that that party in sustaining the Andrew Johnson of to-day is supporting the Andrew Johnson of 1862, 1863, and 1864.

They The Democratic party are not fools. know that they are sustaining a man who coincides with them, and who is promoting their interests. They are using him to aggrandize their party, and when they have accomplished their ends they will drop him. And the time will come when he will be so low that there will none so poor as to do him reverence," even in the Democratic party.

I assert that there never existed a man so exalted or so powerful that he could betray the

party that placed him in power and survive that betrayal without dishonor and disgrace. Not an instance is known in the history of the world where a man betrayed his true friends, betrayed the party that placed him in power, who did not render himself politically infamous by that act of betrayal.

If illustrations were necessary I might cite the cases of John Tyler and James Buchanan. What did either of them make by their betrayal of those who elevated them to power? They have made a history which their children (if they are so unfortunate as to have any) will weep to read. So wil! Andrew Johnson, if he persists in the betrayal of those who put him into power, sink to the same level with Tyler and Buchanan; he is on the down grade now, and he will reach them if he does not soon stop. Mr. Speaker, let us go to the record of the President of the United States and see what that proves. I have taken some little pains in the short time that I could spare from the discharge of other duties to run over his record, and ascertain what positions he assumed and what principles he enunciated during the war, for the purpose of contrasting them with those which he has been uttering during the last six months. Let the record itself show the contrast. It will appear as well defined and as apparent as the contrast between midnight and noon-day.

quote now from Savage's Life of Johnson, on page 231, from the speech of Andrew Johnson, as a Senator from Tennessee, in the Senate of the United States, in the year 1861:

"Mr. President, when I was interrupted by the motion to clear the galleries, I was making a general allusion to treason as defined in the Constitution of the United States, and to those who were traitors and guilty of treason within the scope and meaning of the law and the Constitution. My proposition was, that if they would show me who were guilty of the offenses I have enumerated, I would show them who were the traitors. That being done, were I the President of the United States, I would do as Thomas Jefferson did in 1806 with Aaron Burr, who was charged with treason. I would have them arrested and tried for treason, and if convicted, by the eternal God they should suffer the penalty of the law at the hands of the executioner."

Now, I can point out to Andrew Johnson who the traitors are. And now let him dare to declare that by the eternal God he will have them tried, and if convicted he will hand them over to the executioner!

It will not satisfy me that Andrew Johnson is an honest man because he handed over to the executioner the poor miserable miscreant Wirz, and that poor unfortunate woman and three others who were one and all the mere tools of the intellectual instigators of the assassination. That was but little; they had no friends; they amounted to nothing. Andrew Johnson had no reference to such persons when he made this declaration in the Senate of the United States. No, sir; he made that declaration against the rebel leaders, against those in high position who were inaugurating this rebellion. And what has he done to fulfill that promise? "Were I President of the United States," says he. And now that he is President of the United States, clothed with the power that he seemed to desire at that time, what has he done toward the consummation of that promise? He has done nothing. He has not ordered the trial of any single man in the United States for treason.

On the other hand, he has pardoned or paroled every single traitor against this Government, with the exception, I believe, of two, When it became necessary perhaps but one. for General Humphreys, who had surrendered his sword not more than ten days before to General Sherman, to be pardoned, that he might enter upon the duties of Governor of Mississippi, here was Andrew Johnson ready to pardon him. He had not been from the battlefield three weeks before he was elected Governor of Mississippi by the returned rebel legions of that State; and Andrew Johnson at once sent him an executive pardon to enable him to enter upon the duties of that office. And I have been told that General Humphreys never as much as asked for it.

Instead of making treason odious, as he promised to do, he has done all that he well could to restore traitors to political power and to shield them from the legitimate results of their crimes. He has given them place; he has given them power; he has recognized them as being entitled to all the rights of loyal citizens under the Constitution, with here and there a solitary exception. And if I were a betting man, if I may be allowed to make use of such a phrase here, I would bet all that I have on this earth that he never will order the trial of Jeff. Davis; and that if he is ever tried and convicted, Andrew Johnson will pardon him. I only wish I was as certain to live a thousand years, and enjoy health and youth, as I am that Jefferson Davis never will make expiation for his bloody crimes while Andrew Johnson is the President of the United States!

Now, let us go a little further into this record, and see whether Andrew Johnson is a man who is keeping his promises or not; and whether it is true, as he would have it, that the northern men are all crazy radicals, and have themselves "gone back on the principles they adopted during the progress of the rebellion. In this same Life of Johnson, by Savage, on page 295, Andrew Johnson is recorded as having made use of this language, in his speech at Nashville, while he was exercising the duties of military governor under commission from Abraham Lincoln:

"But in calling a convention to restore the State, who shall restore and reëstablish it? Shall the man who gave his influence and his means to destroy the Government? Is he to participate in the great work of reorganization? Shall he who brought this misery upon the State of Tennessee control its destinies ?" Just listen:

on our rolls, and let them engage here in the work of legislation. That is what Andrew Johnson desires to-day.

[Here the hammer fell.] Mr.LAWRENCE, of Pennsylvania, obtained the floor.

Mr. RANDALL, of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker

Mr. LAWRENCE, of Pennsylvania. I had promised to yield to my colleague, [Mr. RANDALL;] but if the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. INGERSOLL] is not through, I prefer to yield to him till he shall conclude. He is engaged in a business which I think ought to be finished.

Mr. INGERSOLL. I am much obliged to the gentleman for his courtesy. I shall try to be as brief as possible. I was not aware that I was occupying so much time.

Let me quote further:

"If there be but five thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, loyal to freedom”

Mark the language! Then he demanded that men should be loyal to freedom. That principle, like his avowals in favor of liberty and justice, he has deserted!

"If there be but five thousand men in Tennessee loyal to the Constitution, loyal to freedom, loyal to justice, these true and faithful men should control the work of reorganization and reformation absolutely."

"Loud and prolonged applause," according to this report, followed that remark. Sir, I will guaranty that not one single man who joined in that demonstration of applause, applauds Andrew Johnson to-day; not one, sir. Every man who applauded that sentiment denounces the course of Andrew Johnson today, denounces his apostacy from the principles expressed in that speech. The men who

"Shall he who brought this misery upon the State applaud him to-day are the men who denounced

be permitted to control its destinies? If this be so, then all this precious blood of our brave soldiers and officers so freely poured out will have been wantonly spilled."

Sir, if that language was true as regarded the State of Tennessee, is it not true in reference to every other State situated as Tennessee was. Certainly, sir; if it was wrong with regard to the local legislation of the State of Tennessee that traitors should participate in the reorganization of their local government, the same objection exists with regard to their reorganizing any other State government which they have destroyed. Will not the same objection exist with regard to traitors participating in the reorganization of the General Government in assuming its rightful jurisdiction over the rebellious States and in restoring them to the Union practically? "Rebels should not be represented in the Tennessee Legislature,' but they should be represented in the Congress of the United States." I cannot harmonize these two positions of the President. They are irreconcilable.

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But Andrew Johnson does not talk to-day as he did then. No, sir, he is for letting all those rebels participate in the conventions and in every step toward reconstruction; and if there is any treason in the way he has a pardon in his pocket ready to hand it to the man who may be embarrassed by any disability of that kind.

Let us continue the examination of the record:

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All the glorious victories won by our noble armies will go for naught and all the battle-fields which have been sown with dead heroes during the rebellion will have been made memorable in vain.

"Why all this carnage and devastation? It was that treason might be put down and traitors punished.

Therefore I say that traitors should take a back seat in the work of restoration."

Sir, if Andrew Johnson could have his way to-day, traitors would take a front seat in the work of restoration. He has turned square round. Then, when he was acting with the Union party, he proclaimed to the world "that traitors should take a back seat." Now he proclaims that traitors shall have a front seat. He would give them front seats in this Hall! He would introduce here the rebel horde from Mississippi, Alabama, and other insurrectionary States. He would have their names called

him then, and who, when he made that speech, hung their heads or looked defiant and sullen. To-day they are patting him encouragingly and energetically on the back, and telling him that he is a second Andrew Jackson; that though he claims to be a "tribune" of the people, they are using him to advance their own purposes; and he seems not to know it; and he does not want to know it; but the true men who voted for him know it; he cannot deceive them.

It is refreshing to read the expressions of Andrew Johnson a few years ago. By virtue of such declarations as those I have read, he inspired the loyal North with confidence in his patriotism, in his integrity, in his love of universal freedom and justice to such a degree that when the patriotic Union men met in convention at Baltimore in 1864 they placed the name of Andrew Johnson upon their ticket next to that of Abraham Lincoln, and we went forth and battled for him faithfully and heroically against the same party who are denouncing us to-day and supporting him with the same vigor that they denounced him in 1864. This is the picture I want Andrew Johnson to look upon. It is a picture which the real friends of humanity and justice weep over.

Andrew Johnson has declared that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen; and that is the position I have taken here to-day, that the traitor has ceased by reason of his rebellion and treason to be a citizen; and that simply because he failed to consummate that treason in the overthrow of the Government, he has not been restored to his citizenship, for no traitor can be restored to citizenship until the supreme legislative power of this Government so restores him:

"I say that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen, and in joining the rebellion has become a public enemy. He forfeited his right to vote with loyal men.' "-Andrew Johnson,

Did he, Mr. Johnson? Did the traitor forfeit his right to vote while you were Governor of Tennessee under Abraham Lincoln? If he did, how has that right been restored to him? If that right was forfeited while you were Governor, why does not that forfeiture continue till this day when you are President? Let him answer that if he can. He knows the truth is that he cannot answer it except by reaffirming his old position. The right to vote was for

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