to inform this House under what law goods, wares, merchandise, produce, &c., are permitted to pass from the United States through Canada, and again into the United States.

CARE OF REFUGEE INDIANS.

The SPEAKER laid before the House a communication from the Secretary of the Interior, transmitting, in accordance with the proviso of the second section of the act of June 25, 1864, accounts of the superintendent and agents of the southern superintendency having charge of refugee Indians, for the second quarter of 1864; which was laid on the table, and ordered to be printed.

SALE OF GOLD BY GOVERNMENT.

Mr. COX. I ask unanimous consent to offer the following resolution:

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Treasury be directed to communicate to this House what, if any, amount of gold in the Treasury of the United States, not necessary for the payment of interest on the public debt, has been disposed of under the joint resolution approved March 17, 1864, what amounts and the various times when the same were disposed of, at what rates, and what agents were employed in the transaction.

Mr. STEVENS. I do not know that I understand altogether the object of this resolution, and therefore I insist on the regular order of business.

Mr. COX. I do not wish to cast any reflection on the Secretary of the Treasury or on any offcer connected with the Treasury Department; but I think that these facts are necessary for future legislation.

Mr. STEVENS. It may be so; and perhaps by to-morrow, when I shall have examined the matter, I may think so myself; but I prefer that the resolution should go over.

Mr. COX. If the resolution be offered now it will go over, under the rule, until to-morrow; and meanwhile the gentleman can examine it.

Mr. STEVENS. I do not object to its being offered, but to its consideration at the present time. The SPEAKER. If there be no objection, the resolution will be considered as offered, and will go over under the rules.

There was no objection.

BUREAU OF EDUCATIONAL STATISTICS.

quered; that, had their complaints been listened to, this warmight have been averted; that negotiations might cure our national ills; and yet no remedy was proposed provided the rebels would accept peace only on the basis of their independence.

Is it not singular, Mr. Chairman, that those who are acknowledged able statesmen and historians either do not know, or, in their forensic efforts against the right conceal, the distinction between a revolutionist and a rebel?

I presume, sir, since we last met we have all had the pleasure of getting off our stump speeches in our different districts and although Occupy that lamentable position, so that it may be said, "never again will I be heard here," yet I rejoice when I know I come not back, not because I hated trenson too much, while others come not back because they loved it, "not wisely but too well."

Sir, we all love that doctrine that far down in the strata of society there exists the right of revolution. The true revolutionist is always the truly loyal man; he hates treason as much as tyranny, and both as he does Satan. What does such a citizen first do? He carries his case to the judiciary of the country; he pleads with and petitions the delegated sovereignty of his nation, wherever it may be lodged, again and again for a redress of grievances; and after all that he can do agreeably to either the form or spirit of law has failedand his rights still trampled upon, his wrongs unredressed, tyranny yet implacable, and despotism unmoved by his appeals, prayers, or petitions, then he resorts to his last remedy-then he asserts the rights to which his and nature's God entitle him, and justly becomes the revolutionist. Like such a man were the signers of the Declaration of Independence-they were revolutionists, not rebels.

The rebel is one who, having no real and often not even an imaginary grievance, but because he cannot always mold the social compact to which he belongs into that form which his diabolical heart, tyrannical head, and unclean hands desire, determines that such Government shall either be changed to suit his purposes or he will, without judicial sanction, without petition, forcibly, bel

Resolved, That it be referred to the Committee of Ways and Means to inquire into and report upon the expediency of creating in the Department of the Interior a bureau on the statistics of education.

ment of his own, antagonistic to that to which he owes allegiance. Such a man, sir, is not a revolutionist, but a rebel, a traitor. He does not believe in the homogeneity of a nation unless it is homogeneous with himself. To such a class belong Breckinridge-John C., I mean-Lee, Wigfall, Jeff. Davis, and the devil, [laughter,] and, Mr. Chairman, all, all who agree with them. We were asked, Why not have toleration? Tol

So the rules were suspended; and the House accordingly resolved itself into the Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, (Mr. GARFIELD in the chair,) and resumed the consideration of the President's annual message.

Mr. A. MYERS. Mr. Chairman, I shall, without having made any special preparation, trouble the committee this afternoon with a few remarks in reference to that great question of "homogeneity" which seems to have so much attracted the attention of this House. When, sir, on Wednesday last, the honorable gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] rose in his place, I have no doubt that this House expected to hear an argument filled with statistics, sparkling with poetry, and glowing with eloquence, in favor of the constitutional amendment for the abolition of slavery. But, sir, how much were we disappointed to find that that able effort was vainly spent-may I be allowed to use that language? in the attempt to show that "homogeneity "among the different sections of the same nation is a fallacy; that the slaveholding rebels of the aristocratic South and the liberty-loving fathers of this Republic had somewhat analogous causes of quarrel; that those southern rebels could not be con

Yet, sir, who ever heard that true religion of any kind ever sanctioned slavery? Nay, more, who ever heard that a false religion sanctioned the slavery of its own votaries at all? Who ever heard that the doctrine of any kind of religion believed in the enslavement of its own race and religion?

It is said that the New Testament and the great Founder of our religion did not wish to destroy slavery. If that be so, was it not because it would produce a greater evil, and that was, the destruction of the Government in which it existed? So, sir, of us. So, sir, of the American Union. The love of country has ever been spoken of by the poet and orator as next to that principle which stands next to the love of God. Will you tell me that this country is an exception? Is it true that the American loves his country as much as the citizen of any other land? So true was it that the love of country was the paramount feeling of citizens of the United States, that we adhered to a Union even when some of the fathers of the country said that the Union protected slavery, and in order to save that Union we were sold to slavery. We bowed before it. We yielded; we yielded to its demands. But when slavery undertakes to destroy the life of the Union, as it has done; when that principle boldly declares that it is the assassin of this Union, the loyal man swears upon his country's altar that slavery itself shall die.

Why, sir, are we told that had their complaints been listened to this war might have been averted? Now, sir, to use a plain expression, I defy any man, any member of this House, any man who occupies a position either upon this floor or elsewhere in the country, I appeal even to the hon

It

orable gentleman from New York. [Mr. BROOKS,] and now is the time, and this the occasion, to tell me what cause of complaint the rebels have. cannot be done. No honorable gentleman upon this floor can tell this House what cause of complaint the rebels have. They cannot do more than Alexander H. Stephens, the brightest intellect of the southern confederacy, could do. He admitted, down to November, 1860, that they had no cause of complaint. Why, then, assert it again and again, here and elsewhere?

Why, sir, not only in these Halls, but before the people, public men have stated that the South had claims to which the North refused to listen, listening to which we could have avoided this war. The honorable gentleman from New York, able as he is, great as are his powers, cannot mention one just cause of complaint which the South had.

But they tell us we cannot conquer the South. Ah, sir, I thought that the Chicago convention and its platform had been forgotten here, since the seal of condemnation had so significantly been placed upon it by the people. I had the pleasure of addressing the people of Philadelphia a few nights before the November election. I told them they must stretch stronger telegraph wires from pole to pole, for when the thundering voice of the Union majority should come over those wires they would be found too weak to carry the news. And, sure enough, the storm of Union victories came sweeping along and broke down those wires, so that away up in the country we were kept in suspense several days before we knew what was the exact result. True, we heard the thunder, but had to wait for the lightning. When it did come, however, it was all on one side. Yes, sir, there was homogeneity on that occasion, and it was of a very satisfactory character to all who loved country more than party.

Cannot conquer the South! It is but a reiteration of the doctrine laid down at Chicago, which started out with the assertion of a falsehood-a small one, not near as large a one as I should have expected from the source from which it emanated. It was asserted that four years of war had been a failure, while at that time four years of war had not existed. But the most stupendous falsehood is found in the fact that at the outbreak of the rebellion the rebels claimed about eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles of territory, while at the time of the holding the Chicago convention they could claim only two hundred and fifty thousand square miles. And now, I ask, was ever there so great a falsehood as that-a lie six hundred thousand square miles in extent? [Laughter.]

We cannot conquer the rebels! Sir, it looks very much now as though that prophetic declara- • tion was about to be proved untrue. We are told that we must have an armistice, negotiation, must exhaust all the arts of statesmanship, and have a national convention. Sir, we have peace commissioners. They are Grant, Sherman, Sheridan, Thomas, and Farragut. We have our national convention, and the delegates to it are the invincible soldiers and sailors of the Union, clothed in the royal purple of the nation, the Union blue; and they are now debating that question, and with all their powers are attempting its adjudication. Sir, they are calling the previous question on the rebels, and will soon table them effectually.

A national convention! Sir, that is but a repetition, as I said before, of the doctrine of the Chicago platform. And yet the whole matter is embraced in a negative. Even the able gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS,] after his eloquent argument-based upon many facts, I admit— thrilling as it did this House, what did he say? He says he does not know what he will do. He just says he proposes no remedy. That is the doctrine of negation, with all due respect to the gentleman. It is but the fish that was warmed into life in the sea of politics in which Buchanan existed. There was war before Abraham Lincoln took the oath of office or James Buchanan ceased to warm the presidential chair. Actual war existed in this country, and while that was the case, James Buchanan said, According to the Constitution of the United States, you have no right to secede, but according to that Constitution I cannot prevent you from seceding. Every school-boy knows that two negatives are equivalent to an affirmative, and therefore, "Go ahead," said James Buchanan. The doctrine of negation has

ever since been the doctrine of that party; they are in favor positively of nothing, and negatively opposed to all things. Give me a positive man, give me a man who is in favor of some doctrine, and can give a reason for it.

But it was intiinated by the gentleman from New York that after having exhausted everything else, falling back upon the reserved rights of this nation, is a certain contingency he might be in favor of war.

State rights! Will some able statesman please tell us when the States obtained their sovereignty? Will some student of the history of this Government and philosopher of the history of nations please inform us whether the colonies, separated as they were and tied to the mother country, had Sovereignty before they were independent colonies and united as States of this Union? Will gentlemen please let us know whether, during their existence as colonies, they had any sovereignty at all; if they did not owe allegiance to the mother country, and were not bound to it by a ligament which held them until, by their own power as revolutionists, they tore it asunder? I say that when they became United States they were not born each independent and sovereign, but were all born together into the union of these States. I would like some gentleman to show us where he gets the doctrine of the sovereignty of each State. "Homogeneity!" Why, Mr. Chairman, before this Congress we hardly knew how to pronounce that word. It is almost like that other tremendous, jaw-breaking, terrible word, "miscegenation;" I do not know whether I have got it right. Homogeneity! And yet the honorable gentleman from New York, just at the close of his speech, in that eloquent appeal of his when he took Massachusetts upon her blind side and thrilled her to her very extremities, appealed to her, because he was born on some of her hills, to come to the rescue. He argued for an hour and twenty minutes against homogeneity, and how did he close? Ah! Mr. Chairman, how easily the ingenuity of the head is sometimes overthrown by the honesty of the heart. He appealed to the House to come together and vote together, you from Massachusetts, you from New York, and you from the West. What is that but an appeal to this House to become homogeneous? Homogeneity in the House of Representatives is a powerful thing; it is a thing of force; but homogeneity in the American nation is an absurdity, a chimera. Philosophers and geographers, we are told, are to utter no such nonsense as that. Mirabile dictu!

I see now why the Chicago convention adopted the planks and nominated the candidates it did. It was because that convention took up the idea of the honorable gentleman from New York, that the old scriptural notion that "a house divided against itself cannot stand" is an absurdity, and that the reverse is the way to make a powerful nation; that a house divided against itself is necessary for that purpose. Hence the Chicago convention had one candidate who was for peace and one who was for war; a candidate who wrote a letter of acceptance and one who wrote no letter of acceptance.

Sir, we have heard before, and perhaps in this very speech of the gentleman from New York, of the quarrel between the two roses, differing in disposition as much as in color; we have heard of the contest between the houses of York and Lancaster; but who, until the able speech of the honorable gentleman from New York, or rather until the assembling of the Chicago convention, ever before heard of the quarrel between the Two GEORGES?

We are told that the head and front of that ticket and here let me say, and I say it sincerely, that the second person on that ticket contained much the most head there was in it; they say, however, that the head and front of that ticket wrote a letter of acceptance. This doctrine of want of homogeneity was the idea of that convention, and it was upon that principle they expected their party to succeed. Now, what kind of a letter was that letter of acceptance? The design was to have it a war letter. Did you read that letter? If you read it downwards from the date, it does look a little warlike and runs smoothly along; but just turn it upside down and it is like what the Irishman said about the bumble bee; when it came at him head-foremost he cried out

"What a beautiful bird it is," but when it backed up against him, "Oh, what hot fait the wee thing has." [Laughter.] And so of McClellan's letter of acceptance. But the idea was that this want of homogeneity was to be the great doctrine which should be successful; and no wonder the honorable gentleman from New York supported the party; he is sincere in his theory. Men who are sincere in their theories put them into practice. If it be true that nations should not be homogeneous, certainly it must be true that parties should not.

The second candidate on the platform, having more head, did not write a letter of acceptance, carrying out the doctrine of State rights. What business had the national committee of the great Democratic party with that nomination? That is a national doctrine. That is concentration. That is federalization. That is anti-Staterightsization. But after the results of the first elections in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana began to be known, a certain candidate for the Governorship of the State of New York said to himself, "General McClellan is gone; but there is a little chance for me if I can get something to show that both these candidates are for war." Hence, upon the State rights idea, the chairman of the New York State central committee writes a letter tofthe excellent gentleman who stands number two on the Chicago platform ticket, and thereto he receives a reply containing a larger gun of war than the famous letter of the ancient Napoleon; some people call him the modern Napoleon, but I call him the ancient one, for a deader man, a more deeply buried man than the former favorite of the soldiers is not to be found.

Jefferson Davis and Governor Brown do not seem to believe in the idea of homogeneity. They are quarreling with each other over the doctrine. The idea which Governor Brown and the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] seem to have of a strong Government is that it shall not be homogeneous, but that there shall be kept up an eternal antagonism. Sir, that is the cause of all our troubles. We had an antagonism of words for a while. Now treason has brought that antagonism to the cannon's mouth, and the lover of his

country swears that treason must " perish by the sword, because it has taken up the sword."

Perhaps I ought to ask, on this question of homogeneity, why it was that these two kinds of principles were enunciated at the Chicago convention. The leaders of the party, the able men, the sincere and eloquent men who believed that homogeneity was not a principle of strength in the Government, were shrewd enough to know that in order to get the votes of both wings of the Democratic party they must have a war plank and a peace plank. They knew that the peace plank would certainly carry all the peace men. Then they must have a little thunder, a little war, a little flag, some stars glittering on their banner, with which to go to the American soldier for his vote. Hence they get up these two propositions. They were not quite so successful, however, in curing their patients of the malady of Unionism, and infecting them with the disease of State rights, as an Irishman was whom I once heard of.

He saw a friend of his in the street one day wheezing, coughing, and sneezing, just as a great many people did after the election. Said he to him, "Jimmy, you have a very bad cold."" Yes, Jake," said he, "a very large cowld." "And

party, hung up over the bedside of that great old party not one hat but two hats. And then they mixed up a mess of partisanship, and, after dosing their followers with that, they thought they would change the recipe a little. They would look upon both hats, and, lying supinely and nicely on their bed, they would jump up on election day and cheer and hurrah for the success of the great Democratic party. Sir, the medicine failed. Why? Because there existed still, as I say there ever will exist in this country, far down in the hearts of the American people, the love of the Union which is greater than the love of party.

But, sir, men tell us sometimes that this is an abolition war, a Republican war. Sir, I tell you that if this were nothing but an abolition or Republican war, if this war had to depend upon our party alone, we would have gone under as a nation; we would have been submerged, lost, and lost forever. But, sir, there are noble men in that old Democratic party who will still, when you touch their love of country, "rally round the flag;" and they did it in this case. Sir, partisan effort failed of its purpose and of the effect it was designed to have.

We want "homogeneity" as a nation. Those who do not wish it as a party are welcome to the fruits which the want of it brings. The lead rs of the Chicago peace party thought that convention was to be the cradle of a new-born child, and a great organization, and supposed that everything was going right; but when the winds of October and November came, they shook the bough upon which it hung, and, I was going to say, "down came baby and cradle and all.” [Laughter.] We want the homogeneity of patriotism, and not of treason; of Unionism, and not of disseveration; that of geographical and social attachment, and not of physical disintegration and governmental antagonism. And, sir, after having attained that, we will take care of the defenders of the nation.

I was a little amused at that same Chicago platform when it declared, in glowing terms, sympathy with the soldiers of the nation. "When we get the power," said the members of that convention, 66 we will see that the soldiers are rewarded." Oh, cheap promise! "When they get the power!" I met a man on the street a few days before I came here, and he said, "Well, you used us up at the last election." "I think that we did," I replied. "But just wait," said he, "until 1868." Was not that a consolation? Oh! how sweetly we turn back to old memories, and how fondly hope looks forward to future party triumphs.

Sir, I ask this House who will take care of the defenders of the nation? Is it those who on every occasion, in every legislative assembly, by every judicial and executive power, obstruct the effort to grant to the soldiers the exercise of the right of suffrage? Can the soldiers justly look to such a party for aid, for sympathy, for reward? Now, Mr. Chairman, there is, I understand, one very troublesome question to be agitated in this House, and that is with reference to increasing the salaries of clerks in the Departments. I do not know whether I ought to commit myself on that question, but a man who may never come back here can talk pretty independently on these matters. Sir, if our party does what is right, I should be in favor of a very large increase of the salaries of those clerks, for I desire that those places shall be occupied by the brave men who have stood in the forefront of the battle, until a shattered arm or an amputated leg has qualified them for the position. Sir, if such a measure were adopted there is no extent to which this House would not be sustained in voting for an increase of these salaries. I merely allude to this incidentally, and to say that in such a way can we show our sym

Sir, you will allow me to change the illustration of the anecdote-" to point the moral and adorn the tale." These gentlemen, expecting to get the votes of all Union lovers in the Democratic party and the votes of the peace men in the same

by him and support him. I mean, sir, by recommending him in preference to all others for these places and positions, and then paying him well for his time, talents, and labor. And, sir, we must take care-and I think the honorable gentleman from Ohio [Mr. SPALDING] yesterday announced this position-we must take care of the soldiers' orphan children, and of their widowed mothers. This is the duty of this House, and by measures to that end we can, as a party, show our sympathy for the defenders of our flag. Do you tell me to be kind, to be lenient, to be merciful to those traitors in arms who have de

stroyed the lives of thousands and tens of thousands of our patriotic fellow citizens? Sir, look at our prisoners as they return from the South, with nothing upon their persons but the skin that covers their bones, and that pierced by the cruelty of slavery and of treason. Do you tell me to be kind to men who engage in such amusements as dragging the corpses of our soldiers from their graves, and afterward ornamenting their fiendish fingers by trinkets made from the bones of Union men? Do you tell me to be tolerant toward such fiends as these? Oh! sir, no wonder that John Wesley said that slavery is the "sum of all villainies." No wonder that Senator Sumner grew eloquent when talking of its barbarity. And no wonder that the American people have determined that it shall die.

Yes, sir, we must take care of the defenders of the nation. Sir, I suppose that the honorable gentleman from New York, and many of those on the other side who agree with him, ought to have knowledge of many case, presented by the correspondence received at their desks from day to day; and, sir, when we visit those hospitals where we are called from time to time in the discharge of our duty to our constituents, we see the brave men who have periled all in defense of their country, and whom we are bound to defend by our legislation, sincerely, honestly, trulynot by whining, hypocritical declarations, as was done, I fear, by the Chicago convention. Sir, why did not the honorable gentleman from New York have some tears to shed over the sufferings of our brave soldiers? Why should we have lamentations and funeral panegyrics over that old institution of slavery, which, if not dead, is, like error wounded, “ writhing in pain, and dying amid its worshipers?"

Sir, I hope gentlemen will take other cases to weep over. Going to the hospital near the battle-field of Gettysburg they might have seen the case of a young man who had left the home of his mother when the war began, he, too, her only support, sending her ten dollars per month in what some gentlemen call the depreciated currency of the country, he upon that battle-field was shot down, that shot coming from rebel hands and rebel guns, when laid upon his couch and carried to the hospital, though his cheek had never blanched before, though a tear had not coursed down his facewho ever hears a Union soldier complain?-yet when the surgeon said that he could live no longer, thinking of his widowed mother, tears coursed down his cheeks, and rising on his pallet bed exclaimed: "Who will take care of mother now?" The Christian commission, by its agent, was there to tell him what honorable gentlemen ought to tell him, what this House ought to tell him, and what the Union party does tell, that "God and a grateful country will take care of your mother now. That is the duty of our party. Such is the duty of this House.

Let me

as he answers, "My father, sir! I have not heard of my father since 1864, and then I was a child; they tell me, however, that my father was a copperhead." Look at that other young man; ask him where his father is? See how his eyes sparkle. "They tell me," he replies, " my father went down on board the Cumberland; the winds of the ocean sang the requiem of his death." There is another youth, and let us ask where is his father. He replies, "My father was with the legions of liberty on the 3d day of July, at the battle of Gettysburg, there, where the Union soldiers, under a Pennsylvania leader, vanquished the hosts of slavery, there my father was killed, and now lies buried in the national cemetery.' Ask another where his father is. "My father, sir, in 1863, was with the western army under the gallant Hooker, and with the rest of them went up, and on, and up still to Lookout mountains, and there, above the clouds, with God looking down upon the legions of the Union, as He was inclosed in clouds when He gave the law to Moses, so the army of freedom was enveloped by the clouds when it gave forth the law of liberty by the thunders of its artillery. There, sir, my father died-upon that mountain top; and I thank God he did his duty." That is the way the Union men will speak in after days. You write an epitaph upon your grave-stone, which; after your death, will sound sweetly to the ears of your children. Ah, do not the members of this House many of them regret that they will at least have not served as you have who occupy that chair? [Mr. GARFIELD in the chair.] The fathers among us will have to regret that our children cannot say that we have fought the battles of our country. Ah, but when we are gone will not our children, when they come around our graves, be able to say "Our father loved his country?"

Mr. Chairman, I would like to trouble the House a little longer in showing the absurdity of this doctrine that it is best for a nation not to be homogeneous. Now, whether the gentleman from New York shall remain in this House for years to come or not; whoever, even of those whom the storm of Unionism may have swept away for the while, shall come back here, four, six, or ten years hence, will have learned this lesson from the people at least, that our people are homogeneous in this, that treason and slavery-being the same thing now-must die, because they have attempted the life of the nation. And when the cause of the present evil shall have been done away with the nation will go on and prosper and be still more prosperous, and then they will hear no more from able and eloquent statesmen of the absurd ideas of State rights, and that a want of homogeneity, a want of unity of purpose, and a want of unity of thought and action, is the strength of the nation.

Mr. ROSS. I had flattered myself that after the assembling of this session of Congress we would be able calmly and dispassionately to examine and investigate the great questions which are now agitating and distracting the public mind of the nation. I regret very much the temper and spirit with which the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. A. MYERS] has seen fit to entertain this House. I believe that gentleman and one other, the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. DAWES,] are the only two who have seen fit to allude to certain individuals who were defeated in the late canvass, and to bring forward the old dead issues which were discussed in the late political campaign.

Sir, there is to be a future of our country, a future more grand and more glorious than anything we have yet had, and I wish that all of us might live fifteen, twenty, or thirty years longer. Then when walking along our streets, let us ask that young man a question: "Where, young man, is your father?" See him hesitate and scowl

I say, sir, I flattered myself we would come respond in some degree to the expectations of our constituents by aiming to give peace and harmony and prosperity again to this distracted country. But the gentleman has chosen a different line of argument. He has seen fit to allude to the action of a certain political party in their national convention at Chicago. He has, in my judgment, given a very wrong and improper construction as to the true theory of the Government itself. He ignores any rights in the States of this Union. I know it is becoming a favorite theory with gentlemen upon that side of the House that the States of this Union have no rights, but that we are a consolidated Government.

Sir, such a theory is not sustained by the history of this country. These States were sovereign and independent, but they surrendered certain portions

of their powers and rights to the General Government, and the General Government is paramount and supreme to the extent of such delegated powers, while all the powers not conferred upon the General Government by the sovereign States themselves, are held and maintained by the States and the people respectively. So jealous were our fathers in framing the Constitution that they provided a limit to the extent to which the General Government might be permitted to go in the exercise of its functions.

Then, I take it, it cannot be successfully controverted that those powers not conferred on the General Government still remain in the States and in the people of this Union. There is nothing wrong in the formation of the Government. The ills which now surround our once glorious and happy country do not grow out of any inherent defect in the organic law under which we live. The Constitution of the country is all right; it is a perversion of the great principles of the Constitution that has brought on the difficulties which now surround and discompose this once glorious and happy country.

I say that the General Government is limited in its powers. Let the General Government exercise only those powers which are delegated to it, and, sirs, there will be no collision between the Federal Government and the respective States of the Union; we may go on, as we have done for seventy-five years past, the States revolving around the Union as a common center, without collision or conflict, and no State will ever desire to sever its connection with the General Government.

Why, sir, it was one of my boyhood's fancies that I would live to see the day when we would have an ocean-bound Republic. The idea that the character of our Government endangers its perpetuity is not true, if the Government is properly administered. We may take in Canada, and Cuba, and South America, and the islands of the sea, and they may harmoniously revolve with the States around the common center without any more danger of collision and conflict than there is in the solar system itself, if the Government is properly administered.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania has seen fit to allude to the action of the Chicaga convention, and very unjustly too. The Chicago convention did not resolve that the war had been a failure. What they did resolve was the simple truth that must be admitted and acknowledged by every gentleman upon the Republican side of the House, and that was that the war had proved a failure to restore the Union. That is what they said, and all they said. I should like to see any gentleman controvert satisfactorily the position there laid down by the Chicago convention that this war had proved a failure for the purpose of restoring the Union. No such thing has ever been done.

The gentleman speaks of the extraordinary love that he has for the soldier, and says that our pretenses of love for the soldier are hypocritical. I would call the attention of the committee and of the country to the action of this body at its last session upon some of these points. When I made a personal appeal to the chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs to permit me to introduce a proposition to amend a bill reported by him, increasing the compensation of soldiers up to twenty dollars a month, he refused to give me that privilege, but called the previous question, and the Republican majority sustained that call, thereby cutting off either amendment or debate upon the subject.

These men who love the soldier so well, as they tell you, will permit him to undergo the fatigues and hardships of camp life for the paltry sum of fifty-three and one third cents a day; and when we upon our side of the House asked that that compensation should be increased to at last half what the soldiers might get for ordinary labor at home, the majority upon the other side refused to permit us to make any such motion, or to entertain the proposition.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Will my colleague allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. ROSS. Yes, sir.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I want to ask him if he ever voted for an appropriation bill to pay the soldiers?

Mr. ROSS. I will answer that question. I have uniformly voted for every appropriation that has come up to pay the soldiers of the Army, un

less it has been coupled with something so objectionable and obnoxious that I could not vote for it.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I want to know if my colleague has voted for a single appropriation bill for the Army-to provide means for paying the Army?

Mr. ROSS. I have never voted for any appropriation for freedmen, or for putting the negro upon an equality with the white man in the ranks. Against all such measures I have voted; but I will tell my colleague, as he is one of the Committee on Military Affairs, that if he will introduce a bill, naked and alone, to increase the pay of soldiers, he will find no man in this House who will give it a more ardent support than I will.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I understand the gentleman to take the ground that the war is a failure, and that our soldiers are engaged in prosecuting an unholy and unjust and unconstitutional war. I understand that he never voted for an appropriation bill to provide means for paying the soldiers. It is true that he did upon one occasion offer an amendment or resolution to increase the pay of the soldiers to twenty or thirty dollars a month. The purpose of the gentleman in that proceeding is, it seems to me, very apparent. If the gentleman is opposed to the war, and thinks that the soldier is engaged in an unholy, unjust, and unconstitutional war-" a hellish crusade against liberty," as it has been denominated by some members on the other side-can he be justly regarded as a friend of the soldier who is engaged in the war? I think that the gentleman's constituents and mine well understand our relative posi- | tions.

Mr. ROSS. Mr. Chairman, the gentleman assumes too much when he says that I have ever declared that this was an unholy, an unrighteous, or an unjust war. I have never, at home or abroad, enunciated any such doctrine. I have said that, in my humble judgment, if this Government had been properly administered this bitter cup might have been turned from our lips, and we might not have been required to drain it to the very dregs. Such is my judgment in regard to this matter. But I am the last man, with one hundred and fifty or two hundred thousand of our gallant Illinois soldiers in the field, to turn my back upon them. Mr. FARNSWORTH. I want to ask my colleague how he voted on the bill reported last session from the Committee on Military Affairs, for the speedy punishment of those infernal rascals known as guerrillas, who shoot our soldiers in the back as they are dragging their weary and blood-stained feet to the hospitals in the rear. Did my colleague vote for that bill or against it?

Mr. ROSS. The gentleman seems desirous of breaking the thread of my discussion, but I will tell him

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Not at all; but you are on the question of the soldier.

Mr. ROSS. The bill introduced for the purpose of giving to the commanders of petty posts, perhaps not above the grade of lieutenant, the authority to execute men called " guerrillas," I did vote against, and I would vote against it again, because all that was necessary, even without its passage, was to report to the authorities at Washington, and thus get a confirmation of the sentence. What kind of war would we have if that policy were to be pursued? There would be a system of vengeance and retaliation in both armies. The war would become a ten-fold more cruel and bloody war than it now is. Consequently I voted against that bill. But I have voted for the soldier. I have voted to increase his pay: and I have appealed to members of this House to increase his pay.

And I ask the honorable gentleman from Illinois [Mr. FARNSWORTH] how he will explain to his constituents why, when I proposed to increase the soldiers' pay twenty per cent. he voted to sustain the previous question, thereby keeping one hundred and fifty thousand Illinois men in the field on fifty-three and a third cents a day, while their wages are worth from one dollar and a half to two dollars a day at home? I want my colleague to answer this to his constituents at home.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Does my colleague desire an answer to it now?

Mr. ROSS. I do not propose that you shall make a speech now.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I am willing to answer that now. I was one of those who voted for and advocated the payment to our soldiers of

all that they could be paid with the means at the disposal of the Government. I always voted for appropriation bills to provide means to pay the soldier. I voted for tax bills. I voted for every revenue bill to provide means for carrying on this

war.

My colleague complains that the soldiers are paid too little. Why, sir, there is not a Government on earth that pays its soldiers half as well as the Government of the United States pays its soldier. There is not a Government on earth that feeds or clothes its soldiers so well as the Government of the United States does. Nothing like it. Our soldiers now get sixteen dollars à month, their clothing, and rations. You cannot find any other Government on the face of the earth that pays its soldiers ten dollars a month, with rations and clothing.

Mr. ROSS. Then I understand this matter differently from my colleague, and I will leave him to settle it with his constituents. He thinks that the pay of the soldier is high enough; that we have gone ahead of all other Governments in that respect. He is willing to say to one hundred and fifty thousand Illinoisans in the field, who, if at home, could command from one dollar and fifty cents to two dollars a day for farm labor, that they shall stay in the service, and bear the trials and hardships of camp life for fifty-three and one third cents per day. That is what my honorable colleague says to his constituency. For my part, sir, I think that the noble boys in the field, who are bearing the toils and hardships of war, are entitled to at least as much compensation as they would receive for ordinary labor at home.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Mr. ChairmanThe CHAIRMAN. Will the gentleman give way to his colleague?

Mr. ROSS. If he wants to ask me a question, I will give way.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I have served with our soldiers for nearly two years in the field

Mr. ROSS. I do not propose to give way for the gentleman to make a speech..

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I propose to premise my question by a few words.

Mr. ROSS. I cannot yield to the gentleman, except to ask briefly a question.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Well, I want to ask my colleague whether any Illinois soldiers have ever complained to him of the lack of sufficient pay?

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. Of twelve thousand from my district not one has ever made any such complaint.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I have never in my life received a letter from a soldier complaining in regard to the insufficiency of his pay.

Mr. ROSS. I suppose that the reason why the gentleman has not received any application from soldiers for increase of pay is, that the soldiers have understood that he is opposed to such increase. I have received such letters in abundance from my constituents, asking that they should at least be allowed such pay as will enable them to send home to their wives and children a small pittance to keep them from becoming objects of charity.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Why did not my colleague have those letters or petitions referred to the Committee on Military Affairs? We never saw any of them.

Mr. ROSS. I showed one of those letters to the honorable gentleman last winter and he turned me off very coolly.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. The truth is these complaints come from the men who oppose the war; they come from those of the party represented on the other side of the House who have resolved upon everything that can embarrass the Government, prevent the success of the Army, and throw obstacles in the way of the prosecution of the war.

Mr. ROSS. I think, sir, that the meager pay of the soldier is manifestly unjust. I have little faith in loud professions of love for the soldier, when those who make them refuse to allow him enough pay to sustain his wife and children at home, so that they are left naked and starving.

But they did increase the pay of the soldier! They increased it by the extraordinarily munificent sum of ten cents a day! Mr. Chairman, I think that the appellation that was formerly ap

plied to Mr. Buchanan, when he was a candidate for the presidency, might with propriety be applied to the other side of the House; they might be called the "ten cent" party. They actually, in their munificence, increased the pay of the soldier ten cents a day-enough to buy a quarter of a yard of common calico, or a quarter of a yard of brown domestic muslin, to assist in clothing his wife and little ones at home. This is the love that these men have shown toward the soldiers in our Army.

I will tell you another thing that was done at the last session. We passed through this House a bill introduced by the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to increase the pay of the pensioner to eleven dollars a month. It had been eight dollars before. As all the necessaries of life had been raised in price by the war, we thought that increase in the aniount of pension was demanded. I knew that in Illinois widows and orphans of our soldiers who had fallen in battle had in some instances become objects of charity in the neighborhood where they lived. I was not willing that they should be so regarded. We passed in this House a bill to increase the amount of pension to eleven dollars a month. When that bill went to the Senate, that body by a majority vote-a party vote-struck out the provision for eleven dollars a month and reduced the amount to eight dollars a month. This House, by a majority vote, concurred in that amendment. By this circumstance the armless and legless soldiers throughout the country, and the widows and orphans of soldiers who have died in the service, may know and understand the reason why they do not get eleven dollars a month instead of eight dollars a month. It is because the party in power in this House so voted and determined.

But, sir, the Senate made another amendment to that bill. You know, sir, that, as our law previously stood, the widow of a soldier, in order to draw her pay and pension, was obliged to produce a certificate of record to establish the fact of her marriage. There have been hanging in the Department hundreds of applications of widows who, because they were married in the rebellious States, or for some other reason, found it inconvenient or impossible to get a certificate, and who therefore cannot get a pension.

But this House and the Senate last winter proposed a new plan, which was, that persons living together as husband and wife for the space of two years should be entitled to a life pension under the pension act. That was to be considered as prima facie evidence of marriage. Strange to tell, they did not apply that beneficent privilege to the white woman; but a black woman who proved that she had lived with a negro two years is placed upon a higher and more lofty position than the white women of this country, because the one can get a pension on such evidence, and the other is compelled to have record evidence. It is the ground agreed upon by the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Mr. Chairman, it is not in accordance with my feelings to indulge in the discussion of these old questions which have passed into history. As a Representative of the people in Congress, I should have never alluded to them if other gentlemen had not brought them up. The great practical question which the people are desirous their Representatives should act on, is that in some way we should have a restored and united Government. I am not one of those who believe that there is any necessary conflict in the institutions of this country. I know the doctrine has been enuuciated by distinguished men, that there was an irrepressible conflict in the institutions of this country. I say, sir, that it is a slander upon the patriot fathers who framed and molded those institutions. They did not make them as temporary experiments of government. They made them to last and endure as long as water ran and grass grew. They did not imagine that they were forming a Government which, in the first century, was to totter to its fall. I say that it is a slander upon our fathers. It is a base calumny upon the Government to say that there is any irrepressible conflict or collision in our institutions. This Government may go on, and go on till time shall be no more, without collision or conflict, if we confine ourselves within the legitimate jurisdiction of the Government itself. There is the trouble.

Mr. Chairman, the question of slavery was not one of those which were delegated by the States

to Congress. Congress has not that power, that power having been reserved to the States themselves. I do not stand here as the apologist for slavery. I recognize the soundness of the doctrine enunciated by Stephen A. Douglas, when he said that he did not care whether Congress voted slavery up or down, for the reason that it is none of our business. When we govern ourselves in Illinois, we are content. We have no right to attempt to control the domestic institutions of Kentucky and Missouri. That is a sovereign right which they have never surrendered to the General Government.

I ask you, Mr. Chairman, and the honorable members of this House, whether we had not better content ourselves with standing by the Government as it came from the hands of our fathers? We recognize the principle that each State has the right to control and manage its own domestic institutions in its own way. It is not hard to get back to the fund mental principles of our fathers, under which we prospered and flourished for the last seventy-five years. It is a simple question of attending to our own business, and letting every one else alone. That is all. When you narrow down the contest, it comes to this, that each State shall attend to its own affairs, and leave those of others alone. I submit to the consideration of the House whether it is not better to so determine.

We e are engaged in one of the most extraordinary wars the world has ever seen. Is it not a time that we should attempt to conciliate and harmonize the public sentiment of the country? 1 believe that there may be reconciliation, and that we may grow happy and prosperous as in years past. Such is the desire of my heart. It is the great object I have in view, and I shall do all I can to bring about so desirable a result.

A time of civil war is no time in which to change the institutions of this country. I know that alterations of the Constitution are urged. This is no time to change our organic law. Let us stand by our Governinent as our fathers made it. Let us abide by the Constitution as it came from their hands. Why, I would as soon trust Washington, and Jefferson, and Adams, and Franklin, as I would the distinguished gentlemen of this House, for whom I have so high a regard. And I submit to the House whether it is not better that we should attempt, by some conciliating means, to restore this Government. I know gentlemen tell us "You talk about compromise; we are opposed to compromise." Now, I want you to think a little about that, as calm and candid men.

You say

you are opposed to compromise. Do not you know that this Government was founded on compromises? Do not you know that this Government could never have been formed except by compromise? Washington, and Jefferson, and Madison, and Franklin, and their illustrious compeers were not afraid of compromise. They were men who were willing to compromise. The Government was not only made by compromises, but it has been maintained by compromise from that day to this.

In 1833, when there was danger of a collision in this country, you know the action of Henry Clay, the idol of his party at that day. He came forward and proposed to reduce the tariff to twenty per cent. as a peace offering. You recollect that in 1820, when the Missouri question was distracting this country, Henry Clay came in with his compromise and peace measures, extending the line of 360 30′ to the Pacific ocean.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I desire to ask my colleague what kind of a compromise he would propose, which would lead in his opinion to a restoration of the Union. I have failed to ascertain from him or from anybody else the sort of compromise which will answer.

Mr. ROSS. I am wedded to no particular plan. What I desire is a restoration of the Government, and I will tell the gentleman what I believe I would do. I believe I would ask an armistice and a national convention with a view to settling our difficulties, and in my judgment the people of this country never would permit that national convention to adjourn until they had agreed upon peace and a restored Union.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. If my colleague were a member of that convention what sort of a basis would he propose by way of compromise?

Mr. ROSS. I would propose the old Consti

tution, the old Union, the old flag, and the old Democratic party to administer it. (Laughter.]

Mr. FARNSWORTH. They had all that when they went out. They had the whole of that under Buchanan.

Mr. VOORHEES. I object to further interuption.

Mr. ROSS. I am not disposed to experiment in this matter a great deal. We got along very well for seventy-five years, and I do not want a better condition of things than we had then. We had peace, nationality, and such an extent of prosperity as never before blessed any nation. We astonished ourselves at the magnitude of our prosperity.

Now, what is the use of throwing all that away by experiment? What is the use of attempting to better a condition of things already good enough? Daniel Webster, I think it was, said it was best to let well enough alone.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Did not the rebels have the old Constitution, the old flag, and the old Democratic party in power?

Mr. VOORHEES. l'object to interruption. Mr. ROSS. And the trouble is that you turned them out. We had peace and prosperity all over this country during the reign of the Democratic party. They had the reins of this Government for sixty years, and we never infringed upon the rights of any man. Our name was respected at home and abroad, upon land and sea. Wherever our flag took our citizens, their rights were respected. When these gentlemen made an onslaught upon the Democratic party on account of the Mexican war we did not imprison any of them, or stop their presses; but gave them the right of the writ of habeas corpus. And I propose to extend that right to them again when we get into power once more. What we want how is the restored flag, the old Union, the old nationality.

I know those gentlemen tell us all the time there can be no compromise made. I have heard it said upon every street corner that if you would give the rebels a sheet of blank paper, and let them write out the terms of peace, they would not write any terms except those of absolute independence.

Now, sir, I want it distinctly understoood that I never have been in favor of a division of this Government, and I am not now. I want the whole Union-every part of it. But I would rather have it by compromise than by fighting. I would rather have restored peace and union by compromise than by war.

Gentlemen know very well the danger which we are all the time incurring by the prosecution of this civil war. The despotisms of the Old World do not love us. Some people thought it strange that they should take the side of the South, but there was nothing strange about it. They took the side of the South because the South was the weakest; and whenever we are the weakest they will take our side. They want us destroyed and to see this Government used up.

Well, now, we have run a great many narrow risks since this war commenced of complications with foreign Governments. We have been on the very eve of such difficulties all the time. I ask gentlemen if it would not be better to do as Washington and Jefferson and Madison and Jackson and Clay and Webster and all those great men did, and say that we are not too great to compromise. They were not too great to compromise; they were willing to compromise; they compromised in making the Government, and in upholding and maintaining it.

Gentlemen asked," what do you want?" I want whatever is right and fair, and I want a national convention of honest men to determine what is right and fair. I think we have been in some degree, perhaps, in the wrong. The gentleman from Pennsylvania says that you cannot point to anything that the South had a right to complain of. I ask if they had no right to complain of the violation of the principle of the fugitive slave law. It was a constitutional provision and was the law of the land. But you know that they passed "personal liberty bills" in New England by which they confined persons in prison who undertook to carry out that law and attorneys who would take the cases of those men who attempted to recover fugitive slaves. I ask if there is no cause of complaint in that. I think there is; and these things might be settled.

I am willing to let them have their institution of slavery until they get tired of it. I do not want it in Illinois, but I take it that it is the right of each State in the Union to have and maintain sla

very if they desire it. When you strike down this right you violate the principle of the Government, which is that the States shall have the right to determine for themselves the kind of institutions they will have.

Now, what objection can there be to having a national convention? Gentlemen tell us that we cannot get peace from the South by such means. Well, what hurt will it do to make an offer of it? Suppose we make the proposition. You know that a great many men think differently on the subject. I have thought at times that the reason why you did not make any propositions of peace with a restored Union was that you were afraid they would be accepted. That is my theory; I hope I am mistaken.

Now, I am not disposed to give up this Gov. ernment any more than you are. It is my Government; I intend to maintain it in every way I can; but I submit to you in all candor if we cannot do it better by compromise than by fighting. What use will this southern country be to us after our armies have conquered it? We must have the consent of the people before it will be of any service to us. Your bill which provides for the appointment of governors and other officers there is in violation of the principle of our Government. The principle on which our Government is founded is the consent of the governed. You must have the hearts and affections of the people or you cannot maintain a Government like this. We set out on the hypothesis that we could maintain a Government here without any great standing army or powerful navy. It worked beautifully for seventy-five years. We did not tax the people as they do in the despotisms of the Old World to keep up a large standing army and a navy. The people loved the Government. They did not require an army to keep them in subjection. When you have to force the people to remain under the government, you must have a large army and navy, which necessarily involves great expenditures of money and high taxes.

I submit to you, Mr. Chairman, whether we ought not now to fall back on common sense and on the principles of the Government as our fathers made it. Let us settle with these men in the South if we can do it on honorable and fair terms. Then we will not have cause to be afraid of foreign intervention. I want to maintain the old Monroe doctrine which has grown obsolete since the present Administration came into power. I want to restore that great principle. Suppose we settle up our own internal difficulties and place Grant, Sherman, Lee, and our other great generals with consolidated and combined armies in Mexico and run the French out-can we do anything else that will so nationalize the popular heart and give peace and quiet to the country? Let us not be wasting our time and energies in quarreling about old issues until some foreign Government steps in and takes our liberties from us. These foreign Governments do not like us. They would like to see the failure of this experiment of free government on this continent.

I submit, then, Mr. Chairman, whether it would not be better for us to have a national convention.

Mr. BALDWIN, of Massachusetts. Will the gentleman permit me to ask him a question?

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman's colleague [Mr. EDEN] objects to his being interrupted. Mr. ROSS. I have no objection to answering any legitimate and proper question.

Mr. EDEN. I withdraw my objection. Mr. BALDWIN, of Massachusetts. My question is this: how are you to get at this national convention?

Mr. ROSS. I think that if a national convention were proposed by our Government, and refused by the confederate government, there would be some difference in the feelings of some men in the country in regard to the prosecution of the

war.

Mr. BALDWIN, of Massachusetts. By what authority can our Government propose it-where is the power?

Mr. GANSON. In "military necessity." [Laughter.]

Mr. ROSS. I suppose there is the same kind