ator from Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] has been pleased to allude to resolutions adopted by the Legislature of Wisconsin in relation to myself. It is not my purpose to speak upon that subject to-day; but those resolutions are of such a character that I shall ask the indulgence of the Senate on some proper occasion to speak on them and give my views at length. I shall not, therefore, dwell upon that subject now. There is, however, one point which I wish to mention before I take my seat-a point not stated by the honorable Senator from Penn

habit of talking Latin I would have said et tu Brute; or have pronounced the last word as a monosyllable. [Laughter.] If I remember aright there was a caucus of the Republican party, and that caucus decided to repeal the obnoxious fugitive slave law of 1850. As a member of that caucus I adhered to its determination, as I believe I did in all cases where I did not give notice that I would not. It came into the Senate and it was characterized by a most spicy and vigorous debate, in which our present Presiding Officer, not the Senator now in the chair, [Mr. ANTHONY,] but the Presi-sylvania. dent pro tempore of the Senate, [Mr. FOSTER,] took the side of the caucus, and the honorable Senator from Massachusetts who sits on the outer ring [Mr. SUMNER] took the other side. The law of 1850 was repealed, but, without any cause and without any consultation with the members of the party, over-zealous gentlemen insisted upon repealing the old fugitive slave law which had the signature of Washington upon it, which had been made by the very founders of the Government, and which had been hallowed by fifty-seven years of undisputed and indisputable operation in this country.

Mr. SUMNER. The fugitive slave law "hallowed!"

Mr. COWAN. The fugitive slave law was hallowed by fifty-seven years of undisputed sway in this country.

Mr. SUMNER. That is a confusion of terms.

Mr. COWAN. There is no confusion of terms when you stand upon the bargain; but it was a confusion of terms for the honorable Senator to take the oath at the desk to support the Constitution of the United States, and then declare, as I understood that he did, that he was not to be bound by the fugitive slave clause. A gentleman making a bargain ought to stand upon it; and if he does not stand upon it, if he does not intend to stand upon it, he ought not to make it. That was the law. It was a law that had not been complained of; nobody had complained of it. It was due to the border States, who were standing by us in the contest, to retain it. I voted against the repeal of that law; and the whip of the majority, cracked sharply as it can be cracked upon that subject, had no terrors for me. I voted against the repeal of that law, and would vote against the repeal of it to-morrow, because the repeal was utterly and totally useless and unnecessary. It was done, perhaps, by way of saying to the South, "Now we've got you; see what we can do!" I would rather they had been here when we did it.

Now, Mr. President, I presume that will settle this account so far. The honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. WILSON] has referred to my own State; he has referred to the action of a Republican convention there; he has referred to the action of the Legislature of that State. I suppose that he is correctly informed of the action of those bodies; but I have not been. I have not been officially informed of any such transactions as those to which he alludes. If the Legislature passed any resolution reflecting on me, they never gave me a copy of it. If the convention did so, they did not give me a copy of it. I feel, however, that at some time or other I may be obliged to say something in reply to those resolutions, taking them merely from rumor. believe they made a request with which I have not complied, and I suppose that there are very few members of the body who would comply with a request of that kind, drawn up very politely, that they should leave their seats and give them up to some other man who had a majority of the Legislature all ready to elect him. No doubt it would have been very comfortable to those who get up the request; but I did not look at it in that light. I did not feel that my duty to my constituents obliged me to be so deferential to a packed Legislature as to yield to a request of that kind, and I trust to appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober on that question.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President, the Sen

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In the convention of 1864, upon the platform of which Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Johnson were elected, the Union party assembled at Baltimore declared solemnly in the face of the world the terms on which the rebels should submit, and declared for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States which they would press; and because they stated the terms and stated the amendment to the Constitution upon which they would insist, and stated no other terms and no other amendment, the man or the party that stands up now to insist upon additional terms or additional amendments is going beyond the platform of the Union party which elected Mr. Johnson and Mr. Lincoln.

Mr. President, I do not stand here to charge other men that they are false to the Union party or the creed of that great party which gave us power; but I stand here to resist that charge when it is brought against me, or brought against the Administration or the President. When it is averred by gentlemen on this floor that he proves false to his party, false to its creed, false to its fundamental ideas, I hurl back the charge and say to those gentlemen, it is you who abandon the creed of the party and not the President. The first resolution of the Baltimore convention states that "it is the

highest duty of every American citizen to maintain against all their enemies the integrity of the Union and the permanent authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States; and that laying aside all differences and political opinions, we pledge ourselves" to the prosecution of the war upon this basis alone. The Constitution, the integrity of the Union, the supremacy of both, was our platform, and we asked all men to vote for our candidates and fight our battles to victory upon that basis. What terms did we say were to be given to the rebels? What does our platform say about the terms? In 1864, in the midst of this gigantic war, and when we were pressing the rebels to the point of surrender, what did we say? What were the terms? That is the question.

"Resolved, That we approve the determination of the Government of the United States not to compromise with rebels, or to offer any terms of peace except such as may be based upon an unconditional surrender of their hostility and a return to their just allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States, and that we call upon the Government to maintain this position, and to prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the rebellion, in full reliance upon the self-sacrifice, patriotism, heroic valor, and undying devotion of the American people to their country and its free institutions."

We declared what the terms should be to the rebels-no compromise, but surrender to the Constitution and the laws; and we determined to prosecute the rebellion to the end on that basis, and upon that alone. We went further, and declared in reference to an amendment to the Constitution what we would demand and all that we demanded; and what was it?

Resolved, That as slavery was the cause and now constitutes the strength of this rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican government, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic; and that while we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the Government in its own defense has aimed a death-blow at the gigantic evil, we are in favor, furthermore, of such amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits of the jurisdiction of the United States."

That is the amendment we demanded; we did not demand any other. In the platform of 1864 did we demand suffrage, unqualified and universal, to the negroes of the South as a con

dition of the surrender of the rebellion? Not at all. I say that the man or the party who stands up to say that that is a part of the creed of the great Union party which put Mr. Johnson in power speaks falsely. It is not true. I hurl back the charge. It is he who undertakes to insert this new programme that is false to the party, false to the creed upon which it won its victory. Whether it was urged from England, in the letter of Newman, whether it was urged by Wendell Phillips, of Massachusetts, whoever has urged this new idea, it has been war upon the creed of the Republican Union party of 1864, upon which Mr. Johnson was elected; and therefore those who undertake to charge him with betraying the cause or the creed of the party because he refused to assume that great power in his hands to enforce negro suffrage upon the people of the South against the will of the States, and who assert that he is false to the great idea of the party, or false to human freedom, make a charge that is utterly without foundation. The charge rests on those who make it.

What has Mr. Johnson said about the question of suffrage in the southern States? He has said always just what Mr. Lincoln said: it is a question which belongs to the States; it belongs to the States of the South, and it belongs to the States of the North. They are to judge for themselves. If they choose to extend suffrage to the negroes, it is well; if they refuse it, the responsibility is on them alone; the Federal Government has not the constitutional power to assume to enforce it. Sir, this whole war upon the Administration, as well as the war upon myself as a humble supporter of the policy of Mr. Lincoln, which was inherited by Mr. Johnson on this very question, has grown out of the fact, and that alone, that so far as I am concerned, in the State of Wisconsin, in the convention of the Union party which laid down its principles last fall, I as a mem-. ber of that convention and as chairman of the committee on resolutions refused to adopt what certain men, in my judgment carried away by their fanaticism, if not almost insane on this subject, insisted that we should adopt, a resolution declaring in favor of universal negro suffrage at the South as a conditionprecedent to the southern States being recog nized and their representatives admitted into the Congress of the Union.

Sir, the Senator from Massachusetts wonders why it is that God, in His inscrutable providence, has suffered this great affliction to come upon us, that Mr. Johnson should stand upon the same ground which was occupied by Mr. Lincoln, refusing to exercise the power which the Constitution gives to no department of the Government, to impose upon the States of the South the conditions of suffrage. Why, he asks, has God, in His providence, suffered this great affliction to come upon us? Mr. President, I do not deem it an affliction. That there is a President occupying the presidential chair this day who believes and maintains the rights which the Constitution reserves and defends in the several States, that he is willing to defend the rights of the States, is in my judgment one of the greatest blessings that God, in His providence, ever vouchsafed to this country.

Sir, this country has been in great peril, peril of dissolution, a peril out of which we have escaped at last; but a peril equally as great is impending over it. What is that peril? Not a separation of the territory which constitutes the Union, but the wiping out of the States, the destruction of the rights of the States, the trampling under foot of that which is absolutely essential to the liberty of the citizen. I tell the Senator from Massachusetts that there is, and there can be, no liberty for the individual citizen unless you defend the rights of the States. In defending the rights of the States you defend the liberty of the citizen, for there alone can it be defended. This Government cannot defend the rights of the individual citizen; it covers a whole country; it is impossible in the nature of things that it can defend the individual citizen all over the

country. He must be defended by domestic legislation, the municipal tribunals, the local laws, the independence and action of the judiciary and the officers of his own State.

Sir, as I read the providences of Almighty God that are transpiring before us in this great crisis, I look upward toward heaven and thank the Almighty Ruler of the universe that He does permit now to occupy the presidential chair a man who from his convictions and by all his education is determined to protect, preserve, and defend the rights which belong to the States under the Constitution. That is the way I read the teachings of Providence in this great crisis.

Mr. President, I had occasion to remarkand for it I have personally been criticised very much by some of the public press and other persons in my own State-that the people of the northern States to a very great extent were being imposed upon by false reports that are coming up from writers, correspondents of newspapers and others from the South; men some of whom are engaged in the business of plunder, who desire this state of anarchy to continue, who fear that if the Government is perfectly restored their occupation, like Othello's, will be gone; men who are plundering in cotton and the other products of the South. I made this statement and I believe it to be true, and the remark which I made in reading an extract from what was stated by a gentleman of the State of Alabama, who in his letter to me said that the state of opinion and feeling at the South was being caricatured at the North, drew from Colonel Tarbell of the State of New York, of the New York volunteers, a letter from which I will read a few extracts.. I never read letters without mentioning the name, for the reading of anonymous communications is a practice that I never indulge in. I refer to it as evidence of the fact which I stated. I say this statement which I made on a former occasion called from him this letter:

"DEAR SIR: Allow me to say that I have been in the States of Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi since December last; that I was a Whig and am a Republican, and hence looked closely at southern society. I have no hesitation in denouncing the reports in northern newspapers of outrages upon the blacks and upon northern settlers as utter fabrications or malicious exaggerations. I traveled by rail, by water, on horseback, on foot, in company and alone, by day and by night, totally unarmed except a pocket knife, purposely, openly and frankly declaring to every one Iwas a 'Yankee and Black Republican.' I met others who had traveled on horseback from Florida to Mississippi, who, like me, were Republicans, and I do assure you I would sooner travel throughout the South than the North, so far as personal safety is concerned.

To go from here to the South is like passing out of the work of the week into the Sabbath; all is quiet, all are trying to work for a living, for all are on a level and compelled to work with their own hands. Yankee land does not present a more active, industrious scene than the whole South, nor could Yankees display more energy, ingenuity, recuperative power in starting on nothing.

"To say that the South is 'caricatured' in the North does not express it; she is slandered, vilified, wickedly, infamously belied. Were the South to come North she would not recognize herself; if she did she would disown herself. Were the North to go South she would be astounded at the misrepresentations and falsehoods and with the cruelly unjust and erroneous sentiments prevailing here. The North is all wrong, not in its consistent anti-slavery sentiments, but in its impressions of southern character. The negroes are neither hated nor ill-treated,northern settlers are not molested; the South accepts the situation in good faith."

I will not read all this letter, but one or two more extracts. The writer says further:

"There are just grounds of complaint against the Freedmen's Bureau officers. Most of them are interested in plantations, and so many are corrupt and incompetent that the service, the Government, and the North are scandalized by their conduct."

"But not to be too lengthy, I assure you, sir, that this terrific public opinion that is driving the North to the

support of the startling and dangerous centralization of power in Congress is based upon falsehood and misrepresentation.

As I expect to be judged by my Maker at the great day of final judgment, I state to you solemnly that from extensive travels in these States, from conversations with all classes and colors, and after listening to hundreds, I believe before high Heaven that all these newspaper reports of hatred to and outrages upon blacks by whites and of the molestations of northern settlers are baseless, wicked fabrications, concocted and reported expressly to create this fearful public opinion which should sustain the change of the fundamental principles of the Constitution, devised by our forefathers with a wisdom and foresight they themselves scarcely comprehend."

Mr. President, the reports of General Grant, the reports of General Sherman, the reports of General Steedman, the reports of those men who have been sent as agents, traveling throughout the South in all its length and breadth, speak in very much the same character of the mass of the people of the South. There are exceptions, it is true. There is anarchy in some places. Bad men, wicked men, drunken men may engage here and there in riots and in oppression, but the great mass of the people of the South this day accept the terms which we laid down in the platform of 1864; that is, "unconditional surrender to the Constitution and laws of the United States." They have gone further, they have adopted the amendment to the Constitution of the United States forever abolishing slavery, and putting it out of the power of any State to establish slavery forever. They have done all that we demanded in the platform of 1864. More than that, sir, under the advice of Mr. Johnson, as President, while they were reorganizing their governments, they went further; they repudiated the rebel debt by their constitutions. They accepted the situation, accepted it in good faith.

I undertake to say, therefore, Mr. President, that all this war which has been waged upon Mr. Johnson and his policy since the present Congress began its session has been a war without cause. He has stood upon the policy of his predecessor on the points to which I have referred. He has stood upon the platform of 1864. I carry the war into Africa, and I say you are the men that are betraying your party and your creed in making these charges against Mr. Johnson and his policy.

Mr. SUMNER. I wish the Senator would carry Africa into the war.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I do not precisely understand the force of that great witticism of my friend from Massachusetts, but I presume it is all right.

Mr. SUMNER. The Senator says he wishes to carry the war into Africa. I merely wish that he would carry Africa into the war.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President, I have said nothing in relation to the resolutions of Wisconsin to-day. As I have stated, on some occasion I purpose to take up those resolutions to discuss themin so far as they have bearings upon me personally; and when the question goes home to the people of Wisconsin, I shall look with confidence to their decision. I know that the convention of the Union party of Wisconsin last fall unanimously resolved in favor of the resolutions submitted by me in that convention, one of which was that the doctrine that these States are out of the Union is absolutely false and unfounded, and that there is not a sane man to be found North or South who will advocate that doctrine. That was one of the resolutions of the Union party of Wisconsin. They are sustained, and sustained even by the action of the reconstruction committee, for they abandon this idea that they are States out of the Union, recognize them as States in the Union to which they propose to submit some constitutional amendments for their ratification, recognizing them as States, organized as States, with the power of States to give or to

withhold their consent from constitutional amendments.

Mr. CONNESS. Mr. PresidentMr. DOOLITTLE. No; I do not propose to be interrupted now, as I am nearly through, and the Senator can then take his time.

Mr. CONNESS. The Senator does not understand me. I do not wish to interrupt him; I was about to ask him whether he desired to finish to-night, and if not, I would move to proceed to the consideration of executive business.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. It is too late to consider executive business to-day, and I am willing to come at once to the close of my speech if we can come to a vote. If the Senate is ready to vote I will sit down now. ["No, no."]

Mr. CONNESS. My purpose was not to interrupt the Senator at all.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Mr. President, my friends will find, when they come to deal with me on this question, that I am neither to be driven from the doctrines of the Union party because they attack me and charge me with treason, nor am I to be driven from the doctrines and the platforms of that party because the Democracy now resolve in favor of the same doctrines and the same platform. I am neither frightened by the one nor by the other. I have stood in the midst of rising and dissolving parties. I have been at their birth and at their funeral; and these charges which are made here upon me of desertion of party are as the idle wind when I stand by the principles of the Constitution and those great principles to which during my life I have been devoted; and what I say of myself I can say with a great deal more force of him who is the subject of continual denunciation in both Houses of Congress. I refer to the President of the United States; a man who acts from conviction, in my judgment; with whom his belief that a thing is right or a thing is wrong, that a thing is constitutional or a thing is unconstitutional, is like a religion. He will stand upon his belief, though you may take him to the scaffold or the cross. That is the kind of material that he is made of, and I thank God for it.

Mr. President, the pending amendment is based upon the idea of an attack upon the President of the United States. It means that; it means nothing else. It grows out of a fear that the present Executive will exercise the same power which every Executive has exercised from the beginning of the Government. It is not founded on principle. It is founded on a fear that is unfit, in my judgment, to con trol the minds of statesmen in a great crisis. It is based upon the idea of attacking the President, attacking his administration, of throwing around this Executive some kind of cords or leashes that have never been thrown around any others. That is the way it originates. It is unjust toward the President. It is not warranted by anything that he has done, and it is what we ought not to enter upon or suffer ourselves to be drawn into.

Mr. NYE. The question before the Senate, if my memory serves me, is on an amendment to a bill making appropriations for the Post Office Department. I think that a stranger, who had not been present at the time the amendment was introduced and discussed, would be at a loss to determine what the question under consideration was for the last two days. As was suggested by my friend from Oregon, [Mr. NESMITH,] most of the gentlemen engaged in the debate have got so far from the post office that it will trouble them to get their mails. [Laughter.]

I

As to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Illinois, [Mr. TRUMBULL,] I have no particular anxiety, and certainly no fears. It is a question that I am ready to vote upon. am in favor of the amendment, because I have always believed since I have been able to reflect upon the question that the power of absolute removal and appointment should be limited. I have no particular fears, and I mention this to quiet the nerves of my apparently

agitated friend from Wisconsin, that the present President would abuse this function. I do not believe that the simple removal or appointment of an officer gives much additional strength to him, but I know from sad experience that it brings a horde of additional weaknesses.

I would not occupy a moment in this debate after it has been so long protracted were it not for the fact that I have been an ardent and earnest supporter of the Union party of this nation. I was born into the party that begot it, as early as the distinguished champion of all the Presidents, the Senator from Wisconsin. I entered this list in 1848, and the Senator from Wisconsin was with me in that early struggle.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. If the honorable Senator will allow me, I will state that I drew up in the convention at Syracuse, New York, and introduced the "corner-stone" on which the Free-soil organization of 1848 was founded.

Mr. NYE. It is quite likely that the Senator drew it, as he is the author of most good things, in his own judgment. Whoever drew it, or whoever introduced it, I believed it then and have ever since. As the Senator has drawn me into this point, he will pardon me for saying that there was a period when he slipped a little off the "corner-stone," in the State of Wisconsin, and was elected by the Democratic party a judge in that State.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I desire to say to the gentleman that the Democratic party in the State of Wisconsin had adopted that cornerstone resolution as a part of its creed.

Mr. NYE. Quite likely, and it has not adhered to it much longer than the gentleman did. When I read that, knowing he was the author of the corner-stone, I asked myself the question that was asked Peter when the Saviour came from the garden and found him off guard, whether he could not watch with me one hour.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I have watched almost twenty years for this, and fought for the victory, too.

Mr. NYE. I understand perfectly well the history and origin of the Union party, and its faithful servants. I say I should not have been drawn into this discussion now were it not for the sensitiveness that I feel in regard to the honor of that party. Sir, since the formation || of parties in this country there has been no party, and there never will be another, that has crowned itself with as unfading glory as the Union party of this nation. I admire all of its adherents, and the Senate will bear me witness that in the heat of all this debate I have not uttered one word prejudicial to the integrity, honor, or loyalty of the distinguished gentleman of whom my friend from Wisconsin appears to be the special guardian. I am going to watch, and while I watch I shall not forget to pray that he never may be guilty of that unpardonable error, that one unpardonable sin of bringing a wound or a stain upon the character of that party that has elevated him to the proudest position on earth. I am going to watch, not without anxiety, to see who brings the first wound upon this party that has saved the nation, and has given to the world a lively demonstration of the word that my distinguished friend from Pennsylvania said he had been looking for, liberty.

Having forgotten the principle he had forgotten also the name, [laughter,] and I was glad that he read an anti-slavery paper to find the word that he had been so long looking for,|| liberty. To him it was lost. I advise him to consult more the anti-slavery papers to refresh his memory upon the principles on which he

was sent to this Senate.

Mr. President, it seems to be the especial charge of the Senator from Wisconsin to defend the President. One year ago last February I came into this august body, and the first speech I listened to was a speech from my distinguished friend defending Mr. Lincoln; the last one I have listened to is defending Mr. Johnson; and if the angel of death should spread his wings over the White House to-night and another

President were to come in to-morrow, I suppose the first speech we should hear after that sad event would be one in defense of the incoming or the in-come President.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Certainly, if he was right and was attacked.

Mr. NYE. I do not need any indorser. Mr. DOOLITTLE. And I should defend the Senator from Nevada if he were unjustly attacked.

Mr. NYE. Thank you for that. Sir, there is something the matter, or my friends from Pennsylvania and from Wisconsin would not be so nervous. There is some parting of old ties; there is something in the breeze that they snuff; there is something in the signs of the times that agitates them, for my oracular friend from Pennsylvania is never moved by usual breezes. As his colleague said, he was elevated above the breezes of the earth and shook the flag of some department here so high that the winds did not affect it. [Laughter.] Then, sir, it becomes us to inquire what is the matter. I have heard it rumored that the President was not acting in consonance with Congress. I presume that same rumor has reached the ears of his two distinguished champions here, or they would not be so ready in his defense. If that be true, what is the reason? What has Congress done? Over and over again I have heard it reiterated-and my distinguished colleague chimed in beautifully the other day with that-that Congress had done nothing. the sin of Congress is the sin of omission, not of commission.

Then

Now, I wish to ask my distinguished friend from Wisconsin a question. Did he expect, when this country was turned upside down, when it was upheaved in every part, that it would be quieted and settled by the word either of Congress or the President? When it has been tossed on the stormy billows of a tempestuous sea for four years, and when the storm that woke those billows had been gathering for thirty years or more, did my distinguished friend, who boasts so much of his faith, ever believe he could step forth upon those troubled waters and with a word speak peace and quiet to an upheaved continent? If his faith leads him up to that point, mine never has so led

me.

I have expected that long months and perhaps long years would be necessary to heal and cicatrize the wounds that this wicked rebellion imposed upon us; and whoever has dreamed that 66 my policy" or yours was to calm the troubled waters in a day has dreamed of a thing as impossible as for the Senator from Wisconsin to speak a world into exist

ence.

Peace, said the distinguished Senator, is what the country wants and demands. Sir, peace, with all her beauties, was what we had when this wicked storm was evoked by spirits as devilish as they who heated the furnace seven times hot through which Meshach, Shadrach, and Abed-nego passed. They lighted the lurid torch of war. Were the Republicans to blame for that? My distinguished friend says, and no doubt truly, that he had the honor of making the first speech for the congressional amendment, though I have searched the Globe carefully and cannot find it; the index does not give it; but I ask him, had he any part in evoking this war? No. Had the Republican or Union party any part in it? No. They walked steadily forward in the pathway of constitutional right and elected a President in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. I had labored with my friend from 1848 to produce that result, and often have I heard his eloquent notes-and when I say they were out in their full force anybody who was not within hearing it was not worth while to summon, for he was not within the jurisdiction of the court [laughter]-loud, sonorous, long, showing the wicked iniquity of the slaveholders, predicting with prophetic certainty precisely what would occur, that in the end if they would not listen to the charmer it would result in bloody war.

Sir, that war has come, by no aid, by no part

taken by the Union party of this country. Who did do it? The rebels. My friend undertakes to show from the Baltimore platform that when they had complied with a certain condition which he read, the war should be over. Sir, a platform is a kind of constitution for a party; it never goes into special enactments. I do not suppose that the Baltimore platform any more than the Chicago platform-if it is proper to use that expression now-attempted to settle the details and point out the manner in which this controversy should be settled.

And right here, sir, let me say, that my friend, in order to a successful defense of the present Executive, deems it important over and over again in this body to show that he is treading in the footsteps of his illustrious predecessor. Once for all I wish to say that Mr. Lincoln had no policy upon the reconstruction of these States based upon the condition of things when we mourned his untimely taking off. He had tried the Louisiana policy of one tenth of loyal men, and the result demonstrated that the policy of allowing one out of ten to govern a State was a fallacy. He was honest at the time in attempting to gather in from this wild waste of States some one that was loyal and would come back. The effort was laudable and commendable, but it failed. Beyond that, I assert, from the nature of things, that Mr. Lincoln had no policy. The shouts of rejoicing had not yet died away; this nation was literally intoxicated with joy over the surrender of the wicked foe; and while we were in the midst of this rejoicing, even his selfpoised mind was incapable of framing and had not time to frame a policy upon the condition of things at the period of that surrender.

Sir, if I had any fault to find with the President, whom the Senator has so ably defended, it would be this: that having started out to establish what he called in his message an experiment, it has now become a settled policy, and whoever differs from that policy is alien from him and from the Union party. I have never come to the conclusion that all of the head or heart of the Union party was in one man. I have never had an aspiration to imagine how I would feel if I were President; but it seems to me that if I were, I should come here to this Chamber and to the other end of the Capitol, or send for them to come to me, the selected representatives of a great party, and see what it was best to do under the dr cumstances. I can pick twenty men in this circle who are not inferior in intelligence or less earnest or honest in their convictions than the President of the United States. I can point out twenty men in this circle who have kept their fingers upon every position of the Union party from the time it was born until it was victorious-men that have watched it and its interests while the present Chief Magistrate of this nation was denouncing its organization. I make no war with him on that subject. Ithank God that if he is born again, it was not to oppose but to share in its glories; but above all men on this earth, he should be the last to tarnish its luster or weaken its power. I do not say that he is going to do it, but there are a few suspicious circumstances.

My friend from Delaware, [Mr. SAULSBURY] -and I know he will pardon me for alluding to him-but a few months ago was hurling all manner of anathemas at Mr. Lincoln, and in doing so he honestly conceived that he was right. What has put a new song in his mouth when your President and mine is pursuing exactly Lincoln's policy? The moment that I make rebels feel good with any political action of mine-and I have no reference to my friend from Delaware-I shall think that I have done something wrong.

Sir, the day has not arrived when the chief executive officer of this nation constitutes the nation. I read in my younger days, with some satisfaction, that that the Congress of the United States was the breathing, vital, living power of this nation, that spoke laws into existence and blotted them out; that it was a selection as well chosen in other States as in Wisconsin,

where their ablest men were selected to come here-for what? To do as the President tells you, so help you God? No, sir; I never took any such oath, and do not intend to do so; but to come here and frame such laws as the interests of the hour demand.

Now, suppose this question before it had been agitated here at all had been put to the plain, simple people who sent us here, and the question had been asked of them, where is the power that is to rebuild these waste places and heal these breaches that have been made? In their simplicity they would have answered, "The power lies in the law-making authority, in the Congress of the United States." They have no more respect for a President's policy than they have for the Senator from Wisconsin's policy-both ardent, both devoted, both faithful. The Senator has declared his policy. His people reject it. All I ever want, in order to find out what the judgment of the people is upon any question, is to get a dozen men together in a neighborhood and talk to them, and they will tell you what the judgment of the whole community is. There were more than a hundred men congregated in the Legislature of Wisconsin, and their deliberate judgment is, by a resolution that they passed, that the Senator does not represent the wishes of the people of that State. If that be true of the Senator from Wisconsin, it is certainly true as it regards the policy of the President of the United States, for their policy is identical. Be it true or false, I think there is a propriety in consulting this body in regard to this great question.

Sir, there is scarcely a man within this circle but wears the outward badge of mourning for victims immolated upon the altar of this accursed rebellion; and the signs of outward woe are but a faint representation of the more indescribable and heartfelt sorrow within. It seems to me that the signs of the times and the exigencies demand that no man should rear a policy not subject to amendment, not subject to consultation with others, and make it like the bed of Procrustes, of a certain length and certain width, upon which all must lie, or fall under the ban of executive power. I do not know how others may feel, but I should not dare to go back to my mountain people and tell them I had been mute here when I saw such an attempt made.

Sir, neither the Senator from Wisconsin, nor the Senator from Pennsylvania, nor any man with brains, has a right to complain of the tardiness of Congress. Rebellion in its worst and most aggravated form has shaken the very pillars of our institutions to their base. I tell the Senator from Wisconsin now, and he will find it to be the truth, that the frosts of ten more winters will gather upon his brow ere this chasm is healed and perfected and closed. "Take back the States." Certainly we will. When? Just as soon as it is safe to take them back. Does the Senator from Wisconsin, the advocate of the policy of the lamented Lincoln, mean to tell us that his policy was to take back unwashed, red-handed rebels into the power of this Government? He shakes his head. He dare not say it.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will say to the honorable Senator that neither Mr. Lincoln nor Mr. Johnson

Mr. NYE. Do not be too fast. I would have excused you if you said no. I will come right along to Mr. Johnson in a moment.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I desire to say in relation to that point, if the Senator does not wish to misrepresent me, as the charge has been made again and again that I am for the admission of rebels, that it is not so. All I claim is that the loyal representatives from these States shall be admitted.

Mr. NYE. Sir, who are rebels?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I say the men who come here who are loyal, who can take the oath prescribed by law, should be admitted.

Mr. NYE. Will the Senator from Wisconsin answer me one question: who are rebels? Mr. DOOLITTLE. If the Senator desires an answer I will give it.

Mr. NYE. Yes, sir, I do.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Rebels, as a matter of course, are those who have adhered to this rebellion against the Government of the United States.

Mr. NYE. I thank the Senator for his definition. Then they are all rebels. That is just what I was going to assert, and it will have a double force indorsed as it now is. They being rebels, give me the evidence of their repentance. What is that evidence? Not a paper comes from the South, and not one of these pilgrims here who are seeking to get the evidence in their pockets to enable them to enroll their names upon the muster-roll of American infamy, but is as loud-mouthed as the Senator from Wisconsin in denouncing the action of Congress. They do not return as the prodigal son returned, and say to this nation, "I have sinned against thee and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son; let me be as one of thy servants." They come up here in the same spirit that they left. They demand that the doors of the Senate of the United States shall be thrown open to them, and the seats newly cushioned, as a reward for their infamy, their treachery, and their indescribable cruelty.

Sir, I am not to be driven from the honest discharge of my duty here by an appeal to any man's policy. My people commissioned me to come here to guard against a repetition of this wicked rebellion, and though the moon may twelve times fill her horn before it can be done, yet faithfully will I sit here and guard the very portals of the temple against the admission of men who only await another opportunity, by adopting another set of tactics, to hurl this temple of liberty and freedom down. Sir, it is little more than a year since Lee's army surrendered. If I had been going to adopt a policy, I would have hung some rebels first before I granted one pardon. Would not you? [To Mr. DOOLITTLE.] Upon that point, and to show exactly what the now President of the United States thought of the Baltimore platform and its duties, I desire to read an extract from the speech that he made at Nashville accepting that nomination. After the eulogy that the distinguished Senator passed upon the talent and honesty of the President, I trust he will not undertake to say now that the President did not understand that platform as well as he does. He said:

"And let me say that now is the time to secure these fundamental principles while the land is rent with anarchy and upheaves with the throes of a mighty revolution. While society is in this disordered state and we are seeking security, let us fix the foundation of the Government on principles of eternal justice which will endure for all time."

I join the distinguished President in that sentiment; and that is the labor of this Congress, to fix these principles upon a basis of eternal justice that shall abide for all time. Does the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin mean to assert here that the principles of eternal justice would be subserved by permitting the men whose hands are red with the destruction of this Government to come back here to legislate?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. Certainly not. I have said a hundred times over that only loyal men should be admitted.

Mr. NYE. I am very happy to hear that the Senator agrees with me, and if he will keep agreeing with me I will get him right after awhile.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will say to my honorable friend that as far as Mr. Johnson has spoken, to my knowledge, he has never inti

mated that one of these rebels should be admitted here. The charge is unfounded.

Mr. NYE. I am happy, then, to agree with the President of the United States and his distinguished indorser. Hearken a little further. Again he says:

things now. I assert that none others have attempted to form a State government except the men who come within this description, who, the President says, should not share in it. That being the case, what does he mean when he talks to us about passing laws here for States that are without representation when they are taxed? Does the Senator mean that in order to impose taxation upon these rebels they must necessarily have rebel representatives here? Who ever heard of a criminal sitting on his own jury? These men have been engaged with the strong hand of arms in tearing down this temple of freedom and of liberty, and who ever heard of rebels being consulted about the way the temple should be built up that they had attempted to destroy? Sir, the whole thing is in such confusion that I can see through it. I agree with the President that none of these men should be here; but who come here?

Mr. CONNESS. Worse than that; who send them here?

Mr. NYE. Who come here? I am something of a Yankee myself, and you judge the package by the sample article outside; and as a sample of one of these reconstructed States comes this lean, lank, cadaverous Cassius-looking Stephens, [laughter,] who has got treason in every lineament of his face, and never laughs. Who sent him? Loyal men, do you think? Was he, the second in command of this most wicked rebellion, sent here by loyal men? Sir,

'Can such things be, And overcome us like a summer's cloud, Without our special wonder?"

O consistency, what a jewel! Alexander H. Stephens as a sample article for loyalty! He believes, as he swears now, in that mother and parent of secession, the doctrine that my friend has become the distinguished champion of— State rights. I had hoped that that ghost had disappeared with the rebellion. He swears that he believed, and his people believed, and believe now, in the right of the States to secede; and yet the distinguished Senator from Wisconsin comes here and tells us that they accept the issue, and reads a letter from Tarbell, whom I have known longer than he has, from Smithfield, Chenango county, and whose judgment is not worth as much as the Senator's. Tarbell against Stephens! Tarbell must go down, of course, for Stephens is the honored representative of a loyal State!

But again, sir, treason is odious and must be punished. Will the Senator from Wisconsin tell me how he proposes to punish it?

Mr. DOOLITTLE. I will, if the Senator will allow me to answer.

I

Mr. NYE. Certainly. Mr. DOOLITTLE. Sir, six months ago introduced a bill, which I had hoped long ere obtaining of juries in criminal cases in United this would have been a law, providing for the States courts, which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and has been reported by them, but has not been acted upon a bill by the courts they shall not be declared incomwhich provides that when jurors are summoned petent by reason of opinions formed upon history or newspaper reports. I will state to the Senator another thing on that point, The Supreme Court holds that a civilian or a man not in the Army cannot be tried by a military commission.

Mr. HOWARD. I do not understand the decision to go so far.

Mr. DOOLITTLE. The decision goes to just that length. We have got to try them in court and by a jury; and so far as the Presi dent is concerned, the published documents which we have seen show that he has made an effort to have a court held where Davis could be tried for treason.

they were tried. I read that bill with some care. Will you go down to Virginia and find twelve men who did not sympathize with this rebellion, and who would take the oath and say they were not prejudiced by these news