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lege. I say that no such power exists and the gentleman from Massachusetts has not undertaken to give us the source from which he derives his authority. I ask him again to answer to me and to this House upon what he does base his right to exclude a State from representation in the Electoral College and from its right to vote?

Mr. BOUTWELL. We do not claim any such right, Mr. Speaker. All the organized States of this Union are entitled to vote and will vote; but in 1864-I believe the gentleman from Wisconsin was then a member of this House-we passed a resolution unanimously, nobody contradicting it, that the eleven States, as he calls them, naming them, that had gone into rebellian in 1861 should not vote for electors of President and Vice President. How does the

gentleman account for his neglect to do his duty then? Why did not he raise his voice then and ask that his associates and coworkers in the Democratic party in the attempt to dissolve the Union should come here and participate in the presidential election of 1864? The gentleman then was silent, as I remember.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I thank the gentleman for the opportunity to say that the country was then at war with the people of those States; to-day peace exists from one end of this Union to the other. The armies of the Union have been successful, the rebellion has been subdued, the people of the South acknowledge the authority of the Constitution, and their States to-day have the right to be represented in this Congress and in every other department of this Government, as they were represented before the rebellion. If they are excluded longer, it will be the gentleman and his party who will exclude them. It is not their rebellion, it is not war, but it is the "loyal people," as the gentleman terms them, who are treading under foot the Constitution and the rights of these people, and excluding them, as some day-I pray God that day may never comethe people of some other locality may unite to exclude the State of Massachusetts, if the doc. trine of the gentleman be true.

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Mr. BOUTWELL. The gentleman does well to remind the House and the country that these States, as he calls them, were excluded in 1864 on account of the war. And three of them are excluded to-day on account of that war, the effects of which have not yet ceased.

In 1860 and 1861, as the gentleman very well knows, the Democratic party of the country entered upon a crusade to break up this Gov ernment and attempted to wrest eleven States from the control of the Constitution and to separate them from the Union. Under the lead of the loyal men in the South we have substantially restored eight of these States to the Union against the protests made by the forty-five gentlemen who sit on the other side of the House. And now, under the lead of that protest and of the platform laid down by their candidate for the Vice Presidency, they propose to again involve this country in a war for the purpose of thrusting those eight restored States out of the Union. That is exactly the position the Democratic party occupies now. For the purpose of destroying the Union they brought upon this country one war, which cost four million dollars, and three hundred thousand lives; and now, when we have nearly restored it, without the sacrifice of a single life, so far as the restoration is concerned, the Democratic party proposes to engage in another war, under the lead of an aspirant for the Vice Presidency, who is, in fact, a conspirator against the Government of the country, and this for the purpose of driving out of the Union the eight States that have already been restored under our lead and under the power of peace.

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War for the destruction of the Union" is the motto under which the gentleman's friends || and for mer associates have rallied during the last eight years; it is the moto which he and they now emblazon on their banner for this presidential contest, and for the next four years.

Our motto is " peace and the restoration of the Union." And so soon as the other three

States can be restored by the instrumentality of peace and under the lead of loyal men, they will be restored. We work under the ensign of peace, for the restoration of three more States to the Union. The gentleman and his associates raise the banner of war for the expulsion of eight States that have already been restored. That is the issue on which we now go to the country.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] cannot fasten any such position as he has stated upon me and my associates; no such position has ever been taken by us. I say that the Democratic party has never taken any such position as that which the gentleman from Massachusetts ascribes to us. We have never been opposed to a restoration of this Union; we have never been opposed to the return of these States.

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There never been a moment since was inaugurated, or since peace came, or as it ought to come to bless this land, but which it has not, there has not been a moment when we would not cheerfully have received all those States back into the Union.

But the gentlemen on the other side have been the means of prolonging what the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] terms this war. If war exists to-day, if it has existed within the last two or three years, I say the Republican party of this country is responsible for that war.

But, sir, there has, during the last three or four years, been no war except the acts of war which this Congress has perpetrated upon that people and upon those States. The people of those States are broken down, crushed, trampled into the dust by the usurpations, by the, I had almost said, atrocious acts of this Congress. Sir, the gentleman from Massachusetts knows well that the only reason why those States are held in the grasp of despotic power which he calls "loyal power * is that he and his associates fear that those States, if left, as they ought to be, free to act, would act in accord with the Democratic party. The gentleman knows that all this continuation of the acts of war upon that people is designed to coerce them into the support of the Republican party and its candidates. He knows that he and his associates and the party with whom he acts would never have thought of subjecting those States to the control of the ignorant negroes there but for the purpose of extending the lease of power of the party to which he belongs. He dare not, upon his conscience and before his God, deny that that is the sole purpose for which this whole scheme was inaugurated and for which he now seeks to pass this bill. The only object is to prolong the lease of unhallowed power which his party has too long held in this country. I challenge that gentleman to join with us and place those States, as the Constitution places them, upon terms of perfect equality with his State. I say again that if this doctrine upon which gentlemen on the other side have been acting is still to be carried out, the day will come, which I with those gentlemen would deplore, when Massachusetts may be upon her knees begging for the rights which the Constitution guaranties her and all the States, and which are now denied to the States of the South.

Mr. BOUTWELL. Mr. Speaker, no State that is true to this Union will ever have occasion to go upon its knees begging for its rights. If the Democratic party had been true to this Union, as Massachusetts was true, during the last eight years, none of these States would now be here suppliants for restoration to the benefits of a Government which a few years ago, under the lead of the gentleman and his friends, they spurned.

Now, sir, one word more, which I would be glad to address to the people of the South. In 1860 and 1861, Democrats of the Northsuch men as Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire-encouraged the rebels of the South to engage in war, telling them that in the event of such a contest blood would flow in the streets of the North, intending it to be under

stood that the Democrats of the North would give the Radicals, as we were called, plenty to do at home, so that the twelve or fifteen States of the Sout should have an opportunity to set up governments of their own in defiance of the national authority. The rebels of the South were deceived. The Democrats of the North had not the courage or the heart to make good the pledges which they had given to their traitorous allies in the South; and the southern men were sacrificed-in an unholy enterprise, to be sure-because they were deserted by the men in the North on whom they had relied.

Again, in 1865, when Andrew Johnson came to the Presidency, the men of the South trusted to his professions and the professions of the Democratic party that they would be sustained in their attempt to reorganize rebel white men's governments and to trample under foot the loyal white and black men of the South. Iu that they were disappointed; and they are now reaping the bitter fruits of their reliance upon Mr. Johnson and the Democracy of the North.

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What does the Democratic party, by its late action in New York, promise the South? It says "If we can elect a Democratic President and Vice President, a 'white man's government' shall be reëstablished in the eight States of the South." Thus the Democracy would again deceive the men of the South, whom warn no longer to put trust in that party. Whatever may happen, the Senate will be Republican for the next two years. We have already relieved twelve or fifteen hundred men of the South who participated in the rebellion from the disabilities imposed by the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. Our purpose is, as far and as fast as they bring forth fruits meet for repentance, to liberate them all. But if by accidens or by a fatality which seems outside the range of providential influences, the Democracy should succeed in the election of a President, what can they do for the South? Nothing-mothing. We shall be obliged to stand upon the defensive and hold all these men for four years where they now are, and the Democracy will be powerless to redeem a single promise they now make. The interest of the South, of the men who have been in the rebellion, is to stand fast by the Republican party, which has shown a disposition to be just and generous to every man in the South when we can so do without danger to republican institutions.

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But, sir, look at the letter of Frank Blair. [Cries of "Read it!" from the Republican side of the House.] Yes, sir, let it be read. It cannot be read too often in the presence of the forty-five men who signed and presented a protest here against the admission of members from the State of Arkansas, upon the same grounds substantially as those presented in Blair's letter.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I am glad the gentleman is going to have that letter read. The Clerk read as follows:

WASHINGTON, June 30, 1868. DEAR COLONEL: In reply to your inquiries I beg leave to say that I leave to you to determine, on consultation with my friends from Missouri, whether my name shall be presented to the Democratic convention, and to submit the following, as what I consider the real and only issue in this contest:

The reconstruction policy of the Radicals will be complete before the next election; the States so long excluded will have been admitted; negro suffrage established and the carpet-baggers installed in their seats in both branches of Congress. There is no possibility of changing the political character of the Senate, even if the Democrats should elect their President and a majority of the popular branch of Congress. We cannot, therefore, undo the Radical plan of reconstruction by congressional action: the Senate will continue a bar to its repeal. Must we submit to it? How can it be overthrown? It can only be overthrown by the authority of the Executive who is sworn to maintain the Constitution, and who will fail to do his duty if he allows the Constitution to perish under a series of congressional enactments which are in palpable violation of its fundamental principles.

If the President elected by the Democracy enforces or permits others to enforce these reconstruction acts, the Radicals by the accession of twenty spurious Senators and fifty Representatives will control both branches of Congress, and his administration will be as powerless as the present one of Mr. John

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elect to declare these acts null and void, compel the Army to undo its usurpations at the South, disperse the carpet-bag State governments, allow the white people to reorganize their own governments, and elect Senators and Representatives. The House of Representatives will contain a majority of Democrats from the North, and they will admit the Representatives elected by the white people of the South, and with the cooperation of the President it will not be difficult to compel the Senate to submit once more to the obligations of the Constitution. It will not be able to withstand the public judgment, if distinctly invoked and clearly expressed on this fundamental issue, and it is the sure way to avoid all future strife to put the issue plainly to the country.

I repeat that this is the real and only question which we should allow to control us: shall we submit to the usurpations by which the Government hast been overthrown, or shall we exert ourselves for its full and complete restoration? It is idle to talk of bonds, greenbacks, gold, the public faith, and the public credit. What can a Democratic President do in regard to any of these with a Congress in both branches controlled by the carpet-baggers and their allies? He will be powerless to stop the supplies by which idle negroes are organized into political clubsby which an army is maintained to protect these vagabonds in their outrages upon the ballot. These, and things like these, eat up the revenues and resources of the Government and destroy its credit-make the difference between gold and greenbacks. We must restore the Constitution before we can restore the finances, and to do this we must have a President

who will execute the will of the people by trampling into dust the usurpation of Congress, known as the reconstruction acts. I wish to stand before the convention upon this issue, but it is one which embraces everything else that is of value in its large and comprehensive results. It is the one thing that include all that is worth a contest, and without it there is nothing that gives dignity, honor, or value to the struggle. FRANK P. BLAIR, ·

Your friend, Colonel JAMES O. BROADHEAD. Mr. BROOKS. If the gentleman will go on and have the Democratic platform read it will then be complete.

Mr. BOUTWELL. We have had it read already.

Mr. BROOKS. I mean the platform adopted by the Democratic convention.

Mr. BOUTWELL. Mr. Speaker, it is worthy of observation that the Democratic convention at New York sat four days, differing, I suppose, judging from their votes, as to who should be their candidate for the Presidency, and after the disposition of that question on a single ballot and with perfect unanimity they nominated the writer of this letter to be their candidate for the Vice Presidency of the United States. Now, what does he propose to do? He proposes that the President of the United States, without law, and of course without constitu tional authority, shall take the Army and drive out of this House and out of the Senate the members entitled by the operation of the law and under the provisions of the Constitution to seats in this House and in the Senate; and not only that, but to proceed with the Army to the eight States in the South and disperse the Legislatures thereof, set up new Legislative Assemblies to be elected by the votes of rebel white men only, and Senators and Representatives are to be elected by those men to the Congress of the United States, and by the military power to be put into their seats. It is distinctly declared by Frank P. Blair, jr., that it is the duty of the President of the United States, a Democratic President of the United States, to usurp the powers of the Senate and of the House and to annihilate eight States by arms and to set up in those eight military governments States.

Mr. MUNGEN. Will the gentleman let me ask him a question?

Mr. BOUTWELL. Yes, sir. Mr. MUNGEN. I ask the gentleman where he was when Frank Blair was fighting the battles of his country?

Mr. BOUTWELL. I was in the service of the country; but one thing I never did, I never professed to serve under a commission as a General in the Army, and to serve in this House as a member of Congress, exercising civil functions and military authority at the same time, in violation of the Constitution and the theory of the Government of the United States.

Mr. BROOKS. I wish to make a few remarks.

Mr. BOUTWELL. Iyield to the gentleman from New York.

Mr. BROOKS. The honorable gentleman

from Massachusetts announced in his opening remarks it was well known what was the purpose of this bill, and therefore he reluctantly admitted of any discussion, and indicated his intention to put it through under the previous question.

The purpose of the bill is perfectly well known. It is to hold this vast territory stretching from the Potomac to the Rio Grande under the tutelage of this and the other branch of Congress; not of the convention appointed by the Constitution to count these votes, the only constitutional authority which can take cognizance of the electoral votes, but to hold this vast territory under the tutelage of the twothirds majority in the two Houses of Congress. If in the Electoral College the ten southern States are found to be "loyal" their electoral vote will be counted, but if they are found to be Democratic the two Houses of. Congress will reject their votes.

The gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] has discovered by the election recently held in Mississippi that the negroes, even the ignorant negroes of the South, are unwilling to be ridden, booted and spurred, by delegates and carpet-baggers from Massachusetts and other States of the Union. The negro is about tired of that sort of operation by emigrants from the North who have gone down there for the purpose of being sent to the Capitol at Washington from the plantations of the South. Hence the purpose of this bill, clearly written on the face of it, is if these southern States vote as the two Houses of Congress direct their votes shall be counted; if not, hold them in tutelage and reject their votes.

Mr. DAWES. Will the gentleman yield? Mr. BROOKS. I would rather be answered by the gentleman from Massachusetts in his place when I am done. I am but a tenant of the floor at will.

Mr. BOUTWELL. If my colleague desires to put a question I will consent to allow the gentleman time to answer.

Mr. DAWES. I desire to put a question touching the political aspect of the case. Does not the gentleman hold that Congress has authority to prescribe the mode in which members of the Electoral College shall be chosen?

Mr. BROOKS. But this bill goes further. Mr. DAWES. I would like to have an answer to the question.

Mr. BROOKS. But this bill goes further. When that case is presented I will answer it, but it is not a case presented here.

Mr. DAWES. If the gentleman declines to answer I will put another.

Mr. BROOKS. That only relates to the time and place of holding elections-to time more especially.

Mr. DAWES. Does the gentleman hold that any one may be a member of an Electoral College who is not chosen in conformity to law?

Mr. BROOKS. Congress has explicit power, and only the power, as I have stated before, to determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes, which shall be the same throughout the United States. Any other power on this subject exercised by Congress is an arbitrary power. The Constitution of the United States prescribes that every State is entitled to two Senators in the other House, and a representation in proportion to population on this floor. It in like manner prescribes that the number of electors shall correspond with the number of Senators and Representatives, while this bill assumes on the part of Congress, in defiance of those two provisions of the Constitution, to exclude these States from having their electoral votes counted here on the floor of the House.

Mr. DAWES. Will the gentleman answer another question I will venture to put to him? I would like to inquire where in the Constitution the legislative power of Congress over this matter is confined to time, place, and manner?

Mr. BROOKS. What is not granted in the Constitution is refused in the Constitution. It

is for the gentleman from Massachusetts to show with his own finger the clause in the Constitution which confers the power this bill assumes to give. It is not my duty to prove a negative; it is his to make out an affirmative.

Mr. DAWES. Does the gentleman claim that the electors from each State may be chosen according to the law of, in the manner prescribed by each State, or that they shall be chosen by some uniform law, and that a law of Congress?

Mr. BROOKS. Suppose I admit that. All the Constitution says is that Congress shall determine the time of choosing electors, and the day on which they shall be chosen.

Mr. DAWES. On what page is that. Mr. BROOKS. Article two, section one, of the Constitution.

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. Read the whole of it.

Mr. BROOKS. I will read it:

"The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States."

That is all the power Congress has. And now permit me to go on. Mr. BOUTWELL. We have not a great deal of time.

Mr. BROOKS. The gentleman allowed me to be interrupted by his colleague [Mr. DAWES] on the express condition that I should go on. I did not seek this side controversy.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. Let me call the gentleman's attention to another provision of the Constitution.

Mr. BROOKS. Oh, no; the gentleman can obtain permission after I am done, because he has ample power. I am here at the mercy of a very large adverse majority, and time is precious to me.

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It might aid the gentleman's argument.

Mr. BROOKS. I must decline to yield. The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. BOUTWELL,] doing what I wish could have been avoided, introduced party topics and party excitement in the midst of this discussion, and in the course of his remarks he said that our political friends on this side of the House had brought about the late calamitous war. Sir, there was a history of that war written out long before the firing on Fort Sumter, and long before the assembling of the southern States in convention, and in all their principles and associations, and practically in their very acts of rebellion, they were educated by the State which the gentleman from Massachusetts in part represents, and which were carried out in the Hartford convention, and in other victorious acts of the State of Massachusetts.

Sir, the war was not begun by the Democratic party of the South. The war was no more begun by the Democratic party of the South than by the Whigs of the South. The one party was as much responsible for it as was the other. When the honorable gentleman spoke of the incitement and the promises given by the Democrats of the North to support the war against the Union, I wonder that on looking at the gentlemen around him who were then leaders in the Democratic party he did not have sufficient respect for their feelings to abstain from making such remarks in their presence. Sir, he is surrounded on all sides by Democrats who were conspicuous by their positions and by the speeches which they made prior to the opening of the war, and whatever imprudent remarks may have been made by any other persons, they are as much responsible for such remarks as any one, and they are now leading gentlemen upon that side of the House.

Sir, the war did not begin by the firing on Fort Sumter, but it began by the invasion of John Brown, [laughter,] supported by guns and pikes and arms and money contributed by the State of Massachusetts and other New England and northwestern States. The first inva

sion of that war was the invasion of Virginia by the little cohort of John Brown. The first tocsin of war was sounded then. The first resistance to an act of Congress which was preached and practiced came not from the South, but was in the State of Massachusetts and in the city of Boston. However unpopular or odious may have been the fugitive-slave law, however distasteful it may have been to all parties, to the Democratic as well as to the Republican party, it was a law of Congress, a constitutional law, a law which, when first enacted, was approved by George Washington, supported throughout by all Administrations and declared to be a constitutional law, I am told by the gentleman from Massachusetts himself, and yet the first fatal lesson of resistance to law, the first educator in the violation of law was in the city of Boston and in the contiguous towns, which rescued from the writs of the United States marshal of the district a subject of that fugitive-slave law in utter defiance of the law. They who have educated others to defy the laws-the constitutional laws-who have been teachers of violation of laws, and who have brought the country up to a disregard of those laws, ought to be among the last to reproach others who have followed their example and who have been educated in their school.

The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts was pleased to say, in imputation upon or in derogation of the Democratic party, that there were evidences of this war all around us. Sir, there are in our taxation and in our debt, in that taxation to which we and our posterity will be subject throughout all time, unless we can recover the power and better frame and control the legislation of Congress. For that war, the honorable member from Massachusetts and the men with whom he has acted and whose principles were his in the olden time are as much responsible as the party with which I am associated at the present time.

The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] then grew eloquent upon the position of the Democratic party in its recent convention in the city of New York; and in the course of the remarks of the gentleman upon the letter of the next Vice President he asks us what is to be our course, and what we intend to do.

Sir, I dare not undertake to be the exponent of the Democratic party; no man now on this floor has the right to be that. There is the platform of our party; there it is on the record. Upon that we stand, and upon that we intend to stand. I refer to the resolution of the Democratic national convention assembled in the city of New York; that is our record.

If the honorable gentleman expects us to accept the issue he proposes, if he expects that we are to sit down in quiet and contentment under these reconstruction acts, I tell him that he indulges in the vainest of all dreams. We will exert all our power here and everywhere to repcal and overthrow those acts in every possible constitutional manner. We go before the people with pride upon this issue. Shall the eight so-called reconstructed States of the South continue to be governed by negroes almost exclusively, or are they to be governed as are the States of Ohio, Minnesota, Wisconsin, New York, and Pennsylvania? Are they to be governed by white men, or are they to be governed by negroes? That is our issue, and upon that issue we proudly appeal from you in this Hall to the people of the United States.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I must now resume the floor; but I would like to put a question to the gentleman from New York, [Mr. BROOKS.]

Mr. BROOKS. Is it generous on the part of the gentleman from Massachusetts, [Mr. BOUTWELL,] with his control and power over this debate, to arrest it in this way?

Mr. BECK. Will the gentleman from Massachusetts allow me five minutes to speak to this joint resolution, and the amendments proposed to it by the Committee on Reconstruction, eschewing politics altogether?

Mr. BOUTWELL. Iwill yield five minutes

to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. BECK] after I get a reply from the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] to a question I desire to ask him. I wish the gentleman from New York to give a definite answer without argument to the question, whether he approves and sustains the letter of Francis P. Blair, jr., which has been read by the Clerk.

Mr. BROOKS. The gentleman and myself are both Yankees; let us exchange questions. I propose, if the gentleman will allow me, to dwell upon the Blair letter at some little length in answer to his question.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I will yield five minutes more to the gentleman on the Blair letter.

Mr. BROOKS. In the first place I do not suppose that Mr. Blair had a right to create a platform for the party. I presume when he accepts the nomination for Vice President he accepts the platform of the party without reference to his own individual opinions. But in regard to the Blair letter allow me to say what I understand the letter to be, and what is the doctrine of the Democratic party upon the subject of that letter. If the Supreme Court of the United States has declared, as we believe the Supreme Court of the United States has declared, that the reconstruction acts of Congress are unconstitutional, then the moment that declaration of the Supreme Court is promulgated all those acts become officially null and void, and it then becomes the duty of the President of the United States to repeal those acts by all the executive authority which is within his power. They are acts without the authority of law, and are binding upon no one, and whoever attempts to execute those acts goes against the law and the decision of the constituted judicial authority of the land. That is all I understand Mr. Blair to say in his letter; that the Supreme Court of the United States, as it is believed, having declared in the McCardle case that the reconstruction acts of Congress are unconstitutional, it becomes the duty of the Executive, whenever the promulgation of that decision is made, to carry out the declaration of the Supreme Court, and to restore the laws of the country to what they were before the enactment of those acts by the two Houses of Congress.

I believe those laws to be unconstitutional and void; we have so declared them to be in our platform; but if the Supreme Court of the United States should declare them constitutional, we shall submit to them, if not with cheerfulness with deference profound and humble; for we acknowledge our constitutional duty to obey all the laws of the land as expounded by the supreme judicial tribunal. That is the platform of the Democratic party; that is the platform of General Blair, our candidate for the Vice Presidency; and if the honorable gentleman from Massachusetts can make more of it than the explanation I have given, he has greater astuteness than New England men usually have; and few have more than they.

Now, Mr. Speaker, as we are both Yankees, I wish the gentleman would give me his opinion of the third resolution of the Republican platform?

Mr. BOUTWELL. No, sir; I cannot go into a discussion of the Republican platform at present. We are disposing of another platforin to-day, and that is sufficient.

Mr. Speaker, I have agreed to yield five minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. BECK.]

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. I would like to have about three minutes.

Mr. BECK. I will postpone my remarks until the gentleman from Pennsylvania gets through.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I yield, then, in the first place to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. I merely want to inquire of the gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] whether he recollects that in 1864, before the last presidential election, this Congress passed a law similar to the bill now before us, to regulate the opening and

counting of the electoral votes; and by that law we excluded from the count all the States in rebellion, thus showing at least the jurisdiction of Congress upon this subject?

Mr. BROOKS. Let me ask the gentleman from Pennsylvania whether the existing state of the country now in 1868 is not very different from what it was at the time to which he alludes?

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. Not a bit! [Laughter.]

Mr. BROOKS. Are we in a state of re-bellion?

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. You are in a state of rebellion, [laughter;] and Frank Blair so declares. He declares that the only course for the Democratic party is to elect a President who shall send the armies of the Union to uproot all we have done in reconstructing the South, forcibly deprive of the right of suffrage about half of the legal voters, reestablish the institution of slavery, reorgan ize the "white man's Government," and enforce as the law of that country, not what Congress says shall be the law, but what he and the Democratic party may determine. Is not that rebellion?

Mr. BROOKS. Sir, the Democratic party is always in rebellion against tyranny and tyrants. [Laughter.]

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Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. So it is; and anything but a "white man's Government" -a Democratic" Government-is with that party tyranny." They are always in rebellion against everything but "Democratic," pro-slavery rule. For slavery is as the apple of their eye; slavery they "roll like a sweet morsel under their tongues." And when the Republicans have stricken slavery from the institutions of this country, declaring every man as free as air, the Democracy call upon the people to elect a President who shall reestablish the old Government, (those are the very words, I believe,) a President who shall exclude from the ballot a large part of the present voters, and allow the right of suffrage to those only who enjoyed the right under the old slave system.

But, sir, I rose simply to show that Congress possesses jurisdiction of this subject, which the gentleman from New York denied. We exercised jurisdiction before Mr. Lincoln was elected the second time. We passed a law to exclude in the presidential election the votes of the rebel States. That settles the question of jurisdiction. So that the only question is as to the expediency of the proposed law.

Mr. BROOKS. Let me ask the gentleman a question. From what provision of the Constitution, unless it be that with regard to suppressing insurrection and rebellion, does he derive the authority to pass such a bill as this?

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. I derive it from the provision giving Congress authority to open and count the electoral votes. Of course we are to provide the means by which that shall be done. Should Canada be allowed to send in electoral votes? And on the same principle have we not the power to exclude the rebel States? Yet they were always in the Union, they were always entitled to be represented here, according to the doctrine of the gentleman and his slavery tribe, for it is nothing better. The Democratic party! Why, sir, it is the slave party. It is nothing but a slave party, and it will be a slave party until we grind them to powder under our heels, and Freedom, with the flapping of her wings, shall blow the dust out of existence and consign them to everlasting oblivion. God grant that day may soon come! [Laughter.]

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Massachusetts has twelve minutes left.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I will yield five minutes to the gentleman from Kentucky.

Mr. BECK. Mr. Speaker, as the proposition before the House seemed to have been lost sight of in the political discussion which has sprung up, I promised the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] if he would allow me five minutes that I would avoid general politics

and confine myself to the pending question. I will endeavor to comply with my promise. I find no warrant in the Constitution for the powers sought to be conferred by this resolution on the Congress of the United States. It provides that each State shall appoint, in such imanner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in Congress; that they shall meet in their respective States and vote by ballot for President and Vice President, making distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the President of the Senate, who shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted, the person having the greatest number of votes shall be President, &c. The opening of the certificates and counting the votes is the only power Congress has, unless it be the power to determine the time of choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the same throughout the United States. From what source, theu, does Congress derive the power or authority to pass such a resolution as is now proposed?

But flagrantly wrong as the Senate resolution is, the amendment proposed by the Reconstruction Committee is infinitely worse. The Senate excluded from the operation of the resolution the States lately in rebellion which are now represented in Congress; the proposed amendment brings within its provision the States of Arkansas, North Carolina, and Florida, whose Representatives are now occupying seats here and at the other end of the Capitol, whether rightfully or wrongfully I do not care to consider now. They are here-admitted, I suppose, with the same rights and privileges as any of us. The States they represent are either coequal States with all the others, or their Representatives are not properly on this floor. What right, then, has this House to say that the electors chosen in accordance with the laws of these States shall not have the same rights and be entitled to the same privileges as the electors appointed or elected in any other State? Are these States still unreconstructed? Are they still in vassalage to Congress? Are they existing only so long as they shall continue to vote and act in all things as the majority here may dictate? I have no doubt the whole meaning and purpose of the resolution and the amendment is to count as valid all such electoral votes from all these States as may be cast for General Grant, and on some pretext or other to reject all such as may be cast against him, and the sooner the country understands it the better. Tennessee is expressly excluded from the operation of this resolution. Perhaps it is understood that she has been so managed and her people so far disfranchised that her vote is safe, while that of Arkansas, North Carolina, and Florida, as well as that of the other southern States, cannot be controlled even under the process of reconstruction to which they have been subjected.

The resolution is artfully drawn so as to invest Congress with full power to do whatever may be necessary in determining whether the electoral vote shall be counted or not, and the gentleman who presented the amendment will not deny that I have stated truly the meaning and object of the amendment proposed. In order to extend the power of Congress over the electoral votes of the ten States of the South as far as possible, this resolution sets aside the reconstruction acts of Congress, and not only allows the Senate and House of Representatives when assembled to count the electoral votes, to admit or reject the votes of such of the southern States as shall by law be admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States, but of all such as shall be entitled to be admitted to such representation. Of course, whether they are entitled to be so admitted will depend altogether upon how they cast

their electoral votes. If they vote for Grant they will be considered as entitled, if against him they will not be entitled; not even the now fully-admitted States of North Carolina, Arkansas, and Florida. In this way the two Houses when assembled simply to count the vote will determine, not in their legislative capacity, but as a convention, all the legal questions relating to these States, the reconstruction laws to the contrary notwithstanding.

The fifth section of the act of March 2, 1857, after setting forth in detail what the southern States shall be required to do as indispensable prerequisites to their readmission, says after all these things are done:

"Said State shall be declared entitled to representation in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted therefrom on their taking the oath prescribed by law, and then and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be inoperative in said States."

Section six provides that until the people of said rebel States shall be by law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United States any civil governments which may exist therein shall be deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish, modify, control, or supersede the same; yet in defiance of this, their own favorite measure, the majority here now propose to count the votes of all the southern States that may hap: pen to cast their electoral votes for General Grant, whether they have been admitted or not, their vote being the requisite evidence that they are entitled to admission, and to reject the electoral vote even of North Carolina, Arkansas, and Florida, though now fully admitted, notwithstanding the provisions of the fifth section, which I have read, declaring all the reconstruction acts inoperative as soon as the States are admitted, if these admitted States shall, as they will, cast their votes against the Radical candidate.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. BOUTWELL. I now demand the previous question, and after it is seconded, I will reply to remarks made by gentlemen on the other side.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I ask for a division on seconding the previous question. I do not think the House is prepared to second it.

The question being taken, there were-ayes 81, noes 22.

So the main question was seconded.

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I only wanted to see how many Democrats were out of their places. [Laughter.]

years under the lead of the Democracy of the South, and with the sympathy, cooperation, and support of the Democracy of the North, carried on a war aggressive always, and sometimes formidable, against the laws and Constitution of the country.

Mr. MARSHALL. Will the gentleman yield to me for a very short time?

Mr. BOUTWELL. I have only a few minutes. The chairman of the Committee on Appropriations gives me notice that in twenty minutes he will bring up a question of privilege which will take me from the floor. There fore I cannot yield.

Mr. MARSHALL. The gentleman has put a very pertinent question to this side of the House.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I am not putting a question; I am stating facts.

Mr. MARSHALL. I wish to say a single word if the gentleman will permit me.

Mr. BOUTWELL. Very well.

Mr. MARSHALL. I have heard these charges frequently made against the Democ racy of the northern States of their having directly or indirectly taken part in secession or rebellion; but, sir, they are not sustained by facts, as every intelligent man in the country must know. There were a few men in the North that did, at Charleston, when the Democratic party was unfortunately broken up, inaugurate a movement in that direction, gentlemen who were inclined for a time to act with the secession party in going into rebellion. But they were very few in number, while the entire party in the North neither directly nor indirectly took part in the rebellion. On the other hand, thousands and thousands laid down their lives in defense of the Union and the Constitution, by which they have stood at all times. The few who stood by the secession movement in the South were not in affiliation with the Democratic party, but are acting with the Republican or Radical party today.

The great body of the Democratic party of the North have been true to the Union, the Constitution, and the enforcement of the laws at all times. They opposed the rebels when in arms, and they are opposed to rebels called now the Radical party, when by an unfortu nate coincidence of circumstances they have control of the legislation of this country, and have disregarded the Constitution and have been for three years trampling it beneath their unhallowed feet. The gentleman cannot point to the action of the Democratic party anywhere in the North in any State, or in any organiza

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. Every one is out of his place that is here. [Laughter.]tion anywhere giving encouragement to the The main question was then ordered.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I do not wish to occupy much time in debate. The House will bear witness that I was brought into the political discussion by the question or series of questions which were put by the gentleman from Wisconsin, [Mr. ELDRIDGE.] But now I have a few observations to make upon those matters which have been introduced during the discussion on the one side and the other.

The gentleman from New York [Mr. BROOKS] was pleased to speak of me personally and of gentlemen on this side of the House as having in times past disregarded the laws of the land. Sir, I know of no such case. And when I speak of myself personally I speak also of the party to which I belong. We have obeyed the laws at all times and under all circumstances, when, as I am free to confess, those laws were disagreeable in their character and of doubtful constitutionality. But can the gentleman say as much for himself and for his associates? In 1860, by the strictest observance of the Constitution and laws of the country we elected Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, President of the United States. Three months before his inauguration the State which was the champion of the ancient, pro-slavery, secession, disunion Democracy passed an ordinance of secession from the Union in violation of the laws and of the Constitution of the country, and followed by ten other of these eleven States, for four long

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rebels while in arms against the Constitution and the Union. The charge is not only not true, but every gentleman of intelligence in this country must know that it has no foundation in fact. Mr. Lincoln himself time and again acknowledged that if it had not been for the Democratic party at the North the rebels in the South must have been successful in their efforts to break up the Government, or rather to withdraw from it and set up a separate government. He time and again acknowledged that, and it can be proved. And he remarked at one time to a distinguished gentleman, in the presence of a Radical member of this House, that the gentlemen of his own party were very good at resolutions and long prayers, but if it was not for the stubborn valor of the Democracy of the North the Union would have been compelled to go down before the rebellion.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I resume the floor. The gentleman cannot have forgotten the letter of his leader, Franklin Pierce, of the 16th of January, 1861. He cannot have forgotten the letter of his associate upon this floor, when mayor of the city of New York, to the authorities of Savannah, in the State of Georgia. He cannot have forgotten the resolution of the convention at Chicago in August, 1864, declaring the war a failure and demanding a cessation of hostilities. He cannot have forgotten the riots of the 2d and 3d of July, 1863, in the city of New York, when his candidate for the

Presidency addressed the rioters of that city who had kindled the flames of war in the commercial metropolis of the country and murdered children and unoffending persons-addressed those men, then reeking with the crimes from which they had just come, as my friends." He cannot have forgotten the hostility which his political associates throughout the North manifested to the enforcement of the draft. He cannot have forgotten the sympathetic speeches that were made upon the floor of this House in the Thirty-Eighth and Thirty-Ninth Congresses. He cannot have forgotten the declarations of the press in various parts of the country representing the Democratic party, denouncing every measure for the prosecution of the war and holding up the generals of the Army and the men intrusted with civil affairs to the odium of the people of the country and to the anathemas of the world. More than this, to-day the party with which he cooperates is sympathizing with rebels. They demand the prostration of the loyal people of the South, black and white, and the restoration to authority in those States of the men who had been engaged in the rebellion. Let me read; and you, men who fought at Shiloh, you who were encamped before Vicksburg in 1863, you who returned maimed and wounded from the bloody fields of Antietam and Gettysburg, you who marched with Sherman from the mountains to the sea, you who remain of that bloody band who fought the battles of the Wilderness and who finally at Appomattox Court House saw the surrender of Lee and the end of the rebellion, listen to what the organ of the Democratic party, on the 4th of July, 1868, under the influence of the rebels assembled in council at Tammany Hall, said to the people of New York and of the country concerning the men who inaugurated the rebellion, and whom you subdued in arms. I read from the New York World, and first the heading: THE DELEGATES."

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PERSONAL DESCRIPTION OF THE MEMBERS OF THE "" CONVENTION.

"THEIR RECORD OF SERVICES TO THE NATION."

The men on whom the Republic relies for salvation.

First:

"Hon. John A. Winston is also an ex-Governor, a merchant at Mobile, was an old-line Whig, supported Douglas in 1860; was colonel of the ninetyfirst Alabama infantry, C. S. A.”

Then comes:

"James H. Clanton is chairman of the Democratic State executive committee, an old-line Whig, Douglas elector, during the war was a general of cavalry in the confederate service."

That is his "record of services to the nation!" He is one of the men on whom the Republic relies for salvation in the estimation of the friends of the gentleman from Illinois.

Here still further from South Carolina, in this record of men on whom the Republic relies for salvation, listen to the record of the services of General Wade Hampton to the nation:

"He heads the delegation. He was one of the most prominent cavalry generals on the southern side during the war. He is unquestionably the leading man in South Carolina, and fills more nearly than any other the place left vacant by Calhoun in the hearts of the white people."

Mr. MULLINS. Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him a moment.

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These

Mr. BOUTWELL. No, not now. are the men on whom the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. MARSHALL] and his associates rely for the salvation of the Republic." Yes, they are the men on whom the Democracy relies for the salvation of the Republic, according to their ideas of salvation. And they are as much in error in regard to salvation in this world as I have no doubt they are in regard to salvation in another state of existence.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Ilinois. I hope the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL.] will allow another extract to be read in regard to another distinguished member of the Democratic party.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I will yield to the gentleman for that purpose.

Mr. BROOKS. I hope the gentleman will also allow to be read some extracts I have from

letters written by Governor Holden, of North Carolina.

Mr. WASHBURNE, of Illinois. I ask the Clerk to read the extract I send up to his desk. The Clerk read as follows:

"GENERAL N. B. FORREST.

"General Forrest is the hero of the Tennessee delegation and divides attention in the convention with Wade Hampton. As a cavalry officer he had no equal in the war, and even now as he moves up and down the hall his tall, handsome figure looming up. and his fine face lit: the same old soldier spirit is strong within the man, and he evidently mistakes the secretary's voice for a bugle-call, and his nature will not let him keep still or steadfast in one place. The general, although in the costume of a civilian, has about him the look of one who wants to be accupied and doing something. His manner is free and pleasing, with a characteristic bonhommie which is quite taking with all whom he is introduced to.. He does not say much at present, and cannot sit quietly because of his nature, but will be heard of, no doubt, before the convention closes.'

Mr. MULLINS. That is the hero of the bloody massacre at Fort Pillow.

Mr. BOUTWELL. I have now said enough to show that the Democratic party were in sympathy with the men who inaugurated this rebellion; that they were in sympathy with the men who carried it on; that they are now in sympathy with the men who propose to inaugurate another rebellion, of whom the leader is Frank Blair.

I say this to the people of the country: when you look at the bills reported by the Committee on Appropriations and find $30,000,000 for pensions to the widows and orphans of the dead, and to the wounded and maimed of the living, know that it is the Democratic party which has imposed this responsibility of justice and benevolence upon you. When the taxgatherer comes and demands five per cent. of the income of each man in this country, that is the tribute which you pay for the supremacy of the Democracy up to the year 1861. When you are called upon to appropriate $130,000,000 a year to meet the interest upon the public debt, that is the penalty the people of this country pay for having so long confided their interests to the Democratic party. When the figures are presented to your consideration, representing the present amount of the national debt, $2,500,000,000, then remember that that is a burden upon you and your posterity for the folly of four generations in intrusting the public interests to the care of the Democratic party.

The cemeteries of the dead, South and North, filled with the humble testimonials there raised to the memory of the men who fell in defense of the Union, are sacred and affecting evidence of the penalty, O people of America! which you have paid for intrusting the destinies of this country to a party that acknowledged fealty to nothing but the right of States to tyrannize over an oppressed people and to enslave four millions of human beings. Those four millions of people, by the grace of God and against the protest of the Democratic party, have been emancipated and made citizens of the Republic.

And now, in this last struggle, we are moving to the consummation of the great work we have in hand, which is that those whom we have redeemed from slavery shall be endowed with all the rights of men,-rights guarded by the power of forty million of people, who have learned the lessons of truth and of freedom in defiance of the teachings of the Democratic party of this country.

Mr. MARSHALL. Will the gentleman yield to me for a minute?

Mr. BOUTWELL. I have agreed to yield to the chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, [Mr. SCHENCK.] I have already yielded to the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. MARSHALL.]

Mr. SCHENCK. I will yield a minute to the gentleman from Illinois, [Mr. MARSHALL,] and I will keep him to his minute.

Mr. MARSHALL. Well, that is very liberal to gentlemen on this side of the House. I can now only say that this is one of probably a hundred or a thousand times that I have been compelled to sit here and listen to the most gross and unfounded libels upon the Demo

cratic party, and under the power of the majority we have had no opportunity to reply.

I wish to say now to the House and to the country that there is a forum where we will be able to be heard on equal terms. The great mass of the people of the country will be at the polls in November next, and there we will brand these libels as they deserve; there we will meet our accusers and rebut their unfounded calumnies. We have no opportunity of doing so here, under the outrages practiced by the majority in depriving the minority of their just rights in debate. Thus the most outrageous libels and falsehoods may be promulgated from day to day, we being deprived of the opportunity to meet and refute them. I appeal to the people of the country to observe the manner in which the minority are treated here from day to day; and I remind gentlemen on the other side that there is a forum where we shall be heard-a forum before which we will fasten upon the party that has held possession of the Government for the last eight years the atrocities of which they have been guilty; and they will receive at the hands of an indignant people the verdict which they deserve.

Mr. SCHENCK. Mr. Speaker, we accept that appeal to the people and to the polls. We shall be there to meet these threats made in 1862, repeated in 1864, rehearsed again in 1866, and now revived in 1868-to meet them with the same result, the putting down by the power of the people of men who have assailed every interest of the country and sought to betray the loyal men of the nation into the hands of the country's enemies.

Mr. MARSHALL. If gentlemen on the other side were capable of magnanimity they would allow us to meet those questions here.

Mr. SCHENCK. I have already yielded to the gentleman a part of my time, and I propose now to go on without interruption.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I am glad that this little preliminary discussion, to be followed hereafter by those others to which the gentleman refers us, has taken place. I am glad that the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. ELDRIDGE] interrupted my friend from Massachusetts [Mr. BOUTWELL] with his interrogatory, which elicited some allusion to the issues now just made up again in new form before the people of this country. What was that interruption? The gentleman from Wisconsin was opposed to the bill now under consideration because he claimed that there are no States which are in any sense whatever out of their normal relations to the rest of the Union. He made the objection because he claims that every one of those States is now entitled to representation upon this floor and in the Senate and to votes in the Electoral College for President and Vice President. Why, sir, this is only in accord with what we have heard and witnessed all along. These gentlemen, short of memory, have forgotten that there has been a war, and would have us, following them, shut our eyes to that historical fact and to the consequences of that war.

But let us take the gentleman upon his own ground. Let us assume that these States are now entitled to vote for President and Vice President; and that the governments of these States are now to be recognized. What governments of those States? Gentlemen on the other side have failed to tell us. Are we to recognize those governments which existed prior to 1861? Andrew Johnson, in his celebrated North Carolina proclamation and other papers of like character, declared (and gentlemen on the other side have indorsed the declaration) that all civil government within the limits of those States had been destroyed. Surely, then, the gentleman from Wisconsin cannot mean that we should recognize the State governments which existed prior to 1861. Are we, then, to recognize the civil governments set up by Andrew Johnson, assuming to be himself the United States, and therefore authorized to carry out the guarantee of the Constitution toward States found without civil governments? Gentlemen do not pretend that

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