May 8, 1866 (3)

"That this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the lights or established institutions of those States, but to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pursuance thereof, and to prcscrvctlie Union with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several States unimpaired; that us soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."

Everywhere throughout the loyal sections of the country this was the accepted doctrine, and under it and for it the nation s treasure was poured out and the nation s blood was shed. It was our lower of strength, and clothed us in the indestructible panoply of right. Shall we now, when the war is over, be told that this was only a sham, a blind to delude the people and recruit the armies?

The gentleman from Ohio, [Mr. Shellabarger,] in his speech delivered upon this subject on the 21st of April, based his argument for the right to disfranchise the population of the late rebellious States upon the doctrine of selfpreservation as the universal right and duty of nations. He argued this right upon an assumed state of facts with great force and learning; but the proof of the main premises of his proposition he altogether omitted. He assumed without proof that such disfranchisement is in this case necessary for the preservation of the nation; and that essential link being wanting, hisentire elaborate argument falls to the ground. If there does exist any necessity for the disfranchisement of the people of eleven States of this Union it must be because if suffered to vote for representatives and for President they would be numerically strong enough through the legitimate channels of legislation to control the Government of the country. But it is plain that of themselves they constitute a very perceptible minority ofthe entire nation. How, then, could they get control of the Government? It is plain that they never could acquire the sway in Congress or elect a President except with the help of a sufficient number of loyal voters in other sections of the country to constitute with themselves a majority of the whole people. In what attitude does this leave the party who upon this ground are striving to exclude southern representatives? Why, in the attitude of a conscious minority engaged in a conspiracy to keep the control of the Government against the will of a majority of the people of the whole country.

Will it be pretended that, counting in the population of all sections, those who seek to destroy the country are more numerous than those who desire to save it? If this be so, the country is already doomed, and there is no salvation for it. If, on the other hand, a majority of the whole people will stand by the country, it is not in the power of any sectional minority to destroy it, and the loyal majority can better and more safely govern the opposing minority, if there be such, inside of the Union than out of it. I know there are men on this floor who seek every opportunity to insult the common sense of the country by harangues attributing to the Democratic party at the North complicity with the rebellion. If this atrocious slander had in it any truth; if the great Democratic party of the North, instead of sending its hundreds of thousands of volunteers into the ranks of the Federal armies, had gone over to the enemy or had remained only passive spectators of the scene, the victorious rebels would long ago have taken possession of the capital and the country. No one party can rightfully boast of having saved the country, and those who are the most bloody minded and proseriptivein the uses of victory, as a general rule, have shed the least blood in its achievement.

I have considered the third section of the amendment reported by the committee, first, because it is the most objectionable of all the parts. I am opposed, however, to any further constitutional amendments as conditions to representation in Congress of any State in the Union. But my limited time will not allow me to dwell at much length upon the remaining sections.

The first section embodies the principles of the civil rights bill, and is intended to secure ultimately, and to some extent indirectly, the political equality ofthe negro race. It is objectionable also in its phraseology, being open to ambiguity and admitting of conflicting constructions.

The second section of the amendment is ostensibly intended to remedy a supposed inequality in the basis of representation. The real object is to reduce the number of southern representatives in Congress and in the Electoral College; and also to operate as a standing inducement to negro suffrage. It may indeed be said that there is some well founded objection to the present basis of representation. But while eleven States remain without any representation in cither House of Congress we may well postpone all minor reforms until the Constitution as it now is shall be first applied in good faith by those self same Constitution menders. Justice and equality might also be promoted by carrying the reform into some other quarters. There can, for example, be no good reason founded in justice and equality why the six New England States, with a population of little over three millions, should have twelve votes in the Senate of the United States, and the State of New York, with a population of about four millions, only two. Would it riot promote justice and equality to reconstruct in this respect New England s lucky six as well as Dixie s unlucky eleven?

'The fourth section of the amendment prohibits the assumption of the rebel debt by the United States or any of them. But I imagine there is no hot haste required to prohibit by a constitutional enactment the payment of this debt by the bankrupt States of the South; and I do not suppose that any man outside of a lunatic asylum ever dreamed it would be paid by any one else. Besides, a constitutional amendment has already been passed this session by Congress to the same effect.

The fifth and last section of the amendment empowers Congress to enforce by appropriate legislation the provisions ofthe article.

Upon this latter it will not be necessary to remark.

The amendment is accompanied by a bill, the first section of which proposes to prescribe the conditions of the future admission of the States in these words:*

Beit enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assem-" bled. That whenever the above recited amendment shall have become part of the Constitution of "the United States, and any State lately in insurrection shall have ratified the same, and shall have modified, its constitution and laws in conformity therewith, the Senators and Representatives from such State, it found duly elected and qualified, may, after having taken the required oaths of office, be admitted into Congress as such.

It will be observed that even after any State lately in insurrection shall have complied with, the condition, "and shall have ratified the amendment and modified its constitution in conformity therewith, the Senators and Representatives from such State, if duly elected and qualified, may," not shall, but "may," "after having taken the required oaths of office, be admitted into Congress as such."

The precious boon thus graciously tendered by the reconstruction committee as the reward of absolute submission to all its behests is after all but a chance of representation dependent upon the pleasure of that of some similar committee, and to be regulated, doubtless, by the political exigencies of the times. Perpetual exclusion, of course, is not contemplated by the committee, and representation is doubtless intended to be allowed at as early a day as is consistent with the safety of the Republican party; and the four years' disfranchisement provided by the third section is only intended to make the next presidential election entirely sure, and to secure a safe working majority in Congress to support the incoming Administration.

The imaginations of some gentlemen become strangely excited in the argument of this question of southern representation. There are those who declaim upon it as if it were proposed to bring into this House unrepentant rebels still breathing treason against the Government and plotting its overthrow while claiming to have a voice in its councils. There is no such proposition. If there were such a proposition I am sure it would have no advocates upon this floor. If such representatives were sent from the South, the majority have the power to exclude them, or to expel them after they had obtained an entrance.

Itis argued that those who have once rebelled against the Government deserve to be disfranchised; but you cannot disfranchise a majority of the voters of a State without the establishment of an oligarchy; and the Constitution as our fathers made it guaranties a republican form of government to every State.

Besides, it is not for them alone that the Union is to be restored, but for ourselves also, and our children. Every hour during which we govern the eleven States with their twelve million people as conquered provinces carries us further away from the original landmarks of the Constitution and brings us nearer to centralization and military despotism.

Mr. KELLEY. Mr. Speaker, I know not that I am called specially to give utterance to my thoughts on this measure. The report of the committee does not meet my expectation, and one of its propositions is in conflict with some of my well considered convictions. If, however, those with whom 1 am sent to cooperate in this House deem this measure wise and expedient, I will vote for it. I am prompted to speak because it will enable mo to gratify gentlemen on the other side of the House, by allowing them to hear voices from one of the disfranchised States. They will, I know, be gratified to learn that they are not entirely voiceless or powerless on this floor.

One thing attracted my attention and doubtless that of others while listening to the speech of the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. FinckJ and that, of my eloquent colleague, [Mr. Boteb,] and that was that■ either of them embodied in the text of his speech ':he text of the amendment they were discussing. I do not think this omission was accidental. I apprehend they would rather their constituents should read their denunciatory remarks than the language ofthe propositions under consideration. They have not discussed any provision of the proposed amendment. I will not say they dare not discuss them clause by clause and denounce* them as they have, but it would evince a high .degree of political courage.

Let us look at these provisions so fearfully denounced by the gentlemen. Does my colleague think he could go safely through his district in Pennsylvania denouncing the proposition to embody in the Constitution of the United States a provision that—

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens ot the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process ot law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws?

There is not a man in Montgomery or Lehigh county that will not say those provisions ought to be in the Constitution if they are not already there.

Again, sir, dare he read to' his constituents the language of the second section and reiterate his denunciations of it? It is as follows:

Sec. 2 Representatives shall beappoi apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union according to their respective numbers counting tlie whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But whenever in any State the elective franchise shall bo denied to any portion of its male citizens not less than twenty one years of age, or in any way abridged, except forpartieipation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation in such State shall be reduced, in the proportion which the number ol such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens not less than twenty one years of ago.

Shall the pardoned rebels of the South include in the basis of representation four million people to whom they deny political rights, and to no one of whom is allowed a vote in the selection of a Representative? Can he tell the men of the boroughs of Norristown and Allentown that one red handed rebel in South Carolina is of right and ought to be the equal of three of the best and most patriotic of them on the floor of Congress or in the college, for the election of President ami Vice President';' He dare not do it. They would spurn him and the insulting proposition. The men who fought the rebels and crushed their confederacy would say, give us at least equal consideration and power with the traitors against whom we fought, and who caused the death of three hundred thousand of our patriotic brethren.

I come, sir, to the third section. To strike that out would, in my judgment, be to emasculate the amendment. It is as follows:

Brio. 3. Until the 4 th day of July, 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the late insurrection, giving it aid and comfort, shall bo excluded from the right to voto or Representatives in Congress and for electors or president and Vice President of the United States,

Who ought to govern this country? The men who for more than four years sustained bloody war for its overthrow, or they whom my colleague designates as "that prescriptive body of men known as the great Union party" who maintained the Government against the most gigantic rebellion since that which Satan led? I quote rny colleague s language, and I ask him whether he dare go before our fellowcitizens and argue that magnanimity requires us to hand the Government over immediately to the vanquished but unconverted rebels of the South.

J3e says, and so does the gentleman from Ohio, that those States are in the Union, and that their people cannot be disfranchised.

Mr. BO YER. Will the gentleman allow me to interrupt him?

Mr. KELLEY. Yes, sir, very briefly.

Mr. BUYER. I did not propose by anything I said to hand this Government over to the control of rebels. As X understand it the people of the South, once rebels, are rebels no longer,■ and I say that when they are ready to submit to the laws, as I believe they are, and send loyal men to represent them in this Hall, they have a right to be here and a right to be heard in the affairs of the Government.

Mr. KELLEY. I will not reply to the gentleman in my own language, but from the pen of one who was as faithful to the rebellion and the confederacy as he, but made greater sacrifices for them. For he was in North Carolina and stood by the confederacy until its last army was surrendered. I read from his letter of 3d instant.

Mr. BUYER. Do I understand my colleague to say that I was faithful to the rebellion?

Mr. KELLEY. I say this: that the Democratic party of the North fought for the rebellion where there was no personal danger as zealously as the Democratic party of the South did on the field of mortal danger.

Mr. BUYER. And I say that my colleague fights for disunion as zealously as ever armed traitors at the South fought for it during the rebellion.

Mr. KELLEY. Opinions differ—that is all. Nothing further need be said on that subject. In this letter of May 3, my clear headed and statesmanlike correspondent says:"

I have always held that it was absurd in us, after being reduced to submission by the Federal Government, to set up any claim of right to regulate the term- of settlement.

"To me it is simply ridiculous to assert that the States had both the right to secede, and, upon a failure to establish it, tlie right to return at pleasure. No conclusion is more logical to my mind than this, namely, that if the right of secession existed and was exercised, the States are now conquered territory; or that ifitdidnotexist the people, afterattemptingand failing in a revolution, forfeited their most valuable political rights. And in either case the consequences nro practically not very different. Whatever I may think of the wisdom of your plan of reconstruction, the right of theGovernmontto make one, nobody but an insane man can deny. Like the vanquished everywhere, I think the people of the South will reap true glory now in fortitude alone."'

That comes from as stout a champion of secession, rebellion, and war as there was on the floor of Congress during tlie war—one who gave four years and most of his property to sustain the cause.

I turn to another distinguished son of the same State.

Mr. ROGERS. I ask the gentleman to give the name of the author of that letter.

Mr. KELLEY. Sir, so bloody minded are some of the baser sort of the reconstructed that I am not disposed to offer a victim or two upon the altar of the curiosity of the distinguished leader of the Democracy from New Jersey. [Laughter.]

This letter is a little older than the other. It is dated April 24:

"The course of events has not surprised me much, though it grieves me exceedingly. I saw, or thought I saw, that the best thing for the whole country, especially for the South, was entire harmony between the President and the party which elected him. That harmony has been broken, I fear, without hope of restoration. I cannot but think that the President has committed a great blunder, if not a great crime. I know verily that for two or three months after the surrender—until indeed his restoration policy was fully developed and considered here a fixed fact nolens volens—the southern mind was more like a blank sheet of paper than I have ever knew it, more free from prejudice, more disposed to broad national views, and more susceptible to impressions favorable to the North and northern men and northern ideas. Upon that blank sheet of paper might have been written enduring characters of peace, union, and harmony between every section of the Republic. But the time was lost; when it will return, God only knows. I give it as my deliberate conviction that the prospect isdarkening everyday. Sectional pride, sectional hate, sectional ideas are as rampant here as they were before the war. Is it so at the North? I cannot believe it is so. But I am told that the determination is fixed to let no part of the fruits of (ho war pass away till all be fulfilled. This is right. Nor do I believe that our people will come to their senses until they realize this fact beyond cavil or dispute. The notion is sedulously inculcated here that the Northwest is thoroughly with the President and against Congress."

Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that such false notions are sedulously inculcated, and produce much evil.

And the absurd notions inculcated here by gentlemen who claim to be the peculiar friends of the South are misleading the poor, impulsive. passion rnled people of that section, and prompting them to such deeds as were perpetrated last week at Memphis, encouraging them to resist all efforts at conciliation and social reconstruction, impelling them to drive northern men and capital from their respective neighborhoods, and by threats, and deeds of violence to retard the material development of their own section and the interlinking of ours with theirs by the ties of friendship, of commerce. Yes, it is by promulgating such groundless delusions and catering to their wounded pride that the hour of safe and perfect reconstruction is delayed. No consideration is more important than the animus of the masses of the southern people; and he is not their friend who blinds their judgment or fires their hatred against the overwhelming majority of the people of the North.

Yet what does the third section of the proposed amendment, which my colleague says the people of the South cannot accept without dishonor, provide? Why, that at the end of four little years all those who by the crime of treason or the act of secession have disfranchised themselves shall vote and the past shall be politically forgiven, if not forgotten. Will my colleague dare go to his people on the ground that this offer is inhuman? Will he ask them as he did us how, if secession was a failure and the war a success, the States got out of the Union or the people lost their political rights. My Carolina letter answers that. If secession was a right it was exercised, and they are conquered territory; and if it was not a right, the people embarked in rebellion and have lost all civil and political rights, and the consequences are practically the same.

Mr. BUYER. Where does my colleague• find his authority for saying that they have lost all their civil and political rights?

Mr. KELLEY. I referred to the letter from the gentleman s coworker in the southern wing of the Democratic party during the last four years, my correspondent from North Carolina.

Mr. BUYER. I ask better authority than that of a rebel, although he may pass current with my colleague.

Mr. KELLEY. The time was when such would have been a good deal better than Republican authority with the gentleman.

Mr. BUYER. It is just as good to day as the authority of the gentleman.

Mr. KELLEY. No advantage will accrue from involving great national questions in personal wrangles. I quoted the authority, and will ram it down the gentleman s throat in the sixth district in the coming congressional campaign.

Mr. BUYER. You had better take care of your own congressional district, and I will take care of mine. [Laughter.]

Mr. RANDALL, of Pennsylvania. I think so, too.

Mr. KELLEY. I am in the habit of taking care of my district, and mean to do it.

Mr. Speaker, this section which is denounced as so degrading to the people of the rebellious States simply proposes, as I have shown, to restore to them at the end of four years those rights which the sensible people of the South know they have lost, and which they despise Andrew Johnson for attempting to restore by unconstitutional means. He has committed, said one of them, in the letter from which I read an extract, a great blunder, if not a great crime; and that is the sentiment of the brave men who fought us in the South.

The next section which the gentleman opposes is this:

Sec. 4. Neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation already incurred, or which may hereafter bo incurred, in aid of insurrection or of war against the United States, or any claim forcompensation for loss of involuntary service or labor.

There is not a voter in Pennsylvania that does not approve that proposition. The men of our State do not mean that the people of the United States or future emigrants to the southern States shall be taxed to pay the rebel debts or for slaves set free by war: and I mean that they shall see what the provisions are that the gentlemen assail with broad generalities and laudations of our modern "Moses." By the way, I may as well remark that gentlemen are mistaken when they suppose that Governor Johnson, in his speech to the colored people of Nashville, referred to the Moses of sacred history. He did riot; he referred to the "Moses" of modern story, whose razors were "made to sell and not to sliave." He should not he censured because the enthusiastic hope of the poor freedmen misinterpreted his allusion. But to resume. It will not do to avoid tlie terms of this amendment. Gentlemen will have to confront them face to face.

I shall, Mf\ Speaker, vote for I his amendment; not because 1 approve it. Could I have controlled the report of the committee of fifteen, it would have proposed to give the right of suffrage to every loyal man in the country. I do not believe, with my colleague, that our Government rests on the complexion of its people, or the color of their hair. I believe that a patriot is a better citizen than a traitor. He talks of a proposition to enfranchise millions of negroes and disfranchise millions of white men. lie does not use the language which his constituents will use, which is, that the friends of impartial suffrage propose to disfranchise traitors and to enfranchise patriots. They propose to punish treason and reward loyalty; and I know the people of Pennsylvania well enough to know how they will respond to that proposition.

Mr. BOYER. I desire to ask my colleague what sort of a government he would call that in which nine tenths of the adult male population are not allowed to vote—whether that is the kind of republican government which he has been telling us the Constitution guaranties to every State?

Mr. KELLEY. Sir, if nine tenths of the people of a State commit felony, and are convicted of it, they are deprived of the right to vote; and armed and warring treason involves all crimes. While, therefore, bloody handed traitors, though numbering nine tenths of the people, are disfranchised by law, let the loyal people carry on the republican government of the State.

Mr. BOYER. One more question.

Mr. KELLEY. No, sir; no further interruption. My colleague believes that in South Carolina four sevenths of the people, every soul of whom were loyal, should be disfranchised, and three sevenths, every soul of whom were disloyal, should govern the whole seven hundred thousand people of the State. That is not republicanism. That is not democratic republicanism. That is not the sort of republicanism to which the interests and destiny of this country can be safely confided.

Mr. BOYER. My colleague is very apt to interrupt other gentlemen; and I trust he will have the courtesy to permit me, in this connection, to ask him one other question; and that is, whether he would disfranchise nine tenths of the adult male population of a State because of their treason after tlicy have repented of that treason, have become loyal citizens, and returned to their obedience to the Constitution and the laws? I ask him whether he would, for the sake of punishing them still ■further, establish oligarchies in these States, by excluding the great mass of their citizens from the ballot-box.

Mr. KELLEY. Sir, if Probst, who recently murdered eight members of one family in my city, repented ever so much, I should still say, enforce the law against him; if you find his mental and moral nature so low that you ought not to execute him, because you do not believe him to be responsible, keep him in the penitentiary for the residue of his life, but never turn him loose on society. Protect society against him, however penitent he may profess to be. He only killed eight persons—some of these rebels, for whose equal citizenship the gentleman contends, killed their hundreds, and .all of them struck at the life of the nation. This measure does not propose to punish them; on the contrary, it is an act of amnesty, and proposes, after four years, to reinvest them with all their rights, which they do not possess at this time because of their crime.

The only other section of this much abused proposition is as follows:

Sec. 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce by appropriate legislation tlie provisions of this article.

So far as I am individually concerned, I object to the amendment as a whole, because it does not go far enough and propose to at once enfranchise every loyal man in the country. I wish to see its power asserted by the Government. I want to see traitors in heart or head, those who would hatch or effect treason, made to understand that the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land; that treason is a crime which must be made odious; that traitors must be punished; and that it is the purpose of the governing people of the North, "that prescriptive body of men known as the great Union party," to maintain these propositions beyond "all cavil or dispute."

Mr, SMITH. Will the gentleman allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. KELLEY. A short one.

Mr. SMITH. I would ask the gentleman if he is in favor of disfranchising all the colored men who went into tlie rebel army.

Mr. KELLEY. I am in favor of disfranchising every traitor in the land, whether he be white or black. But I do not believe the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] can find a black voluntary traitor. Millions of colored people were property when tlie war begun; they were owned; they were dragged or driven like cattle to where their owners would have them go; and if that was to the battle field being there tlicy defended their lives. They were not allowed to assume responsibility when they were owned. Therefore do not adduce the fact that the master dragged his hound, his horse, or his slave into the field as evidence against the poor chattel. Prove the treason, make it evident in auy way that he was a volunteer in the cause of the rebellion, then punish him as though he had been General Robert E. Lee.

Mr. SMITH. I happened to have seen myself in the field colored men who were volunteers in the rebel service; who were captured with arms in their hands; and who confessed th at they had gone into tlie rebel service of their own accord. I have seen iu the city of Washington, since T have had the honor of being a member of Congress, black men whose whole sympathies were with the South, and I must say, in opposition to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, ['Mr. Kelt e y that I do not feci like hanging these men of dark complexion who have voluntarily gone into the rebel army as privates. I wish to forgive them. Yet these men, as black as the ace of spades, went into the rebel army of their own accord to light against the Government and against you, and yet you would not hang one of them, while you would hang the white men who volunteered as they did to go into the rebel army.

Mr. KELLEY. Do you think they ought to vote because they fought for the rebellion, as you would have these others? [Laughter.]

Mr. SMITH. Now the laugh comes from the other side. [Renewed laughter.] That is pretty good. Now, I do not object to letting the black rebel vote if he was a voter before the rebellion. But the State of Alabama from whence these men came

Mr. KELLEY. The gentleman has got through his question, I suppose.

Mr. SMITH. A moment.

Mr. KELLEY. TIow much time have I left, Mr. Speaker?

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] has two minutes of his time left.

Mr. KELLEY. I want to say in those two minutes that all that the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Smith] says may be true. I have known colored men to come in all along our lines, bringing their arms, ammunition, and sometimes horses with them, saying they had pretended to volunteer in the rebel service, in order that they might get to the front and run over to the land of freedom. I have no doubt there were thousands of such cases, and I should, therefore, require more proof to convict a freedman, whose master was in the rebel service, of treason than I would to convict Lee or any of the volunteer soldiers of tlie rebel army who were freemen, the masters of their own bodies, the possessors, under God, of their own souls, as the poor negroes were not allowed to be.

Mr. SMITH. Now I will take the other half a minute. I wish to say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Kelley,] in support of his own position, that I have been myself—if 1 may be pardoned for using that expression at this time—the recipient of the kindest and strongest and most loyal admonitions of that dark com plexioned race of which the gentleman has just been speaking. I have known an instance in which my own regiment and myself, and, as I believed at the time, the interest of the 11 "front" to which I was ordered, were protected and saved by a man born in slavery, a man as dark as Egyptian blackness itself.

Mr. KELLEY. I wish to ask the gentleman whether a white traitor is better entitled to vote for Congress and President than that darkskinned patriot.

[Here the hammer fell.]

Mr. SCHENCK obtained the floor.

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Speaker, I would like to finish my speech.

The SPEAKER. Does the gentleman from. Ohio [Mr. Soiiexck] yield to the gentleman from Kentucky, [Mr. Smith?]

Mr. SCHENCK. For how long?

Mr. SMITH. I only want a minute.

Mr. SCHENCK. Very well.

Mr. SMITH. I wish to say to the gentleman from Pennsylvania and to the House and to the country, that because of the action of that black man to whom 1 have referred, I secured to him his freedom by transporting him, under the authority of the Government, beyond the section of country where men were held as slaves; and for this ho gave 1110 his thanks, which I appreciate. No man to day is more willing and more determined to interest himself in giving to these people full and complete protection than 1 am. I yield nothing to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Kelley,] 1 yield nothing to that class of men, in a readiness to acknowledge and reward the services of men, black as well as white, who have been faithful to this Government.

Mr. SCHENCK. I believe I must resume the floor. The gentleman asked me for one minute and I have given him two.

Mr. Speaker, 1 have 110 prepared speech upon this very grave subject which we have now under discussion; and it is very possible that tshall not occupy nearly the whole of the thirty minutes allowed me by the rule which has been adopted. Still, I desire that whatever I may say upon the single point to which I propose to confine myself may be said without interruption; and I hope gentlemen will take this as a notice to permit me to proceed in my own way to develop whatever idea I may have, if I have a clear one upon the subject at, all.

I shall not, speak of this proposed constitutional amendment at large. I should not have spoken with reference to it at all, at least at this time, but for the point which has been made in reference to a single one of its provisions. Objection is specially made to the third section, as it stands in the report of the committee. That section, as proposed to be incorporated into the organic law of the United States, is in these words:

Until the 4th day of July, in the year 1870, all persons who voluntarily adhered to the kiteinsurreetion, giving it aid and comfort, shall be excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice President of the United States.

I do not say, Mr. Speaker, that this section, any more than other sections of the amendment, is embodied precisely in the language which I would have used, or indicates precisely the change in the Constitution which I would have preferred, had the choice rested solely with me. But I am bound, like all other gentlemen, to submit m> peculiar opinions in reference to this amendment, and every point and proposition which it contains, to what may seem to be the common sense of this House and of Congress, so that we may together arrive at what may seem to be nearest right, and yet capable of being agreed upon by all of us, or by a proper majority. I shall therefore raise now no question of criticism, nor insist upon the language which I would have used, or the form which I wouldhave preferred presenting a similar or equivalent proposition.

The objection which has been made by the gentleman from Maine [Mr. Blaine] to that particular feature of this amendment, is, as I understand him, this, that it seems to conflict with previous legislation of Congress which authorized the President to grant pardon or amnesty to those who had been engaged in the insurrection, and that now, after pardon or amnesty, proclaimed either to individuals or classes, it seems an act of bad faith to punish further and again by denying the rigl t of the elective franchise to any of these men who have been aiding and abetting the rebellion. I state the objection, I think, in the broadest and fullest extent to which it seems to go, and with all the force with which it seems to have struck the mind of my friend from Maine, [Mr. Blaine.] At first it does seem to be a startling proposition. On the surface it would appear as if there was some bad faith in granting amnesty, in pardoning, and yet, as it were, still pursuing these insurgents and depriving them of certain privileges as additional punishment. If I understood this to be punishment, if I understood it to be a penalty imposed on them, depriving them of rights which they now enjoy, I would agree to the proposition made by the gentleman from Maine, and say that there is an inconsistency between the former action of Congress and the executive clemency exercised in carrying out the authority given by Congress, and that which is now proposed in the shape of amendment to your Constitution.

But, sir, 1 do not regard it in that light, and it is for the purpose of showing wherein it struck me differently that I propose for a few minutes to occupy the attention of the House. Sir, the people of this country and those controlling the interests of the country now in official capacity are struggling between two ideas, more or less clearly defined on either side, and influencing the action of those who espouse them. There is, on one hand, what is called the President s theory for reconstruction of the States, and on the other what may be termed the congressional theory. As I understand the idea of the President of the United States, although his "policy" and his practice I must say on this very subject have been by no means consistent is this, that the States which have been in rebellion are now as much as any States of this Union, in full, complete, and equal relation to all the other States; that their rights are in all respects the same; that among these rights is included the privilege of unquestioned representation here in the councils of the nation, and that to shut them out from the enjoyment of this is to do them, therefore, absolute wrong.

Now, sir, I will not stop to inquire when that right attached. I will not stop to inquire whether the argument which would prove that proposition would not equally well prove that all through the rebellion, inasmuch as secession was a void act, these States and their people were fully and completely possessed of all rights in the Union, and therefore entitled to representation as now. I do not see where the argument is to stop. If the proposition be true, then at any time during the progress of the rebellion Virginia might have elected Robert E. Lee a Senator to represent that State and her sovereignty at the other end of the Capitol or any of those men who were serving under him as chiefs of division and brigade to represent districts here upon this floor; and to have excluded them would have been to take away the right of Virginia and of the people of Virginia to be represented in either branch of Congress. And Robert E. Lee and other' such arch traitors could have appeared here on the floor of Congress and spent their winter in obstructing legislation intended for the purpose of aiding the executive and warmaking power in putting down the rebellion, and whenever the spring opened and they were ready for another campaign, might have taken the field in order by force of arms to attempt the destruction of the Government for which they legislated 1 Monstrous 'absurdity!

I will not stop, however, to ask when the time came, at what date the States were entirely and thoroughly and completely restored to that equal relation, because I do not believe they had any such equal, complete, normal relation as they once enjoyed while they were States in full communion with the rest of the Union. If I believed it, if I admitted that theory as to the present condition of the States, then it would follow with me necessarily that I should regard these people as having the right to vote for electors of President and Vice President and for members of Congress, and if they possessed this right, then to take away from them, either by statute law or organic law, the due exercise of it would be imposing on them a penalty and punishment in addition to anything else they may have before been deprived of.

Rejecting this presidential theory, as it may be termed, I come then to the congressional theory on this subject. I will not stop to go into the inquiry whether these States have ever been out of the Union or not.

I do notbelieve they ever have. I do not subscribe to the doctrine of their having been reduced to the condition of Territories in the sense in which many understand it. I believe we had the right to subdue theft, and subject them to obedience precisely upon the same principle on which a father punishes his own child when he has misbehaved. He .thrashes his wicked and graceless son because he is his son, and not the child of a stranger. I believe we have a like right to inflict punishment on these rebellious States. Iri the domestic circle we shut the erring child up in a dark closet, or put him pouting in a corner, and keep him in disgrace away from the table, surrounded by the rest of the inmates of the family, until he has completely, and to our satisfaction, shown by penitence and a manifestation of a proper disposition that he means to deport himself better "ii* the future; and no such sinning child has a right to complain of the discipline which keeps him in a place where he has by bad conduct put himself until he returns to good behavior.

But to the congressional theory. I understand it to be this: that these rebellious States have of themselves, as far as they have the power to do so, broken away from their normal and proper relations to the rest of the States; that wh n theythusbrokeaway, though they did not release themselves from their obligations, they forfeited certain rights, and among others, after refusing to be represented here, disclaiming their allegiance and denying their connection through representation with the rest of the States, they forfeited that right of representation and cannot regain it until it is properly and by law restored.

And I understand, further, the theory to be that they can be properly restored only by law, and that until a law is enacted by which any State that has thus flung itself out of its proper relations to the Union is permitted to come back and stand upon a footing with other States and enjoy its representation here, such right of representation cannot be regained by that State.

Now, if this be the true theory, as I think it is, then I have no difficulty on account of the objection made by the gentleman from Maine, [Mr. Blaine,] because if those States have flung away their right of representation, if they have forfeited by their misbehavior their right to claim their old, normal, formerly existing relation to the rest of the States, it is to be a work of subsequent enactment when and upon what conditions such rights and relations shall be restored to them.

Fully believing this, I aver that there is nothing that should be regarded as penalty or punishment in this third section of the proposed amendment. It takes nothing away from the people of those States. It does not disfranchise, but refuses to enfranchise. If you say that the people of these States, because of their having been engaged in the rebellion, shall not vote for Federal officers, there is nothing taken from them, because they have already divested themselves of that privilege, voluntarily abandoned, given it up, flung it away by breaking loose from the rest of the Union, as far as by their act, disposition, and power they could do so.

These States, then, are not in the condition in which Ohio and Pennsylvania are. If we should pass a statute, or undertake to amend our Constitution so as to make a discrimination between the States of Ohio and Pennsylvania and the other States of the Union, saying that certain persons in those loyal States shall not enjoy and exercise the elective franchise, either through entire time hereafter or through a probationary term, a limited period, we do a wrong to those States; because Ohio and Pennsylvania and the citizens of those States have not already disfranchised themselves and wickedly and madly thrust their privileges and rights away.

But the rebel States are in an entirely different condition. They have divested themselves, by breaking up the normal relations existing between them and the other States, of the privilege, and their people at this time have no right to vote for President or members of Congress; and if they can only be restored as States, as reorganized communities, as a people, by our action, to the enjoyment of those rights, then the very fact that we have the power by statute law or amendment to the Constitution thus to restore them, involves the furtherproposition that their restoration must be upon such conditions and such terms as we shall prescribe. I might liken this to the institution of property. I cannot, by statute law or by any alteration of the organic law of the land, divest a man of property which he actually owns without doing him a wrong. If he has violated law and subjected himself to punishment, what he has may be reached by fine or confiscation.

But suppose him to have no property, and the case is very different. When we are making laws, giving the original authority upon which property is to be obtained and held, surely it may be stipulated that such and such terms are to be complied with or such and such duties performed as the conditions on which the privilege of acquiring that property shall exist.

I would not take away from any one the elective franchise which he now enjoys. If I did, then would I be acting in bad faith, as the gentleman from Maine apprehends. I simply say to rebels, your pardon or amnesty only related to the crime you had committed, and so far as that crime tainted your character of affected your future you are purged of it by that pardon or amnesty. But as to anything which you have already divested yourself of, which you do not now own or enjoy, and which you wish hereafter to acquire; or, having had it once and lost it, desire to have restored to you, I will impose such conditions by statute or organic law as will determine on what princi Jes in what way, and at what time you shall get it back.

But, sir, somewhat to my surprise, because, as I suppose it does not appear to him as it does to me, but a consistent part of the course of legislation in which we are endeavoring here to engage, my honored colleague [Mr. Garfield] proposes to get rid of this entire section, and to instructthe committee, in case the amendment be recommitted, to erase it altogether. And he assigns one or two other objections to it, upon which I will for a moment comment.

He says that he would be willing to have a proposition of this nature embodied in the constitutional amendment if, instead of disfranchising these insurgents until 1870, it disfranchises them perpetually.

Well, sir. I will not stop to inquire whether that would be going beyond the expectations of the people and beyond our duty or not. I should not, probably, quarrel with my colleague if he could add ten, fifteen, or twenty years, or even a longer period to the term of probation. But I deny the principle on which lie sets out that there is anything inconsistent. or wrong in making it an exclusion for a term of years instead" of exclusion altogether. If there be anything in that argument, you ought not to send a man to an insane asylum for one, two, or three years, at the end of which period you may reasonably expect his intellect to be restored; you ought either to let him roam at large altogether or send him off as a lunatic for life. Or, in the ease of crime, you must either not sentence a man to the penitentiary at all, or else incarcerate him for the term of his natural life. Or, to compare it to another thing, which perhaps better illustrates the principle involved, when a foreigner arrives upon our shores we should not say to him," At the end of five years, when you have familiarized yourself with our institutions, and become attached to them, we will allow you to become a civ zen and admit you to all the franchises we enjoy," but we should require that lie be naturalized the moment he touches our soil, or else excluded from the rights of citizenship forever. Sir, I do not see that there is any principle involved in it. It is a mere question of expediency.

It has also been objected that it is exceptionable to incorporate into the Constitution any condition depending on lapse of time or a term of years period within or beyond which something is to be allowed or denied; and this is said to be, therefore, altogether a novel and unprecedented proposition. Sir, I deny even that. Any gentleman familiar with the Constitution will recall the provision that the slave trade, existing at the time of its adoption, should be permitted to run on for twenty years, but might be forbidden at the end of that time.

There is no principle violated, nothing which should prevent us from making the exclusion for two, three, four, ten, or twenty years, or during the natural lives of these insurgents, who seek to be admitted again to the exercise of the elective franchise.

Mr. Speaker, my own decided conviction is, that so far from going beyond the popular judgment and demand there is no part of all this amendment that will more commend itself to the sense of justice and propriety of the people of this country than this very third section. Everywhere throughout the land, in all loyal minds and hearts, the conviction has settled and grown strong and taken deep and fast hold that those who sought to destroy the Government ought not to be called upon so shortly afterward to undertake to rule and carry on that Government.

I do not believe there is any other portion of this whole proposed amendment to which so general an assent will be given by the people of this country, the loyal and true people throughout the whole broad extent of our land. They are full ready to declare that those who have proved false traitors and have raised their parricidal hands against the life of the country, who have attempted to strike down our Government and destroy its institutions, should be the very last to be trusted to take any share in preserving, conducting, and carrying on that Government and maintaining those institutions. And believing this, I have been all the more astonished that special attack should have been made on this particular section.

A gentleman sitting near me suggested, a moment ago, another objection to this section; one, however, rather to the form and phraseology than to the substance. Rebels are to be" excluded from the right to vote for Representatives in Congress and for electors for President and Vice President of the United States." He says this latter condition, without some more precise g and guarded expression, may be evaded; that as the Constitution gives the States the power "to appoint these electors in such manner as their Legislatures may direct," these States may, like South Carolina, give that power to their Legislatures, or even confer it upon their Governors. Now, all I have to say in reply is this: I am not troubled by the word "appoint." If the Legislatures are called upon to appoint electors, they must in appointing vote for them; voting is involved in the manner of selection. And no member of any State Legislature can be permitted to east his vote for presidential electors, if this amendment be made to the Constitution, if he himself has voluntarily adhered to the cause of the rebellion. There is nothing to be apprehended from the possibility that disloyal voters may choose loyal legislators. If they do, wo must trust and accept such choice.

But they may give the power to their Governors. Very well; if the Legislature shall by law direct the Governor to be their agent in the appointment of electors, then you reduce the matter to the test of still easier proof, that Governor cannot appoint, cannot choose, cannot vote for—for those words "vote,"

"choose," and "appoint" are used indiscriminately in many parts of the Constitution —unless he comes within the provisions of this section if it shall be adopted. 1 will not say that this proposition might not be embodied in some better form of words

[Here the hammer foil.]

Mr. SMITH obtained the floor.