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 REGENERATION BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 
 SPEECH 
 
 &P 
 
 HOM GEOEGE iTJtJLrAN 
 
 IN THE HfUSE OF K E P R E S E N T A T I V E S, 
 
 JANUARY as, 1867. 
 
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 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 
 
 1867. 
 

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 West. Eee. Hls|. Boo. 
 
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REGENEKATION BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 The House having under consideration House bill 
 No. 543, to restore to the States lately in rebellion 
 their political rights, and the amendment thereto 
 proposed by Mr. Stetkns— 
 
 Mr. JULIAN said: _ 
 
 Mr. Spkaker : In view of the time already 
 consumed in the discussion of the measure now 
 before us, and tlie general desire of members 
 to reach an early vote on the pending motion 
 to commit, I shall endeavor to address the 
 House as briefly as possible ; and I therefore 
 prefer, on this occasion, to submit my views 
 without interruption. I -cannot support the 
 amendment proposed by the gentleman from 
 Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] in its present 
 form ; but I shall not vote to send it to the 
 Committee on Reconstruction at this late hour 
 in the session. I believe the time has come 
 for action, and that having this great subject 
 now before us we should proceed earnestly, 
 and with as little delay as may be, to mature 
 some measure which may meet the demand 
 of the people. Nearly two years have elapsed 
 since the close of the war, during the whole 
 of wliwch time the regions blasted by treason 
 have been subject to the authority of Congress ; 
 and yet these regions are still unprovided with 
 any valid civil governments, and no loyal man 
 within their limits, black or white, is safe in 
 his person or estate. The civil rights act and 
 the Freedmen's Bureau bill are set at open 
 defiance, while freedom of speech and of the 
 press are unknown. The loyal people of these 
 districts, with sorely-tried patience and hopes 
 long deferred, plead with us for our speedy 
 interposition in their' behalf; and even the 
 conquered rebels themselves, who are supreme 
 in this general reign of terror, seem to be 
 growing weary of their term of lawlessness and 
 misrule. Sir, let us tolerate no further pro- 
 crastination ; and while we justly hold the 
 President responsible for the trouble and mal- 
 administration which now curse the South and 
 disturb the peace of the country, let us remem- 
 ber that the national odium already perpetually 
 linked with the name of Andrew Johnson will 
 
 be shared by ug, if we fail in the great duty 
 which is now brought to our doors. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, my first objection to the amend- 
 ment proposed is that it practically confounds 
 tlie distinction between treason and loyalty by 
 allowing the electWe franchise to the great body 
 of the criminals who strove, through four bloody 
 years, to destroy the nation's life. No such 
 policy can have my sanction. The sixth sec- 
 tion of the amendment, which seeks to guard 
 against this by the affidavit which it requires, 
 would prove a delusion and a snare. I will 
 read the form of the oath which it prescribes : 
 
 I, A B, do solemnly swear, on the Holy Evangel- 
 ists of Almighty God, that on the 4th day of March, 
 1864. and at all times thereafter, I would willingly 
 have complied with the requirements of the procla- 
 mation of the President of the United States, issued 
 on the 8th day of December, 1863, had a safe oppor- 
 tunity of so doing been allowed me ; that on the said 
 4th of March, 1864, and at all times thereafter, I was 
 opposed to the continuance of the rebellion and to 
 the establishment of the so-called confederate gov- 
 ernment, and voluntarily gave no aid or encourage- 
 ment thereto, but earnestly desired the success of the 
 Union, and the suppression of all armed resistance 
 to the Government of the United States; and that I 
 will henceforth faithfully support the Constitution 
 of the United Statesand the Union of the States there- 
 under. 
 
 Sir, of what value would be such an oath ? 
 In exacting it, instead of protecting the rights 
 of loyal men we should build a safe bridge over 
 which every rebel in the South could pass back 
 into power. How could perjury be assigned 
 npon such an affidavit? By what process could 
 the prosecutor prove, on the trial, the hidden 
 purpose or the secret intention of the party? 
 I have little faith in the oaths of rebels under 
 any circumstances. If our experience in the 
 late war establishes any general rule in such 
 cases, it is that the oath of a traitor proves 
 nothing but the perjury of the villain who takes 
 it. Most assuredly we could not rely upon it 
 where the man who swears runs no risk of 
 being brought to account ; and the exaction of 
 such an oath of men who have ruthlessly lifted 
 their hands against their country is scarcely 
 less than a mockery. 
 
 But if it be granted that tJiis oatii would be 
 
honestly taken, it does not follow that jve should 
 now restore the franchise on any such cheap 
 and easy conditions. Are we willing thus to 
 degrade and belittle this great right, the highest 
 expression of citizenship, and its truest safe- 
 guard ? Must we make haste to share the gov- 
 erning power of the country with the rebel 
 hordes who fought us nearly three years, be- 
 cause they grew weary of their enterprise on 
 the 4th day of March, 1864, and desired then 
 to give it up? Is treason against the nation 
 an offense so slight, an aJTair so trifling, that 
 no real atonement for it shall be demanded? 
 Sir, these are grave questions, and the state 
 of our country to-day demands that Congress 
 shall ponder them. The citizen's duty of 
 allegiance and the nation's obligation of pro- 
 tection are reciprocal. The one is the price 
 of the other, and the compact is alike binding 
 upon both parties. When the rebels broke 
 this compact by attempting the crime of na- 
 tional murder their right of citizenship was 
 forfeited, and the nation has the undoubted 
 right to declare the consequences of that for- 
 feiture by law. It not only has the right, but 
 in my judgment is sacredly iound to exercise 
 it. And why? Because,* the language of 
 Vattel, " Every nation is obliged to perform 
 the duty of self-preservation." The only solid 
 foundation of national security is the allegiance 
 of the citizen ; and the mostsolemn duty which 
 is at this moment devolved upon the Congress 
 of the United States is the duty of keeping 
 the Government of the country in the hands of 
 loyal men. No Government can be secure, 
 and no Government deserves to live, which 
 allows its enemies a common and equal voice 
 with its friends in the exercise of its powers. 
 This nation has hitherto recognized this prin- 
 ciple. In the very first years of the Republic 
 Congress sanctioned the perpetual disfranchise- 
 ment of the leader and principal officers of 
 Shay's rebellion ; and the acts of Congress 
 which warrant the exercise of this power of 
 disfranchisement stand in full force and un- 
 challenged on your statute-books. Congress, 
 during the rebellion, deprived of all rights of 
 citizenship those who deserted from the mili- 
 tary or naval service, or who, after being "duly 
 enrolled," left the United States or their mili- 
 tary districts to avoid a draft. Certainly these 
 offenses are no greater than the crime of treason, 
 persisted in for successive years. The authority 
 of Congress in all such cases rests upon the 
 universal law of nations. It grows out of the 
 contract of allegiance and the duty of every 
 nation to preserve its own life ; and therefore 
 no trial and conviction by any judicial tribunal 
 are necessary as a condition of the declared 
 forfeiture. The forfeiture is not declared as 
 a punishment for the violation of any criminal 
 law, but as a safeguard against national danger. 
 It is an expression of the same policy which 
 excludes aliens from the rights of citizens. 
 The power is not unconstitutional, for our 
 fathers, in framing the Constitution, recognized 
 the law of nations, aa they were compelled to 
 
 do, in launching the Republic among the in- 
 dependent Powers of the world. Nor is it at 
 all affected by the question whether the dis- 
 tricts lately in revolt are States in the Union 
 or territorial provinces. In both States and 
 Territories the national authority must be held 
 paramount as to the rights of citizenship, which 
 has uniformly been regarded as a national 
 question. If the second section of the first 
 article of the Constitution gives to the vStates 
 the power to say who shall vote, this must 
 necessarily be understood to apply only to 
 those who are citizens of the United States, 
 since otherwise the national authority might 
 be overthrown by aliens in our midst in 
 combination with citizens. The late war for 
 the Union has been carried on at immense 
 cost for the purpose of demonstrating to all 
 the world that we are a nation; and every 
 nation, according to the high authority already 
 quoted, " has a right to every thing that can 
 ward off imminent danger, and keep at a dis- 
 tance whatever is capable of causing its ruin; 
 and from that very same reason that estab- 
 lishes its right it has also the right to the 
 things necessary to its preservation." 
 
 Mr. Speaker, with what face can we denounce 
 the President for his wholesale pardons, and 
 charge him with making treason honorable and 
 loyalty odious, if we ourselves voluntarily clothe 
 with the honor and dignity of the ballot the men 
 who have forfeited all their rights by their 
 crimes against their country? With what con- 
 sistency can we declaim against the monstrous 
 blood-guiltiness of treason while we extend to 
 the traitor the right hand of political fellow- 
 ship? Sir, not a single rebel has yet expiated 
 his crime on the gallows. Not one has even 
 been tried. Neither confiscation nor exile has 
 been the portion of the armed assassins and 
 outlaws who summoned to their untimely graves 
 more than three hundred thousand heroes of 
 the Republic, and made the civilized world 
 stand aghast at the recital of their crimes. I 
 do not say we should disfranchise the rebels 
 because the President has allowed them to go 
 unpunished, but that loyal men alone can be 
 trusted to govern the country they have saved, 
 and that the false clemency of the Executive 
 is the exact reverse of a good reason for restor- 
 ing traitors to power. Nor do I argue that 
 perpetual disfranchisement will certainly be 
 necessary, but that the nation, for its own safety, 
 should withhold the ballot from its enemies till 
 they have proved themselves fit to cast it. No 
 such proof can be adduced. On the contrary, 
 the spirit of treason is now quite as reeking and 
 defiant in the revolted districts as at any time 
 durin^^ the war. In the sunshine of the Presi- 
 dent it has sprouted up into new and more 
 vigorous forms of life, while repentant rebels 
 are unknown, save in the sense of regretting 
 the faikire of their treason. Sir, I hope the 
 Thirty-Ninth Congress will not sully its good 
 name by confounding the friends of the country 
 with its enemies in the reconstruction and gov- 
 ernment of the districts blighted by treason, 
 
and thug trample down the great principle that 
 allegiance to the nation is the condition of 
 citizenship and the bulwark of our freedom. 
 To do this would be to surrender our strongest 
 weapons to the President and his rebel allies. 
 It would be disloyalty to the great cause which 
 would thus again be imperiled, and bring dis- 
 honor upon the graves of our martyred legions, 
 who perished in deadly encounter with the trai- 
 tors whom we now propose to restore to their 
 lost rights. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, I further object to the measure 
 before us, that it is a mere enabling act, look- 
 ing to the early restoration of the rebellious 
 districts to their former places in the Union, 
 instead of a well-considered frame of govern- 
 ment, contemplating such restoration at some 
 indefinite future time, and designed to fit them 
 to receive it. They are not ready for recon- 
 struction as independent States on any terms 
 or conditions which Congress might impose; 
 and I believe the time has come for us to say 
 so. We owe this much to their misguided peo- 
 ple, whose false and feverish hopes have been 
 kept alive by the course of the Executive and 
 the hesitating policy of Congress. I think I 
 am safe in saying that if these districts were 
 to-day admitted as States, with the precise 
 political and social elements which we know 
 to exist in them, even with their rebel popula- 
 tion disfranchised and the ballot placed in the 
 hands of radical Union men only, irrespective 
 of color, the experiment would be ruinous to 
 the best interests of their loyal people and 
 calamitous to the nation. The withdrawal of 
 Federal intervention and the unchecked opera- 
 tion of local supremacy would as fatally hedge 
 up the way of justice and equality as the rebel 
 ascendency which now prevails. Why? Sim- 
 ply because no theory of government, no forms 
 of administration, can be trusted, unless ade- 
 quately supported by public opinion. The 
 power of the great landed aristocracy in these 
 regions, if unrestrained by power from with- 
 out, would inevitably assert itself Its political 
 chemistry, obeying its own laws, would very 
 soon crystalize itself into the same forms of 
 treason and lawlessness which to-day hold 
 their undisturbed empire over the existing 
 loyal element. What these regions need, above 
 all things, is not an easy and quick return to 
 their forfeited rights in the Union, but govern- 
 ment, the strong arm of power, outstretched 
 from the central authority here in Washing- 
 ton, making it safe for the freedmen of the 
 South, safe for her loyal white men, safe for 
 emigrants from the Old World and from the 
 northern States to go and dwell there ; safe for 
 northern capital and labor, northern energy 
 and enterprise, and northern ideas to set up 
 their habitation in peace, and thus found a 
 Christian civilization and a living democracy 
 amid the ruins of the past. That, sir, is what 
 the country demands and the rebel power 
 needs. To talk about suddenly building up 
 independent States where the material for such 
 structures is fatally wanting is nonsense. States 
 
 must groto, and to that end their growth must 
 be fostered and protected. The political and 
 social regeneration of the country made deso- 
 late by treason is the prime necessity of the 
 hour, and is preliminary to any reconstruction 
 of States. Years of careful pupilage under the 
 authority of the nation may be found neces- 
 sary, and Congress alone must d»ecide when 
 and upon what conditions the tie rudely broken 
 by treason shall be restored. Congress, more- 
 over, is as solemnly bound to deny to disloyal 
 communities admission into our great sister- 
 hood of States as it is to deny the rights of 
 citizenship to those who have forfeited such 
 rights by treason. 
 
 I have thus far, Mr. Speaker, addressed 
 myself to considerations which appeal to men 
 of my own political faith. There is a theory 
 of reconstruction held by gentlemen on the 
 other side of the House, according to which 
 the rebels, the moment they laid down their 
 arms and confessed themselves vanquished, 
 were entitled to resume all their rights as citi- 
 zens, just as if they had had not rebelled, and 
 to set in motion the machinery of their State 
 governments, be represented in Congress, and 
 enjoy all and singular the rights and privileges 
 of other citizens of the United States. Sir, I 
 shall not consume much time in noticing this 
 strange theory, which was so happily disposed 
 of by the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Shella- 
 barger] on Friday last. I must, however, do 
 its friends the honor of confessing it to be en- 
 tirely original. I think no such principle can 
 be found in the law of nations. I am quite 
 sure there is no historical precedent for it, and 
 that the precedents are strongly the other way. 
 One of these, and a very notable one, I may 
 refer to, as illustrating the difference between 
 the congressional and presidential theories of 
 reconstruction. I understand that when Satan 
 rebelled against the Almighty he was accom- 
 modated with quarters somewhat more tropical 
 and less salubrious than the kingdom he had 
 involuntarily abdicated. To speak plainly, he 
 was plunged into hell; and he "accepted the 
 situation." According to one account of the 
 transaction he said it was — 
 
 " Better to reign in hell than servo in heaven ;" 
 
 and he has not been "reconstructed" to this 
 day. But according to the modern theory to 
 which I refer, the devil, when he was finally 
 overpowered and ^yas willing to acknowledge 
 it, v/as that moment entitled to be reinstated 
 in his ancient rights in Paradise, exactly as if 
 he had not sinned. That I understand to be 
 the Democratic theory of reconstruction. But 
 Satan, devil as he was, never had the infernal 
 audacity to insinuate so monstrous a preten- 
 sion ; and it was reserved for the followers of 
 Andrew Johnson, nearly six thousand years 
 later, to startle the civilized world by its avowal. 
 Mr. Speaker, let me not be misunderstood here. 
 I do not desire to see the rebels follow in the 
 footsteps of their illustrious predecessor. There 
 may have been times when it seemed to me 
 
6 
 
 they deserved a similar treatment. It may even 
 have occurred to me, in some of my profaner 
 moments^ that if there is not a pretty respect- 
 able orthodox hell on the otlier side of the 
 grave for the special discipline of the rebel 
 leaders, it would seem to be the grandest over- 
 sight that divine Providence could possibly 
 have committed. But in confronting the dan- 
 gers which now beset our country, I put aside 
 these theological fancies ; and what I demand, 
 and all I ask, is that Congress shall organize 
 a well-'appointed political purgatory, located 
 in the rebellious districts, and keep the rebels 
 in it until by their penitence and a change of 
 their lives they shall satisfy us that they can 
 again be trusted with power. Let us put them 
 on probation ; and should it require ten years, 
 or twenty years, to qualify them for restoration, 
 or secure an outside element strong enough to 
 rule the rebel faction, let the time be extended. 
 The grand interests involved plead with us to 
 "make haste slowly," while voices from the 
 graves of our slaughtered countrymen beseech 
 us to "keep none but loyal men on guard." 
 When the rebels, conscious of the ruin they 
 have wrought, shall wash away their guilt in 
 their tears of genuine contrition, then, and not 
 till then, let us restore them to our embrace. 
 And now, Mr. Speaker, if any gentleman 
 asks me what plan of government I would in- 
 stitute for the probation and pupilage of these 
 districts I am ready to answer him. But be- 
 fore I do that I desire to say what forms of re- 
 construction I do not favor. In the first place, 
 I oppose 'Any cunningly devised scheme like 
 that reported by the gentleman from Ohio 
 [Mr. Ashley] from the Committee on Terri- 
 tories, with its popular conventions, its com- 
 mittees of safety, its provisional governors, and 
 other machinery designed to meet the ugly fact 
 that we have a bad man in the presidential 
 chair, whose usurpations it is pretended we 
 must checkmate by these extraordinary meas- 
 ures. If the President has been guilty of high 
 crimes and misdemeanors, let him be impeached 
 and hurled from power. I believe he is thus 
 guilty, and therefore I believe our first duty is 
 to call him to account. Instead of gradual 
 approaches and Hank movements we should 
 confront him at once with our accusations and 
 demand his trial. Instead of lopping off the 
 branches we should strike at the root of our 
 troubles, and no significance or insignificance 
 of the executive office as now filled should 
 stand in the way of our constitutional duty. If 
 the President is not guilty of high crimes and 
 misdemeanors, in the sense in which those 
 terms were understood by our forefathers, and 
 according to the precedents they had before 
 them, then the right of impeachment is not 
 even a " scarecrow," as Mr. JefiTerson styled 
 it. But if I am mistaken, and the country is 
 doomed yet longer to endure his maladminis- 
 tration, then let us adopt precisely such meas- 
 ures of government for the rebellious districts 
 as would be necessary and proper if we had an 
 honest man in the place of Andrew Johnson, 
 
 thus affording him the opportunity, should he 
 seek it, to provoke new conflicts with the people 
 by opposing our measures. Should his mad- 
 ness fail to supply us, abundantly, with the 
 grounds for a successful impeaclament, the 
 sands of his official life will soon run out at 
 the worst, while the management of the rebel 
 territory demands a policy which may last for 
 indefinite years. As the friends of the Consti- 
 tution and the champions of law, we can best 
 perform our duty by adhering to the well-set- 
 tled forms and usages of our republican insti- 
 tutions. 
 
 I oppose, in the second place, any plan of 
 reconstruction which attempts to reconcile 
 opposite and utterly irreconcilable theories. 
 If the rebellious districts are States, known 
 to the Constitution as such, they have the 
 right to be represented on this floor and in the 
 other end of the Capitol. They have all the 
 rights of the other independent States of the 
 Union, and the work of reconstruction is done 
 already. The logic of this theory, if accepted, 
 not only vindicates the policy of the President, 
 but brands the legislation of Congress for 
 nearly six years past as a deliberate usurpa- 
 tion. This is the rebel theory, and those who 
 have accepted it with all its consequences are 
 consistent and brave men, who are entitled to 
 the thanks of all the enemies of their country. 
 But if you reject this theoi-y, then you are 
 driven squarely over to the policy of unquali- 
 fied radicalism, for there is no middle ground 
 on which to stand. If these districts are not 
 States known to the Constitution it must 
 follow inevitably that the Constitution knows 
 them only as Territories, for which Congress 
 is bound by the express words of the Consti- 
 tution to " make all needful rules and regula- 
 tions." Sir, I am opposed to any scheme of 
 compromise between these theories, and to any 
 plan of reconstruction which embodies in it 
 any elements of the rebel theory. The policy 
 of Congress and the President in recognizing 
 those districts as States, while exercising over 
 them powers utterly inconsistent with the 
 rights of States, has brought upon ns our 
 worst troubles, and the sooner we abandon 
 it the better it will be for the country. The 
 nation needs a manly and straightforward 
 ■policy, and not the weakness and vacillation 
 which spring from crooked and ambidextrous 
 measures which lend strength to the enemies 
 of the Republic. 
 
 Mr. Speaker, the theory which deals with 
 the rebellious districts as under the exclusive 
 jurisdiction of Congress rests upon grounds 
 which are logically impregnable. In the first 
 place, their old constitutional governments were 
 overthrown and destroyed by the rebellion. 
 This will not be disputed. Second, their rebel 
 governments, which followed, were destroyed 
 by our arms. This is equally certain. Third, 
 their present governments, extemporized by 
 the President, are military and provisional only, 
 having no validity whatever save that which 
 they borrow from the continued acquiescence 
 
\ 
 
 of Congress. The President himself can be 
 quoted in support of this position. And fourth, 
 the rebels themselves, having forfeited all their 
 rights by their treason, as I have already 
 shown, have no authority to institute any sort 
 of government within their respective districts, 
 until they are expressly empowered so to do by 
 CoEgress. If I am right in these positions, 
 these districts are so many geographical divis- 
 ions of the Republic whose people are wholly 
 without any valid civil government, and with- 
 out any constitutional power to frame such 
 government; and being solelyunder the juris- 
 diction of Congress, and having none of the 
 powers and attributes of States, they are neces- 
 sarily Territories of the United States. As 
 such they need government till they are pre- 
 pared for readmission, and the machinery of 
 territorial governments, older than the Consti- 
 tution itself, is as familiar to the American peo- 
 ple as that of the State governments. Let each 
 of these Territories then have a governor, a 
 chiefjustice, a marshal, and an attorney. Let 
 eacL of them have a Delegate in Congress, fitly 
 denied the right to vote, while permitted to 
 speak. Let each have a Legislature for the 
 enactment of local laws, subject to the super- 
 vision of Congress. Let Congress declare who 
 shall be qualified to vote in these Territories, 
 adopting the same rule already established in 
 the other Territories of the United States and 
 in the District of Columbia. And when local 
 supremacy shall defy the national authority in 
 any of these Territories, let it be effectually 
 cured by the military power of the United 
 States. Under this educational process I would 
 have these rebellious districts trained up in the 
 way they should go, whether the time required 
 for such training shall prove long or short ; 
 while in the mean time every inch of their soil 
 will be subject to the national authority, and 
 freely open to the energy and enterprise of the 
 world. This policy, by nationalizing the South, 
 would render life and property as secure in 
 Louisiana as in Maine. It would tend power- 
 fully to make our whole country homogeneous. 
 It would encourage in these wasted regions 
 ''small farms, thrifty tillage, free schools, 
 closely-associated communities, social inde- 
 pendence, respect for honest labor, and equal- 
 ity of political rights. ' ' All these blessings must 
 follow, if only the nation, having vanquished 
 its enemies, will now resolutely assert its power 
 in the interest of loyal men, over regions in 
 which nothing but power is respected. 
 
 To all this, Mr. Speaker, it will be objected 
 that it contravenes tlie policy of the constitu- 
 tional amendment proposed by Congress at our 
 last session, and therefore cannot in good faith 
 be urged while that amendment is pending. 
 Several replies to this objection are at hand. 
 First, it must be remembered that this amend- 
 ment was submitted to the several States. 
 Congress had no right to propose it to unor- 
 ganized districts which had no constitutional 
 governments of any sort, and therefore 'no 
 power to pass spon the question. Could we, 
 
 for example, submit this amendment to Colo- 
 rado or Nebraska, bo'fore they have been law- 
 fully declared States? Congress, at the last 
 session, might have waived all formalities and 
 recognized the rebellious districts as States by 
 receiving their representatives, as was done in 
 the case of Tennessee ; but .we refused to do 
 this. Congress even declined to pass the bill 
 reported trom the Reconstruction Committee 
 providing that these so-called States should be 
 received ontheir acceptance of the amendment. 
 It is perfectly certain, therefore, that Congress 
 reserved for its future judgment the very ques- 
 tion which is assumed to have been decided by 
 the objection under notice ; or, that if Con- 
 gress did decide it the decision was the other 
 way. The very utmost that can be claimed by 
 the champions of the constitutional amend- 
 ment is that the question is an open one ; and, 
 being an open question, Congress may decide 
 it to-day by putting territorial governments over 
 these regions, leaving the amendment to the 
 disposition of the loyal States, whose repre- 
 sentatives in Congress for nearly six years past 
 have ignored the existence of disloyal States 
 in dealing with the mighty concerns of war and 
 peace and the amendment of the Constitution 
 itself. I believe the pending amendment will 
 be ratified ; but in voting to submit it I do not 
 think Congress is at all embarrassed in its pres- 
 ent action. I can say, for myself at least, that 
 I am perfectly untrammeled, either by my 
 votes in this House or by pledges or commit- 
 tals anywhere ; while I believe the general 
 understanding at the last session was that the 
 amendment embodied provisions which were 
 demanded as national safeguards, without pre- 
 tending to supply any final solution of the 
 problem of reconstruction. 
 
 But I reply, in the next place, that even if 
 Congress at the last session bound itself by an 
 implied agreement to admit these districts as 
 States on their ratification of the amendment, 
 we are now released from that obligation. 
 With singular unanimity and emphasis they 
 have rejected our proposal, and thereby left us 
 free. Sir, are we bound to wait here five years, 
 or ten years, for them to ponder the question 
 and reverse their decision, after they have 
 already defiantly spurned our offer, allowing 
 the rebel'power in the meanwhile to have free 
 course? I do not so understand the bargain, 
 if any bargain has been made. We have the 
 right to plead our release, and the state of the 
 country demands that we shall exercise it. 
 Since our session of last summer great changes 
 have been wrought in the general feeling of the 
 people. We see daily the truth of the old 
 adage that "circumstances alter cases."' Pub- 
 lic opinion has forced Congress to establish 
 manhood suffrage in the District of Columbia, 
 and thereby to say that that principle should 
 prevail in all the States of the Union. Con- 
 gress has extended it over all the Territories 
 of the United States, constituting an empire 
 large enough to support a population of two 
 hundred million people. Congress has voted 
 
8 
 
 for the admission of Colorado and Nebraska 
 on the fundamental condition of their accept- 
 ance of the same principle, and thus adver- 
 tised all whom it may concern that other States 
 yet to be born must comply with the same 
 condition. Most certainly the like require- 
 ment will be made of the districts lately in 
 arms against us, whatever may betide the con- 
 stitutional amendment. God forbid that we 
 should impose conditions upon virgin States 
 of the Northwest, which have never rebelled, 
 and whose people to-day are loyal, which we 
 will not exact of the rebels who have drenched 
 their country in blood 1 Sir, we cannot trifle 
 with a principle so vital, or expose it to any 
 sort of hazard. I voted last year against 
 restoring Tennessee to her place, in the Union, 
 because I feared she could not be trusted 
 without a mortgage from her securing the ballot 
 to her colored loyalists. I hope my fears will 
 prove groundless, but I shall never regret my 
 vote. The loyal people of Maryland to-day, 
 black and white, would be safer under Federal 
 bayonets than under their local government ; 
 and Congress, where it has the power, must 
 exert it against the enemies of the country and 
 their sympathizers. I shall never vote to re- 
 store one of these rebel districts to power as a 
 State, except upon the condition that impartial 
 suffrage, without respect to race, color, or for- 
 mer condition of slavery, shall be the supreme 
 law within her borders. Sir, we can no longer 
 evade the solemn duty which the logic of 
 events has at last made plain to all lovers of 
 justice ; and the man who now thrusts consti- 
 tutional amendments in our way might as well 
 quote the Crittenden resolutions, adopted by 
 this House the day following the first battle cf 
 Bull Run, as the governing principle of the 
 Thirty-Ninth Congress. 
 
 I add. finally, and as a conclusion from what 
 I have said already, that the second section of 
 the proposed amendment ought never to be 
 made a part of the Constitution of the United 
 States. It would not now be proposed, if the 
 question were pending as a new one, as our 
 action at this session has plainly indicated. I 
 voted for it, along with the other sections of 
 the amendment, simply as a proposal to reduce 
 the political power of the rebels to a common 
 level with that of loyal men; but instead of 
 cutting down representation in these districts 
 to the basis of actual suflVage, I think we are 
 now ready so to extend the franchise as to 
 make it commensurate with actual represent- 
 ation. An amendment of the Constitution 
 securing this result should have been proposed 
 at the last session. When, in our extremity, 
 we called on the black loyalists of the South 
 
 to help us through the red sea of war into 
 which our wickedness had plunged us, and 
 they responded to our call by sending two hun- 
 dred thousand soldiers to our rescue, it thence- 
 forward became the nation's duty, from which 
 no escape was morally possible, to secure the 
 rights of citizenship, both civil and political, 
 to the wronged and outraged millions of the 
 African race in our midst. It thenceforward 
 ought to have been counted a shameful prop- 
 osition, a flagrant affront to common justice 
 and gratitude, for Congress to propose to the 
 rebels, as a constitutional amendment, that if 
 they would agree to the exclusion of these 
 loyal colored men from the basis of represent- 
 ation, we would agree to surrender them to 
 the tender mercies of rebel State governments, 
 which might wholly deprive them of the sacred 
 right of representation. Sir, I hope no such 
 principle will ever defile the Constitutiori of 
 our fathers. Aside from its cold-blooded in- 
 gratitude to our black allies, it is radically 
 vicious. It impliedly concedes to the States 
 of the Union the right to disfranchise male 
 citizens of the United States over twenty-one 
 years old who are innocent of crime, and thus 
 strikes at the root of all democracy. If "tax- 
 ation without representation is tyranny," and 
 Governments derive "their just powers from 
 the consent of the governed," the citizen's 
 right of representation is as natural and in- 
 herent as the breath of his nostrils. To deprive 
 him of it, unless he himself forfeits it by his 
 ofiFenses against society, is a crime against his 
 manhood, which is the common foundation of 
 tlie rights of all men. It is an offense against 
 all free government, for the right of one citizen 
 to a voice in its public administration is pre- 
 cisely the same as the right of every other 
 citizen ; and no fraction of citizens, however 
 large, can deprive the remainder of their com- 
 mon and equal right. To deny this is to mock 
 the Declaration of Independence and insult 
 the memory of our fathers; and to incorporate 
 the denial into the Constitution of the United 
 States, in words which express or imply it, 
 would strengthen the hands of every rebel in 
 the South, and comfort the enemies of Amer- 
 ican democracy throughout the world. It 
 would pollute the very fountains of our na- 
 tional life by the unnatural marriage of the 
 Constitution to the foul heresy of State rights, 
 which so recently wrapped the Republic in the 
 flames of war; while it would stand in open 
 conflict with that grand central principle of 
 our great Charter which declares that "the 
 United States shall guaranty to every State 
 in this Union a republican form of govern- 
 ment."