IlIBRARY OFrONGfiESS.I I' i i ~ ~ I 9 * f UNITliD STATKS OP AMhiilCA.f RECONSTRUCTION. SPEECH HON. WILLIAM A. NEWELL, OF NEW JERSEY, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 15, 1866. V Tho House having under consideration the Pres- ident's mcssafcc, as in Committee of the Whole on tho state of the Union — Mr. STROUSE having obtained the floor, said : Mr. Speaker, 1 am not quite ready to com- mence my speech, and as I understand the gen- tleman from New Jersey [Mr. Newell] desires to address the House, 1 will give way to him if he will promise not to occupy more than half an hour of my time. Mr. NEWELL. I have made so many inef- fectual efforts to obtain the floor that I shall gladly avail myself of the courtesy of the gen- tleman from Pennsylvania, and assure him that I will not infringe upon his kindness — an ar- rangement which will be, perhaps, agreeable to me, as my voice is quite hoarse — and will, with the permission of the House, incorporate in my printed speech such portions of it as I may not be able to concentrate in the limited time to which I am confined. Mr. Speaker, I propose to submit some re- marks upon the annual message of the Pres- ident of the United States. I may premise that my acquaintance with the President extends back nearly twenty years, when associated with him as a member of this body. We sat upon opposite sides of this Chamber, and seldom voted together ; but I honored him and all his associates honored him as the advocate of progress, the friend of humanity, the able and uncompromising cham- pion of the right of man to the fruits of his labor, and to the possession of so much of the unoccupied public domain as that labor could cultivate. 1 knew and honored him as the defender of all those rights which underlie the Declaration of Independence as living princi- ples, pregnant with a meaning and an interpre- tation which he has lived to see accorded to them by many who in that day professed to regard them only as "glittering generalities." I have known him since that time as faithful among the faithless in the desperate ordeal through which we have passed, giving unmis- takable testimony of fealty to the cause of liberty and the Union. Persecuted, defamed, plundered, driven from his home and family, hunted like a beast of prey, he upheld the cause of his country and bade defiance to the armed legions of treason and death. For all these the Union party elevated him to the place he occupies. For all these he has my confidence to-day, and I do not believe, as many would have us believe, that he will prove unfaithful to the great trust confided to his keeping. He may ditfer from Congress as to the particular method of reconstructing the Union ; but I appeal_ to the debates and actions of the Senate and this House, as well as to the people and press of the country, and ask if there is una- nimity anywhere on this most important matter. On the great questions of the preservation of the Government and the freedom and elevation of mankind he is eminently sound and consist- ent. There is no material difference on vital points between him'and ourselves; none that may not be speedily adjusted by conference and conciliation. To denounce him as a traitor who, hand to hand, has throttled treason to the death ; to brand him as a usurper whose whole energies have been devoted to the welfare and improvement of his race is to utter a malignant libel upon mankind. Sir, having so well ful- filled the varied duties of his life, let us not reproach and distrust him without cause, but rather sustain him in all just and reasonable measures, and leave the result to Him who guides the destinies of nations. There are many subjects, Mr. Speaker, in the excellent message before us to which I would like to advert, but time will not permit, and I shall therefore confine myremarks to the question which so properly engrosses so large a share of our attention as well as that of the whole country — the reconstruction of the Union/ The nature and character of the Government are such as to constitute it an anomaly in the family of nations. It represents the solidarity of the States combined with an individuality of each as respects all matters and powers not delegated to the General Government, which leaves it perfectly free and untrammeled in its appropriate sphere. It represents, in fact, in a community of nations that freedom of action which in a community of people is compatible with the greatest good of the body politic. As the latter is the highest type of individual existence in the social state, so the former is the most perfect representative of a community of nations having one paramount ob- ject and principle, namely, the greatest amount of individual national liberty compatible with the collective national security. It was evi- dently foi-eseen by the fathers of the Constitu- tion that it behooved them to restrain on the one hand a too great latitude of individual State authority and action, and on the other a too great concentration of national power. Thus the Constitution gave to the States collectively the right to make war or declare peace ; to impose taxes on imports ; to create and main- tain a standing Army and Navy ; to dispose of the public lands ; to regulate commerce be- tween the States ; to naturalize foreigners ; to accredit to and receive embassadors from for- eign Powers ; and to do certain other acts specified in the Constitution. To the States were left certain rights, powers, and duties, principally pertaining to local government, and having reference to matters which it was ac- knowleged they were better capable of super- vising and regulating. The Constitution seeks to make the States sovereign in their sphere of duties and the national Government supreme in its sphere. In carrying out these ideas the framers found a difficult and delicate task. From the organization of the Government to the present day it has been a subject of debate and discussion at all periods, giving rise, more or less, to bitter partisan strife and sectional animosity, which finally culminated in the late gigantic rebellion against the authority of the national Government and the Union of the States composing it. And in this connection I might add that history has been repeating itself in the case of that of our own country. The party strifes and revolutions, the contest for power in all nations, have been produced by the collisions of those who would strengthen the central power on the one hand, and those who would weaken it on the other. The history of Rome, from the earliest period to the time when power was almost entirely concentrated in the person of the emperors, is nothing but the record of such a contest, which had its beginning in the birth of the nation, its culmination in the pe- riod of its highest prosperity, audits end in its era of decay and dissolution. The aim of the fathers was to preserve such a happy mean be- tween the concentration and diffusion of power that this contest should be reduced to its min- imum of virulence, and that thus those violent collisions, political and revolutionary, which had marked the history of the world from the earliest period, should be so mitigated as not to endanger national safety and individual free- dom. The combined wisdom of these patriotic men produced our present Constitution. It is a noble monument to their ability ; but, unfor- tunately, "like all human instruments, it was imperfectly constructed, not because the theory was wrong, but because of the existence in the j country of an institution so contrary to the 'j genius of free government, and to the very ' principles upon which the Constitution itself was founded, that it was impossible to incor- porate it into the organic law so that the latter could be preserved free from its contaminating influence. It was as if the surgeon were to innoculate the living healthy body with the virus of a loathsome disease. The result would cer- tainly be that a contest for dominion between health and disease would be produced, in which life or death would eventually triumph. The framers of the Constitution did what they considered best under the circumstances. They made freedom the rule and slavery the excejition in the organization of the Govern- ment. They declared in favor of the former in language the most emphatic and sublime in i history, while they placed the latter, as they | fondly hoped, in a position favorable for ulti- i mate extinction. Indeed, they so worded the organic act itself that slavery was decided to be so abhorrent to the sentiment of justice, liberty, and common humanity as to render it utterly unworthy to be named therein. I have before said that the fathers intended to organize a Government in which freedom should be the rule and slavery the exception. The whole drift of their action was toward such a consum- mation ; and for years the tendency of the so- cial life and industry of the people was to the same end. State after State abolished slavery, J until finally the free predominated over the slave 1 States in numbers and population. Slavery was driven taward a particular section of the coun- try, where the cultivation of the cotton plant rendered it so profitable and at the same time constituted it such a monopoly in the hands of a few powerful, wealthy, talented, and a-aibi- tious men as to make it an element of political power and engine of ambitious designs so as to render its existence incompatible with individ- ual liberty and national safety. Indeed, in such gigantic proportions did this institution loom up on the political horizon that the declaration, "this country cannot exist half slave and half free," burst from the lips of two of our leading statesmen as if forced from them in the agony produced by a contemplation of our political future. But it was not so much these men as the good men and true of the country speaking tlirough thera wlio uttered at tliat time words wliich were i^rophetic of the consummation which was so near at hand that for the first time prophecy blended itself with history. Yes, for the first time in the history of the world the prophet be(/ame the chief actor in the events wliich he foretold, even to the extent of scaling ^•with his life the book which, under the direc- tion of an overruling Providence, he was se- lected to open. Thus, instead, as the fathers intended, of free- dom being the rule and slaverj' the exception, on account of the encroachments of this insti- tution, and the ambitious designs of those who used it as an engine of political power, there was danger that slaverj- would become the rule and freedom the exception. It aspired to make every department of the Government subserv- ient to itself and its interests. It poisoned also the social life of the jjeople, undermined their belief in self-government, weakened their faith in the principle on which the Government was founded, the principle of universal suffrage ; in fine, it had so succeeded in debauching the conscience of a large mass of the people as to render them fit tools in the hands of men who were determined that slavery should rule the country or that they would dissolve the Union. And so this Constitution of our fathers, be- cause of the existence of an element foreign to its genius and principles, flatly subversive of the ideas on which it was founded, and which gave the lie direct to its declaration of riglits, was in such danger of utter destruction that the patriotic people of the nation found them- selves compelled to abandon it altogether as the osgis of their liberty and safety or take up arms in its defense. This latter alternative was taken, and the result was that the contest 60 long waged between individual State libei-ty and national security was finally and forever decided by the ultima ratio of nations and of war. For years the contest between the doctrines represented by Thomas Jefferson on the one hand, and Alexander Hamilton on the other, convulsed the countiy. The State-rights men demanded one concession after another in favor of slavery. It was at one time the right to cap- ture and to aid in capture ; at another, the right to carry into Territories; at another, the right of passage through and domicil in the States ; at another, the principle that the Constitution carried it everywhere, and at all times; and finally, the culminating right, that of secession from the Union in order to build up a confed- eration of which it was to be tlie chief corner- stone. Jefferson's idea of State rights was sim- ply the conservation of individual and State rights. The idea of the latter-day pretended followers of Jefferson was that State rights was the liberty given to one man to oppress his fel- low, and that no power, not even the central authority itself, could intervene to shield the oppressed. This was the degeneration of a great principle of individual liberty, subordi- nated to social welfare, to the principle of the pirate or the robber who regards no law but brute force. And such a degeneration only showed that State rights, as understood by these bad men, had passed outside and beyond the pale of civilization itself, and thus became inimical not only to the people, but actually menaced the national unity. But, indeed, when the national authority found itself unable to protect the liberties of the peo- ple, it not only failed in the first principles of its organization, but degenerated into an instru- ment of oppression. The form of the original instrument, it is true, remained, but under tho .modern interpretation of the principle of State rights the soul which had originally animated it had long since departed. So that the con- test between the so-called advocates of State rights, which had convulsed the nation more or less from its foundation, culminated in armed rebellion against the central authority, leaving the friends of a Government founded on the natural rights of a people and universal justice no other alternative but to defend with the sword that which they had so long and so nobly contended for with the tongue and pen. I con- sequently, then, regard this contest as much closed by the late war as that which for years preceded the Kevoluhon was closed by the tii- umph of our arms at that period. As the coun- try entered upon a new era at the close of the Revolution, so it enters upon a new era now. The Revolution settled the great principle that representation should follow taxation, and that so far as all men in these United States were concerned, this principle was true in theory but not in practice, and this because slavery existed as a disturbing element at that time. The result of the rebellion has made this prin- ciple for which the fathers fought not only true in theory but true in practice. The rebel- lion commenced in a desire either to destroy this Union or to decide that the principle for which the fathers fought for was applicable only to white men. It ended in the defeat and disgrace of the men who upheld and fought for this principle and the triumph of those who opposed it. During the contest, and while it was yet in doubt, it was found necessary to make the principles of the Declaration of In- dependence and of the Constitution practically as well as theoretically true by the elevation of the exceptional race to the status of free citi- zens. This was done, and the race was called upon to aid in the struggle, and they nobly re- sponded to the appeal. They not only helped to win their own liberty, but aided to preserve ours. The result of the rebellion, then, having made the principles of the Constitution not only the- oretically but practically true, it is our duty to see that the principles of the Constitution are now carried out to the fullest extent of the idea of the framers; to have them carried out so as to embrace "all men" as truly as the fathers embraced them ideally, and would have era- braced them truly but for the existence of sla- very at that time. In doing this the country takes a new departure in the course toward the goal of universal freedom, and with the noble motto, "Equal and exact justice to all men," inscribed upon its escutcheon, stands forth, in the presence of all nations, thoroughly purged from every impurity. Founded upon the rock of true republicanism, "universal sutfrage," in the ages to come the waves of death and dark- ness may beat against it, but shall beat in vain. From the very nature of republicanism, as understood by the fathers, freedom and suffrage are concomitant, t^vin sisters, inseparable, mu- tually dependent on each other for support and existence. Suffrage follows freedom as light follows the rising of the sun. It is by the ballot- box that freedom is upheld and perpetuated. Take away that sacred right of republican gov- ernment, and you leave the people no means for the redress of grievances but those of revo- lution. You compel those who are denied this right to resort to force in order to obtain them. Indeed, universal suffrage is to such an extent the distinguishing feature of republican insti- tutions that our people, from the highest to the lowest, our statesmen, our judges, and our jour- nalists, have continually justified revolution in any nation of the Old World in which the right of suffrage is either denied to the great mass of the people or so abridged as to be practically a nullity. During the well-known Dorr rebel- lion of Rhode Island, indeed, I well remember that the Democratic journals of the country, almost without exception, justified the rebels on the ground that the constitution and laws of that State left the majority of the people no other alternative save revolution, because it denied the right of suffrage. Now, how can we stand up in the presence of the despotisms of the Old World and justify their oppressed peoplefor waging war against a tyranny which exists in a more offensive and oppressive manner among^ ourselves? In most of the despotic nations of the globe a man may, by acquiring property, by Eerforming some signal service to the State, or y some other means, place himself in the gov- erning class; but in the United States, under our Constitution, as interpreted by certain pol- iticians and statesmen, a large class of the people are forever excluded from the rights of freemen, from ever becoming a part and parcel of the peo- ple of the United States. J udge Taney, in the celebrated Dred Scott case, declares that no State has a right to make a citizen of the Uni- ted States: "The Constitution, upon its adoption, obviously took from the States all power, by any subsequent legislation, to introduce as a citizen into the political family of the United States any one, no matter where he was born, or what might be his character or con- dition." Now, the question ai-ises, what constitutes the political family of the United States? Why, certainly thoseborn to the soil; those who pay taxes for the support of the Govei^nnent ; those who are called upon to bear arms in its defense against insurrection at home and against the public enemy abroad. Every man, then, who is not an alien who refuses allegiance to the Government comes under this category; and to the extent that you abridge or deny the right of citizenship, to that extent you \'iolate the principles of the Constitution of the United States and the Declaration of Independence, which are based on those principles. Demo- cratic interpreters of the Constitution claim that a State may make or unmake a citizen of the United States, and limit or deny him the suffrage. I deny this. A State may regulate and control the suffrage so as to prevent frauds, and for the convenience of voting, but it can- not take from one citizen of the United States within its borders that which it allows to an- other. Again I quote from Judge Taney's opinion in the Dred Scott case. He says : " And if persons of the African race are citizens of a State and of the United States they would be en- titled to all of those privileges and immunities in every State, and the State could not restrict them, for they would hold these privileges and immunities under the paramount authority of the FcderaKrovernment; and its courts would be bound to maintain and enforce them, the constitution and thehiwsof the State to the contrary notwithstanding. And if the States could limit or restrict them, or place the party in an inferior grade, this clause of the Constitution would be un- meaning, and could have no operation, and would give no rights to the citizen when in another State. lie would have none but what the State itself chose to allow him." Now, Mr. Speaker, admitting, for the sake of the argument, that at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, as Judge Taney claimed, the African was enslaved and subject, at the present day this is not the case. There is in this country now no subject or enslaved race. No foot of a slave or subject pollutes our soil. We are sovereign people. The constitutional amendment has elevated all tlie people into what? Is it into a distinct class, separate and defined by metes and bounds, or is it into the only class we or the Constitution recognize — the" people of the United States? Certainly it is the latter class, and if it is, then they are citi- zens of the United States, possessing all the rights and immunities of such. Again I quote Judge Taney, who says : "The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the s.ome thing." But he also says that no State can restrict the privileges and immunities of a citizen of the United States. I have shown that among those privileges and immunities the right of suffrage is the most sacred of all. It is, in fact, the ark of the covenant that overshad- ows, covers, and protects with its sacred wings every other right, civil as well as political. Take it away, and you take away the power of conserving and protecting all tlic rest. I cannot conclude but that freedom and suffrage are inseparable in our political system, just as people and citizens are synonymous terms in our Constitution. Every attribute of a truly republican government confirms this, and every departure from this principle testifies to our want of faith in the ability of the people to be sovereigns, and of a growing belief in the doc- trine that the government of the select few, is more preferable and more in accordance with right, justice, and humanity than the govern- ment of the entire mass. Because, and only because, the African peojile were an enslaved and subject race at the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they had no right that the white man was bound to respect. The emanci- pation proclamation has removed the badge of ser\-itude from off their necks, but does not in any word limit, the freedom into which they have been introduced. On the contrary, it is pro- vided that Congress shall have the power to carry out that freedom to the fullest extent. The old Roman acts of emancipation, pre\*ious to the period of imperial rule, limited the status of freedmen. The emperors abolished that limit, and the freedman when emancipated be- came at once a citizen. Our act of emancipa- tion neither limits nor defines the status of the freedman. It elevates him at once into the ranks of the people. It casts him into the great mass with all disabilities removed and all po- litical and civil rights granted him. The State that dares to limit or abridge or deprive him altogether of those rights, violates the Consti- tution of the United States, and in so doing commits a high crime against the authority of that instrument as well as against the sover- eignty of the people. It may not be wise to extend this high pre- rogative of a citizen, the elective franchise, to that large class of people who have so recently become free ; indeed, I fully agree with those who claim that it would be best to v/ithhold it until they become more accustomed to think and act for themselves, and attain a degree of knowledge and intelligence necessary to a pro- Ser appreciation of that attribute of citizenship. ;ut I see no way of escape from the force of truth and inevitable logic of the conaiusion that freedom and citizenship carry with them, pari pa.'isn. the right of suflf'rage. I have endeavored to show, Mr. Speaker, that in the foundation of the Government the people of all the States agreed that, in order to a more perfect Union for the sake of ourselves and our posterity, the States should give up cer- tain rights that would otherwise Inhere in them to the United States or new nation about to be formed. Among these rights were virtually the inherent rights of sovereignty, namely, the right to make war and declare peace, the right of citizenship to the extent that said citizen- ship should be uniform throughout the Union and regulated by Congress. Thus the right of naturalization was declared to be a right of the new nation, while all the people of the United States were declared to be citizens thereof; and thus the citizens of any one State in the Union were given "the right to enter every State whenever they pleased," I again quote from Judge Taney's opinion in the Dred Scott case, "singly or in companies, without pass or passport and without obstruction, to sojourn there as long as they pleased, to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night, with- out molestation, unless they committed some violation of the law." In fact, the Confederacy was changed into a great nation based upon the will of the whole people, and suljject to such laws as would conser\'e the general weal. Cer- tain modes of procedure were also laid down for altering or amending the Constitution, but nowhere do we iind provision made for the secession of a State from the national Confed- eration ; on the contrary, the idea of the fram- ers evidently was, that as national unity was necessary to national safety and individual lib- erty, so every possible means was taken to preserve that unity for themselves and their posterity. The Constitution declares that Con- gress shall guaranty to every State a republican form of government. Now, suppose the major- ity in any one State decide in favor of a mo- narchical or despotic government, this Is practi- cally carrying out the right of secession, for such a government is incompatible with the Union of these States. In view of the forma- tion of such a government, the minority in that State could appeal to the Congress of the Uni- ted States for protection, and Congress would be compelled to Intervene In order to vindicate the Constitution of the United States and_ the principle of universal suffrage on which it is founded. The duty devolving upon the United States of guarantying a republican government to the citizens of every State is one of the strongest evidences that the secession of a State was never contemplated by the fathers ; but, on the contrary, the paramountduty of the Govern- ment was to preserve the liberty of the citizen, whether menaced by insurrection or despotism by the States or any confederation of them, or by any enemy from abroad. Indeed, thecontlngencywhichrendered inter- vention necessary to preserve the liberty of the people has occurred In our day, and was caused not by any despotic act of the central author- ity itself, but by the ditempt of an oligarchy based on* the right of man to hold property in man, through the perversion of the doctrine of State rights, to trample on the liberties of the people and extinguish them forever under the worst despotism In all the annals of history. 6 The right of a State to secede, then, is found to be incomi^atible with the principle of universal suffrage, and the fathers seeing that it might, and no doubt would, endanger it, so worded the organic act as to decree a perpetual Union for the purpose of perpetuating liberty with it. Liberty and union, one and inseparable, was inscribed on their banner ; and their sons dur- ing the late rebellion have held it aloft amid scenes of blood and carnage such as the world had never previously witnessed. Aftersuch a contest, and such a triumphant termination thereto, is it possible that any true patriot can for a moment doubt that the idea of the fathers transmitted to their children became in them an article of political faith, so deeply engraven in their hearts and consciences that all the demoniacal powers of a despotism could not prevail to undermine or destroy it? It was this faith that sustained us through the late bloody struggle against the enemies of human rights. It is this faith in liberty and union that will always prove a wall of fire against any similar assaults in the future. But, Mr. Speaker, the enemies of this Union and this liberty are still insidiously at work. They still talk of State rights and State sov- ereignty. But still, as before, with them State rights means the right of an oligarchy to de- prive the people of their liberties, to say that a citizen of the United States shall not be en- titled to the privileges and immunities of the citizens of each State. This is the real animus of State rights ; and secession means the deter- mination to enforce the dogma outside the pro- tecting tegis of the Constitution, if they cannot do so within. We respect Rome, because she protected her citizens in all the provinces of her vast dominion, even the most remote. Saul of Tarsus, though a Jew, appealed to her for protection from the lash, and his appeal was heard. We admire Great Britain, because she also protects her citizens, and allows no State to make exceptive laws discriminating^ against them. But are we to deny to an American cit- izen, one of the sovereign people of our free Government, that supreme right of protec- tion which despotic Governments are so care- ful to accord to their subjects or their slaves ? We do deny this supreme right to our citizens when we acknowledge that a State can secede from the Union and thus deprive its citizens of that support and protection, of those rights of sovereign citizenship, to confirm and preserve which the Union itself was formed, and formed for no other purpose. As regards the dogma of State suicide, so ably set forth by Mr. Stevens and others, I cannot indorse it con^stently with these views. A State may, by alteration or amdiidment of its organic act, place itself in a position that puts it without the pale of republican govern- ment. It still remains a State, however, sub- ject to the Constitution, and Congress is bound to see that the penalties, if not privileges, of that instrument are visited upon it. It thus remains a State for correction and amendment, in order that its citizens, who are at the same time citizens of the United States, may be pro- tected in fheir rights and privileges, at least that portion of them who continue true to their allegiance to the Constitution and the Union. The Constitution provides no way for the seces- sion of a State from the Union, and no State having been taken out by the war it is plain that these States lately in rebellion have never been out, and are consequently still in the Union. The question whether it is in or out, theoret-^ ically, is not so important as the questionof restoration, and that is the question with which we are now called upon to deal. It is a most important question, because that upon it de- pends the restoration and perpetuation of the Union. And in approaching this question the first consideration should be the fitness of the late so-called seceded States to renew their alle- giance to the Union. This fitness depends on, first, their loyalty to the Constitution ; secondly, their loyalty to human rights, the rights and privileges of every citizen thereof. As regards loyalty to the Union, we should be satisfied that they will repudiate all their debts incurred in the prosecution of the late war ; and on the other hand respect the debts contracted by us in putting down the rebellion. This would be such a practical exhibition of loyalty as to fully satisfy the Union man most doubtful as to the honesty of their future. True, this has virtually been repudiated by the collapse of the rebel- lion itself, but it remains a source ofalarm to our loyal people and an engine of mischief with which demagogues may yet play to the injury of the country and its institutions. Mr. Speaker, when the States lately in re- bellion shall send loyal Representatives here, and when I see evidences of a desire on the part of the people to do justly and love mercy, and to walk as becomes members of a Chris- tian republican commonweath, I shall rejoice to admit them to the full and perfect rights and privileges of which they have by their own folly been deprived. From some of the States lately in insurrec- tion members have been elected to this Con- gress against whom not even a suspicion of disloyalty can be breathed. On the contrary, they are noble and worthy men who have per- iled all, property, family connections, and life itself, in the cause of the Union. The States which they represent having fulfilled ^the con- ditions of admission understood by all to have been imposed upon them after the suppression of the rebellion, are entitled to representation by loyal men. I think in the cases of all of these States and of these loyal Representatives, the committee on reconstruction should report immediately and favorably. But at any rate, Mr. Speaker, the committee, having a proper sense of wliat is due to tbe intelligence, honor, and dignity of this House, should make a re- port setting forth its reasons for the exclusion of these States and their loyal Representatives. In that case we could act understandingly, and with all the lights on this subject before us. Such a report would also tend to greatly relieve the suspense and an.xiety under which the coun- try labors respecting the great question^ of re- construction and pacification of the Union. I admit that on account of ihe factious con- duct of the South, which, since the defeat of the great rebel armies in the field, has in many States been increasing rather than diminish- ing in virulence, a state of war virtually exists in the gi-eater portion of that section ; but in those States in which such a condition of things does not prevail, would it not bo well to admit members by districts upon proper scrutiny of liieir antecedents? Indeed, is not this a legal mode of admitting members to seats in this House? The States are represented in the Senate and the people in the House of Repre- sentatives, whose members are elected by dis- tricts. If a State is not or cannot be fully rep- resented, there is no reason that it should not be represented at all. Pennsylvania to-day is not fully represented, having but twenty-three instead of twenty-four members on this floor, in consequence of a contest for the representation in the sixteenth district. Because that district i^i not represented, shall we disfranchise the en- tire State? So it is with some of these States lately in rebellion. Take the case of Tennes- see. It has established a loyal government. It stands by the Union to-day as firmly and steadfastly as Maryland, Missouri, or Ken- tucky. Tennessee was admitted to a seat in the last national Union convention, and one of her sons was selected for the Vice Presidency, and I can see no reason why its loyal Representa- tives shall be excluded here. Shall we exclude tlie noble Maynard and others of his colleagues because one or more of the Representatives may present so disloyal a record as to prevent their admission? These are certainly ques- tions for the House to consider, and I respect- fully urge the committee on reconstruction to report upon them, so that we may take the necessary action in so important a matter. And while upon the subject of the reconstruc- tion and readmission of the States, permit me to say a few words regarding amendments to the Constitution. I am opposed to all unne- cessary and sweeping amendments of that in- strument. They have a tendency to subvert insidiously our form of government, and to beget a want of reverence for the Constitution, which will finally make it subject to the sport of every wind of doctrine and the object of demagogical assaults, the most dangerous not only to our liberty, but to the stability of the Government. I am especially opposed to the proposition to elect the President directly by the popular vote. Such a proposition would tend to make the Government a consolidated democracy, which would as surely lapse into a consolidated despot- ism under the rule of some great military chief- tain, or of some representative of sectional in- terest overriding State authority and State indi- viduality. To preserve, as I have heretofore endeavored to show. State individuality in ac- cordance with national unity, was the great purpose and labor of the fathers. Such an amendment, in my opinion, would sooner or later overthrow the first, and convert the second into an unmitigated despotism. Before closing I am constrained to notice a statement made the other day by my colleague from the fourth district, [Mr. Rogeks,] so aptly designated yesterday by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Scofiei.d] as the "leaderof the Opposition," who, I regret, is not now in his seat, when deliveringhis very able speech upon the constitutional amendment, then before the House, which, unexplained, places our State in a false position, which I believe he did not intend. He stated that New Jersey "had sent no colored troops to the war." It is true that New Jersey sent no organized colored troops to the field, and for a reason well known to my friend and to the people of our State, but she did send many gallant negro soldiers — not a few of them from my own town — who were obliged to secure ad- mission in organizations in Pennsylvania and Rhode Island. They fought well, and deserve the commendation of their State and country. Some of them found an honorable death, and to-day their bones bleach on the plains of Lou- isiana or lie buried in the bloody trenches of Petersburg and Richmond. Mr. Speaker, New Jersey has never faltered, in any regard, in her obligations to the Gov- ernment nor in her devotion to the Union. Her sons, imbibing their patriotism upon the gory fields of the Revolution, sent forth men and money freely as her waters course to the ocean. The seventy-nine thousand five hundred and eleven soldiers and sailors — besides many fur- nished to adjoining States — with the millions of her treasure expended in the war, furnish the most fitting reply to those who malign her patriotism or impugn her loyalty. Her sons fell on every field, the foremost in the fight, and were ever counted the bravest of the brave. She gave such men as Kearney, Bayard, the Taylors, Allen, Tucker, Ryerson, Zabriskei. Janeway, Hatch, Vredenburgh, Haines, and Arrowsmith, with thousands of other braves, counting them a fitting sacrifice to place upon the altar of liberty, and she cherishes their memories as a priceless heritage. Mr. Speaker, the late gigantic rebellion hav- ing been subdued and the armies thereof utterly routed and dispersed, it is but natural that our people should turn with beaming eyes and grate- ful laearts to the heroic Union soldiers and sail- 8 ors who have so nobly periled their all in defense of their country. Never shall their great deeds be forgotten. Forever shall the memory of our gallant dead be embalmed in the hearts of the living. On the banks of many a southern river ; under the spreading foliage of many a southern forest tree ; on the hillsides and in the valleys of the South are the tensof thousands of those grassy mounds which mark the last resting- places of the noble Union dead. In many a northern home the widow and the orphan, the brother and the sister, the bereaved father and the disconsolate mother, await the. footfall on the step without, that so often in the past, had been the sweetest music to their ears, but await it in vain. Never more on this earth shall the form of that brave boy who proudly stepped from his father's door to take his place in the Union column as it filed past, be clasped again to that father' s heart. Never more shall a mother" s kiss be pressed upon his brow as he sleeps in his little cot, inthehumblechamberoftheoldhomestead: " He has fought his last fight, he has won his last battle, No sound shall awake him to glory again." But in the grateful heart of a redeemed nation should his memory and the memory of his glo- rious death be enshrined as long as our mount- ains lift their heads to the heavens and our rivers bear the waters of the continent to the sea. Let it be our chiefest care to see that the survivors of this momentous and appalling strife be the objects of a nation's solicitude and a na- tion's care. Failing in not only our duty but our gratitude to these men, we fail in one of the noblest attributes of a nation — that sovereign attribute of justice to those who have helped to save it from destruction. And this justice in- cludes the right of these men to equal bounties and equal pay as well as the right when incapaci- tated Ijy sickness or wounds from earning "their daily bread to a comfortable maintenance from the Government. Thus, fulfilling all our duties, protecting all who need pi-otection, fostering the weak, and giving the strong every possible opportunity to build up the waste places of the land, let us so conduct our aifairs as not only to attract to our nation the admiring eyes of the world at large, but to draw down upon it the approving smile of iUmighty God. And now, Mr. Speaker, unmindful of all con- sequences to ourselves, individually, but im- pressed with our responsibility to all mankind, casting oar vision beyond the present and into the far distant future, let us endeavor to rees- tablish this Government upon the endui-ingjmn- ciple of ''equal and exact justice to all men," and to lay its foundations deep and broad upon the eternal rock of liberty and a perpetual Union. So shall our beloved country, healed of her wounds, and disinthralled from the en- chantment which has bound her for a hundred years, spring into a new existence, to exceed in grandeur and greatness the wildest visions of the patriot fathers, and her banner, planted high upon the everlasting hills of truth and justice, and illuminated by the sun of freedom, shall be- come a beacon to the oppressed children of men who shall come hitherward and find a refuge and a heritage for themselves and their chil- dren, and their*children's children, till time shall be no more. Printed at the Congressional Globe Office. r ■^- •-•