CONGRESS, HOTTED STATES. 



263 



an absence of any authority given to the Vice- 

 President or to the two Houses when meeting 

 in convention to decide them if they should 

 arise, one would suppose unless we are to re- 

 main without a President, or to have placed in 

 the presidential office a man who is not eligible, 

 or to have one placed there by votes which there 

 was no constitutional right to cast that there 

 must be some mode by which those difficulties 

 are to be obviated. 



' ; Now, Mr. President, the honorable member 

 from New York I do not understand my friend 

 from Wisconsin as going to the extent of that 

 objection says that he denies to Congress the 

 power to declare that the votes of any State are 

 not to be counted. Does he mean to say that 

 the votes of the States in rebellion are to be 

 counted ? I do not speak of Louisiana, because 

 he may perhaps be able to excepi Louisiana out 

 of the category of rebel States ; but assuming 

 now that there are rebel States, and assuming 

 that Louisiana is one of the rebel States, does 

 my friend from New York say that the votes 

 of those States are to be counted ? I presume 

 not ; and yet if we do not legislate upon the 

 subject, where is the power to exclude them? 

 The Vice-President of the United States may 

 think it his duty to count them ; he may think 

 it his duty, counting them, to declare the re- 

 sult of the election consequent upon that count; 

 and it makes no difference that we know out- 

 side of the balloting that the result will be the 

 same whether those votes are counted or ex- 

 cluded, the principle is the same. We are not 

 to know, we do not officially know, what the 

 result of the election has been. Who can know 

 (officially, I mean) how the electors have 

 voted? 



" It is true that my honorable friends from 

 New York and from Wisconsin, and that is my 

 opinion as I am at 'present advised, think that 

 the efforts of those rebellious citizens to take 

 those several States out of the Union are legally 

 imperfect ; that is to say, in the contemplation 

 of the Constitution they are still subject to the 

 powers of the Constitution, and the war is being 

 carried on for the purpose of making them yield 

 obedience to the Constitution upon the hypoth- 

 esis that they are responsible to all the obliga- 

 tions of allegiance. That is all true ; but it is 

 equally true that they are in a state of rebellion. 

 The Supreme Court of the United States has 

 decided unanimously that since the passage of 

 the act to which my friend from Vermont has 

 referred, the act of July 13, 1861, all the States 

 named in the preamble to this resolution are 

 now at war with the United States, and that 

 the United States have not only the right but it 

 is their duty to prosecute that war to a success 

 by bringing them back, they being (not in a 

 constitutional sense, but practically) out of the 

 Union. Now, is it possible that the inhabitants 

 of a State thus at war with the United States 

 have a right to vote in any Presidential election 

 for President of the United States? " 



Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, said : " I should 



like to hear the honorable Senator from Mary- 

 land speak to this question, which is involved 

 in the last clause of the amendment offered by 

 the Senator from Vermont : suppose the rebel- 

 lion to be entirely suppressed, is it necessary 

 then, in order to restore them to their rights in 

 the Union, that we should enact a law that it 

 was suppressed ?" 



Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, replied : " My own 

 opinion has been throughout that the States are 

 not out, in one sense ; and if all the inhabitants 

 of those States were now to throw down their 

 arms, admit their allegiance to the United 

 States, and elect their members to the Senate, 

 &c., hereafter, after the rebellion was entirely 

 terminated, perhaps they would be entitled to 

 their seats ; but I am not prepared to say whether 

 I shall hold that opinion upon examination or 

 not. All that I mean to say now is, that it is 

 incumbent upon us to provide by law for a con- 

 tingency which has now happened, although it 

 may never happen again, so far as the particular 

 effects are concerned ; and it is now, above all, 

 the best time to provide for it, because, although 

 we do not know officially that it will have the 

 slightest effect upon the result, we do know that 

 there is involved in an exigency of that descrip- 

 tion very great peril." 



Mr. Collamer, of Vermont, said : " I desire to 

 add to the amendment that I have offered these 

 words : 



Nor shall any vote cast by any such electors elected 

 by the votes of the inhabitants of any such State, or 

 the Legislature thereof, be received or counted. 



" According to my view, when a state of war 

 has been declared to exist, declared according 

 to law, we cannot recognize a state of peace and 

 reconciliation in any other way but by declaring 

 it by law, or authorizing the President to de- 

 clare it by law." 



Mr. Ten Eyck, of New Jersey, said : "I am 

 not in favor of the adoption of the substitute 

 proposed by the Senator from Vermont, al- 

 though it- is always with the greatest diffidence 

 in the world that I venture to differ from him 

 in any well-considered proposition that he sub- 

 mits to the Senate. I understand his substitute 

 to be based upon the idea that under the act of 

 Congress and the President's declaration, we 

 are now in an actual state of war with these 

 eleven Southern States, and that it will require 

 an act of Congress to enable them to resume 

 their position again in the Federal Union. That 

 presupposes, in the first place, that they are out 

 of the Union, a fact which I am not willing to 

 admit and can never assent to; but I do not 

 propose to insist upon that. The main direc- 

 tion of the argument is, that inasmuch as the 

 President has declared these States to be in a 

 condition Of insurrection under an act of Con- 

 gress passed in 1861, therefore it will require an 

 act of Congress to enable them to resume their 

 legitimate or ordinary State functions; or, in 

 other words, it will require an act of Congress 

 to authorize them to elect electors for President 

 and Vice-President, and, as a necessary conse- 



