CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



281 



ernment will tend to enfeeble the Union, to postpone 

 the day of reconciliation, and to endanger the na- 

 tional tranquillity. 



SEC. 9. And be it further resolved, That consider- 

 ations of expediency are in harmony with the re- 

 quirements of the Constitution and the dictates of 

 justice and reason, especially now, when colored 

 soldiers have shown their military value; that as 

 their muskets are needed for the national defence 

 against rebels in the field, so are their ballots yet 

 more needed against the subtle enemies of the Union 

 at home ; and that without their support at the bal- 

 lot box the cause of human rights and of the Union 

 itself will be in constant peril. 



Mr. Howard, of Michigan, said : " I find in 

 the President's proclamation the following lan- 

 guage : 



And I do further proclaim, declare, and make 

 known, that whenever, in any of the States of Ar- 

 kansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, 

 Alabama, Georgia, Virginia, Florida, South Caro- 

 lina, and North Carolina, a number of persons not 

 less than one-tenth in number of the votes cast in 

 such State at the Presidential election in the year of 

 our Lord 1860, each having taken the oath aforesaid 

 and not having since violated it, and being a quali- 

 fied voter by the election laws of the State existing 

 immediately before the so-called act of secession, 

 and excluding all others, shall reestablish a State 

 government which shall be republican, and in nowise 

 contravening said oath, such shall be recognized as 

 the true government of the State, and the State shall 

 receive thereunder the benefits of the constitutional 

 provision which declares that "the United States 

 shall guarantee to every State in this Union a repub- 

 lican form of government, and shall protect each of 

 them against invasion, and, on application of the 

 Legislature, or the Executive (when the Legislature 

 cannot be convened), against domestic violence." 



" There is an assertion of authority on the 

 part of the Executive of the United States 

 made, I confess with pleasure, with the best of 

 motives and intentions, and for patriotic ends 

 an assertion that the President of the United 

 States, whenever one-tenth part of the people 

 constituting the population of any one of the 

 eleven rebellious States shall see fit to consti- 

 tute a government for the State, will recognize 

 of his own accord such government as being 

 the legitimate government of the State, entitled 

 to all the guarantees contained in the Consti- 

 tution of the United States to a State peaceful 

 and in the Union. And, sir, he gives this as- 

 surance at a time when all these States were 

 engaged, by his own confession, the admissions 

 of his own solemn proclamation, in a wicked, 

 bloody, and wanton insurrection against the 

 Government itself over which he is presiding 

 as Chief Magistrate. Sir, I cannot recognize 

 the authority of the President of the United 

 States without the subsidiary aid of an act of 

 Congress to give any such assurance to a com- 

 munity in insurrection against the United 

 States. I ask the friends of this measure, I 

 ask those gentlemen in this body who are so 

 anxious for the passage of this resolution, 

 which is, or will be, a recognition of this as- 

 eer^ion on the part of the President of the 

 United States, where in the Constitution do 

 they find an authority given to him authorizing 

 him to assure one-tenth part of the people of 



an insurrectionary State that they, to the ex- 

 clusion of all other portions of the population 

 of that State, shall be recognized as the State, 

 and be entitled to all the benefits of the guar- 

 antee contained in the Constitution? Sir, it 

 seems to me, without imputing or intending to 

 impute any wrongful intention to the excellent 

 President of the United States, that here is an 

 attempt to stretch the executive authority be- 

 yond any thing which the country has thus far 

 witnessed, and I think it is time Congress, in 

 whom, according to my ideas, rests, and rests 

 solely, the authority of readmitting and recon- 

 structing the rebellious States, should lay hold 

 of this subject, assert then* power, and provide 

 by some statute of uniform application for the 

 reconstruction, as it is called, and readmission, 

 of the insurrectionary States. That is their 

 right and their duty ; that is not the right, it is 

 not the duty, of the President of the United 

 States, in my opinion. 



" Mr. President, in order to determine what 

 extent of power Congress possesses over a 

 State once in rebellion, and now subdued by 

 the national arms, we must look into the nature 

 of the State governments, and the relations 

 they bear to the national Government. 



" What, then, is a State ? "What are its es- 

 sential attributes, without which it is no State ? 



" A State is a moral person, a political com- 

 munity, possessing the faculty of political gov- 

 ernment. Its being does not consist of geo- 

 graphical extent, but of the united will of the 

 persons who have their domicil within its lim- 

 its. To attribute to the mere land the qualities 

 of a State would be to mistake the cradle for 

 the child, the vessel for the crew, the dress we 

 behold moving before us for the immortal spirit 

 within. 



" The land is, of course, indispensable as 

 affording room for the working of this will, 

 but it is incapable of exercising or receiving 

 any political faculty or right ; as much so as 

 is the tombstone of indicating the present 

 thoughts of the departed. It is nothing, abso- 

 lutely nothing, but the theatre on which the 

 political community moves and acts, but is en- 

 dowed with no thought, no right, no duty. 



" It is not, therefore, in the argument of this 

 question, entitled to any weight or consider- 

 ation whatever, except as being the uncon- 

 scious theatre and footstool of the thinking 

 beings residing upon it ; and we must, there- 

 fore, confine our attention to them. They con- 

 stitute the State. They alone are the subjects 

 we are to consider. If rights exist they alone 

 possess them ; if our powers are to be exerted 

 it must be upon them only, and with a view to 

 influence their action, with a view to bring 

 their will into unison with our own. 



"However captious and trifling may seem 

 the objection founded on the inquiry, What is 

 a State of the Union, it is fortunate that even 

 this query was fully solved by the Supreme 

 Court of the United States at an early day, 

 and within a period of only seven years after 



