CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



139 



necessarily end at first sight, at least, wo 

 .M niiu-liiilo so in 1870. 

 Fow, it is claimed that the State Legis- 

 lature may continue its official oxistenoo and 

 <:-it y tor another term of two years. On 

 what ground is this claimed? The Senator 

 Indiana takes the very broadest ground, 

 lie asa irta that its existence as a State Legis- 

 lature will commence only with the admission 

 >r-iu as a State of the Union ; that is to 

 the State Legislature will commence its 

 leu'itimat" and legal life on the very day when 

 ire in Congress pass an act admitting the 

 of Georgia. Now, sir, if so, how can its 

 previous acts, not only those which were per- 

 formed in 1868, hut also those which have been 

 performed in February, 1870, be considered 

 legal, if, as will not be denied, they could be 

 luTinnMcd only by a State Legislature? " 



Mr. Morton : " Will the Senator allow me 

 to answer him ? " 



Mr. Schurz : " Certainly." 



Mr. Morton : " Upon the theory in all cases 

 received where a new State is formed out of a 

 Territory, never a State before, that when the 

 State is finally admitted the act relates back in 

 legal effect to sanction those things that were 

 done with a view to admission and as con- 

 ditions of admission." 



Mr. Carpenter : " Office-holding as well as 

 every thing else ? " 



Mr. Morton : " No, sir. I am not speaking 

 of that." 



Mr. Schurz : " Yes, sir, it is on the ground 

 of the so-called doctrine of relation that we 

 consider those acts which were performed by 

 a Legislature, elected as a State Legislature in 

 a Territory, before that Territory was ad- 

 mitted as a State, legal, inasmuch as the ad- 

 mission of the Territory as a State relates 

 back and validates all those acts which were 

 performed under the sanction of the State 

 constitution before. That is what I under- 

 stand the Senator from Indiana to say. Am I 

 correct? 1 " 



Mr. Morton : " Certainly." 



Mr. Schurz : " Yes, the act of admission 

 does relate back, and validates that which was 

 done before it ; but if it validates the acts per- 

 formed by a Legislature, I should liRe to know 

 whether it does not validate that Legislature 

 itself. If it validates the acts performed by 

 the Legislature, does it not validate and legalize 

 also the body which performed the acts at the 

 time when the acts were performed ? If the 

 expurgation of the constitution of Georgia was 

 a legal proceeding, and we certainly recognized 

 it as a legal compliance with a fundamental 

 condition imposed by Congress to be validated 

 by the act of admission, I would ask the Sena- 

 tor from Indiana whether it can possibly be 

 assumed that the Legislature, when it per- 

 formed that act, had no legal existence ? " 



Mr. Morton : "I will take the State of Ne- 

 braska, whore a condition was imposed, and 

 the condition was to be agreed to by the Legis- 



lature before the act of admission. Afterward 

 Nebraska came in. She dates as a State from 

 the date of her admission by act <>f Congress. 

 She dees not date as a State from the time 

 that condition was performed by the Legis- 

 lature. In other words, she was not a State 

 before she was a State." 



Mr. Schurz : " No, sir, that is true ; she 

 was not a State before she was a State ; but I 

 would ask the Senator whether the Legislature 

 which complied with that fundamental con- 

 dition was not afterward by the act of admis- 

 sion relating back to the act of the Legislature 

 recognized as a Legislature, which only as a 

 State Legislature could perform such an act ? ' ? 



" Mr. Morton : " After it fully came in, of 

 course it was." 



Mr. Schurz : " That is the very point I am 

 coming to." 



Mr. Morton : " Then we agree." 



Mr. Schurz : "I repeat, sir, if we admit 

 that the act of admission relates back to the 

 acts of the Legislature and validates them, 

 then it must necessarily relate back to the body 

 that performed the acts at the time when those 

 acts were performed. I think it never was 

 pretended that the term of a Legislature elected 

 in a Territory, as an inchoate State Legislature, 

 and legalized afterward by the act of admis- 

 sion of that Territory as a State, commenced 

 only after the act of admission ; but, if I remem- 

 ber correctly, it has been always held that the 

 act of admission validating the acts of the Le- 

 gislature, validated at the same time the exist- 

 ence of the Legislature at the time when those 

 acts were performed. Has not this always 

 been held? And was it ever pretended, I 

 ask the Senator from Indiana, when Congress 

 admitted the other reconstructed States, that 

 the term of their Legislatures commenced on 

 the very day when the act of readmission was 

 passed? I have not heard of a single case 

 where such a thing was done or pretended. 



" But, sir, if we should accept the doctrine 

 which it seems is held now by the Senator 

 from Indiana, that the Legislature was not a 

 legal State Legislature, and that the act of 

 admission does not legalize its existence at 

 the time it performed these acts complying 

 with the conditions precedent, what would be 

 the consequence? The whole system of re- 

 construction, which we have been so labori- 

 ously building up, will be tumbling down ; 

 all the constitutional amendments fall to the 

 ground; and I see, to use an old figure of 

 speech, the Senator from Indiana, like a blind 

 Samson, shaking the only pillar on which the 

 validity of these constitutional amendments 

 can rest. 



But, sir, we are estopped from accepting any 

 such doctrine. We are estopped by the very 

 act of December 22, 1869, which, by not pro- 

 viding for the reperformance of the conditions 

 precedent, recognized the validity of the legis- 

 lative acts by which they had been performed. 

 We are estopped by the very preamble to thia 



