CONGRESS, TT. S. 



323 



which I have made in regard to the surrender 

 of the legislative department to the executive, 

 by the principle sought to be enforced by this 

 report, allow me to submit to the House what 

 I conceive the law in such cases to be. The 

 law as laid down in England, in a report 

 before me, in the case of Hall vs. Campbell 

 (1 Cowper's Keports), and which has the sanc- 

 tion of the highest courts of our own country, 

 is this : if you make conquest of territory from 

 a foreign enemy with whom you are at war, 

 you may in that territory in which you have 

 made conquest and planted your power, estab- 

 lish municipal regulations and civil laws, set 

 aside the laws which there prevail, and sub- 

 stitute a system of laws made by the legis- 

 lative authority of this country. This, how- 

 ever, is not true in the case of an insurrection- 

 ary district belonging to this Government. If 

 you reduce a revolted State to obedience, you 

 cannot supersede her laws and her domestic 

 institutions. She is protected in them by that 

 very Constitution whose supremacy you claim 

 it is the mission of our arms to restore. All 

 such States must be taken back, if taken back 

 at all, with all the laws unimpaired which they 

 themselves have made for their own govern- 

 ment, pursuant to the guarantees of the Fed- 

 eral Constitution. 



" Understand this principle. If the South- 

 ern confederacy is a foreign power, an inde- 

 pendent nationality to-day, and you have con- 

 quered back the territory of Louisiana, you 

 may then substitute a new system of laws in 

 the place of the laws of that State. You may 

 then supplant her civil institutions by institu- 

 tions made anew for her by the proper author- 

 ity of this Government not by the executive, 

 but by the legislative branch of the Govern- 

 ment, assisted by the executive simply to the 

 extent of signing his name to the bills of legis- 

 lation. If the chairman of the Committee of 

 Ways and Means (Mr. Stevens) is correct ; if 

 the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Conway) is 

 correct, and this assumed power in the South 

 is a power of the earth, and stands to-day upon 

 equal terms of nationality with ourselves, and 

 we conquer back State by State its territory 

 by the power of arms, then we may govern 

 them independently of their local laws. But 

 if the theory that we have been proceeding 

 upon here, that this Union is unbroken ; that 

 no States have sundered the bonds that bind 

 us together ; that no successful disunion has 

 yet taken place if that theory is still to pre- 

 vail in these halls, then this thing cannot be 

 done. You are as much bound to uphold the 

 laws of Louisiana in all their extent and in all 

 their parts as you are to uphold the laws of 

 Pennsylvania or New York, or any other State 

 whose civil policy has not been disturbed." 



Mr. Harrison, of Ohio, presented the follow- 

 ing view of the subject : " The congressional 

 delegation from that State was not chosen in 

 1861, in consequence of rebellion ; and the 



Ice of governor became vacant by reason 



of the treason of the governor and of his unit- 

 ing in the rebellion. In view of these facts 

 and of the other circumstances in which the 

 people of Louisiana had been placed by the 

 rebellion, might not the loyal electors of the 

 several districts in that State, when the mili- 

 tary power of the rebellion was suppressed by 

 the arms of the National Government, have 

 themselves, by their own voluntary action, as- 

 sembled in convention and appointed a time 

 for the holding of an election for members of 

 Congress, and would not Congress have been 

 authorized to receive as members represent- 

 atives thus chosen? Now, then, the people 

 of these two districts, having assented to the 

 time appointed by the military governor 

 (whether his action was legal or not) for the 

 holding of an election, and that election hav- 

 ing been actually held by the loyal electors of 

 the districts, are not the representatives of 

 their choice entitled to seats here ? " 



Mr. Voorhees, of Indiana, replied : " "Will 

 the gentleman from Ohio tell me how many 

 voters cast their votes on the day of that elec- 

 tion because they desired to be represented in 

 this Congress, and how many because they 

 wanted to save their slaves under the procla- 

 mation of the President ? If he can give me 

 this information, I can tell him how much the 

 ratification of which he speaks was worth. 

 Both inducements were held out ; and if the 

 gentleman can inform me how many persons 

 voted because they desired to prevent their 

 property being taken from them, and how 

 many because they desired to send these claim- 

 ants here, I can answer how far this act of the 

 military governor was ratified by the people. 

 The inducement in regard to their slaves was 

 deemed as of sufficient importance to insert in 

 the body of the proclamation, and I have no 

 doubt it brought many citizens to the polls." 



Mr. Maynard, of Tennessee, said : " "What is 

 the test by which an election is to be deter- 

 mined ? Unquestionably the ballot box. It is 

 the action of the electors there that must de- 

 cide. Sweep away all your sophistries, your 

 cobwebs, your fine-spun theories and technical 

 arguments. You must go to the ballot box 

 and count out the honest votes of the honest 

 and qualified electors. That is the voice to 

 which we must listen, and that is the only 

 voice that we may properly listen to the au- 

 tocratic voice of the people speaking as sov- 

 ereigns. 



" Now, it is asserted here, on the one side, 

 and is not denied on the other, that the elec- 

 tions in the first and second districts in Louis- 

 iana were fairly conducted ; that the ballot 

 boxes were left undisturbed ; that there was 

 no interposition ; that several candidates can- 

 vassed the districts, and presented their re- 

 spective claims to the electors as best they 

 might, and that neither the military nor any- 

 body else interposed to prevent a free exercise 

 of the elective franchise. That is asserted on 

 the one side, and it is not seriously controvert- 



