CONGRESS, UNITED STAPES. 



1G9 



a and signed by the President, in the face 



.f i 1 provision of the Constitution, 



that 'carh House shall bo the judge of the elec- 

 tions <|ii;ililications, and returns of its own mem- 



"Tlu-f, Mr. I'lv-idcnt, are the two systems 

 of policy now presented for the consideration 

 of this country. One or the other must be 

 adopted by the Government. All minor issues, 

 and all intermediate views and opinions, must 

 gravitate toward and bo absorbed by one or 

 tin- other of these great commanding systems 

 of policy; and all questions of local interest 

 or of minor details in the work of reconstruc- 

 tion become therefore unimportant, and may be 

 left out of consideration. 



" I have stated what I believe to be the true 

 iu the briefest possible form of words. 

 Here, in my judgment, is the whole of this vast 

 question which is to agitate the public mind of 

 this country, and the decision of which is to 

 shape and control its governmental policy for 

 a long period of years. All points of mere de- 

 tail in regard to it will be lost sight of and for- 

 gotten in view of the vast and overwhelming 

 idea of the permanent and fraternal reunion of 

 the people of every one of those States under 

 a common flag and a common representative 

 Government. It is impossible, in the nature 

 of things, that the public mind should be occu- 

 pied by any other political question. Until this 

 is decided, finally and forever, no personal or 

 party consideration can divert the eager at- 

 . tention of the people from the exclusive inves- 

 tigation of this question. Nor can any thought- 

 ful mind doubt as to the final decision. Before 

 the war the love of the Union was the passion 

 of the loyal national heart, and now that the 

 war is over its passion will be reunion. For 

 a brief period the dissevered sections of our 

 country may be held apart by the main force of 

 party and of faction, but every day the mutual 

 attraction of the separated parts is growing 

 stronger and more irresistible. If there are 

 any who attempt to hold them asunder, their 

 fate will be that of Milo : 



' The Roman, when he rent the oak, 

 Dreamed not of the rebound.' 



" They may be crushed, but the Union will be 

 restored under a Constitution amended and 

 purified, by which slavery is forever abolished, 

 and freedom, with all its incidents, forever 

 guaranteed. 



"Believing the first-named policy to be, as 

 has been conclusively proven by the distin- 

 guished Senator from Wisconsin (Mr. Doolittle), 

 that of President Lincoln, and that in adopting 

 it President Johnson has but followed in the 

 path of his predecessor; and believing also 

 that this policy is but a continuation of the 

 (rreat struggle in defence of the noble cause of 

 the Union, for which President Lincoln and all 

 his martyred brethren died, I declare my con- 

 fident trust that the people will support and 

 uphold Andrew Johnson in its advocacy and 



defence, aa in the darkest days of the war they 

 supported and uphold Abraham Lincoln." 



Mr. John-on, of Maryland, followed, saying: 

 " The question is, what is the present condi- 

 tion of the States in which the rebellion pre- 

 vailed ? I suppose all will agree that the rebel- 

 lion or the insurrection, or (if my friend will 

 have it so) the war, as contradistinguished from 

 rebellion and insurrection, has terminated. 

 There is no hostile force now to be found in any 

 one of the States in which the rebellion or the 

 insurrection or the civil war existed. There is 

 no opposition found anywhere in those States, 

 by act, to the authority of the Government of 

 the Union. The paramount obligation due to 

 that authority is practically conceded every- 

 where, and a willingness to abide by that par- 

 amount authority is manifested everywhere, so 

 far as my information extends. However it 

 may be in relation to individuals or classes of 

 individuals to be found in those States, there 

 does not exist now in any one of them any pur- 

 pose or any wish to resist the authority of the 

 General Government. On the contrary, so far 

 from wishing to resist that authority, their ar- 

 dent desire is to have it exercised over them, 

 and to b* protected by all the securities which 

 the Constitution throws around individuals or 

 States in the exercise of that authority. 



" If the fact be as I have stated, and I repeat 

 that I know of no evidence in contradiction of 

 it, then it would seem strange that any depart- 

 ment of this Government, while extending to 

 them the authority of the Government, enfor- 

 cing as against them the allegiance due by them 

 to the Government, legislating in relation to 

 them by virtue of authority, legislating in every 

 form of legislation which Congress has a right 

 to adopt, taxing them under the taxing power, 

 both by the imposition of duties npon imports 

 in their several ports and by the imposition of 

 taxes by your internal revenue law, should be 

 unwilling to give them the same security, the 

 same guaranty that the Constitution secures to 

 you and to all of us and our respective States 

 in the execution of the same authority upon us 

 and our States. 



" With these preliminary remarks, I deem it 

 necessary for the purpose I have in view very 

 briefly to call the attention of the Senate to the 

 character of the Government under which we 

 live. My friend from Maine, and to a greater 

 extent the member from Massachusetts (Mr. 

 Sumner), have discussed the question which I 

 am about to examine as if we were living under 

 but one Government, owing but one allegiance, 

 a Government not only paramount within any 

 prescribed limits, but paramount everywhere 

 without limitation, capable of doing every 

 thing that any Government, national in point 

 of character, can do within its domains. Is that 

 true, Mr. President? 



" When the thirteen colonies determined to 

 resist what they considered the tyrannical usur- 

 pations of England and declared themselves free 

 and independent, and succeeded in achieving 



