173 



CONGEESS, UNITED STATES. 



people of all classes had been left by tbe Fed- 

 eral Government at the mercy of these fiends, 

 men, women, and children ; after they had suf- 

 fered all the miseries of war as the consequence, 

 then to turn round to them and say to them, 

 ' We will not punish the rebels who are guilty 

 and who have brought all these misfortunes upon 

 you, but we will punish you who are innocent, 

 Instead of saying to the traitors ' We will hang 

 you for treason,' you say to the innocent people,' 

 'We will keep you out of Congress.' Think 

 of it. 



" We have no right to do this, either by law 

 or in morals, and just as long as we persist in 

 it, just so long will we be the allies of disunion, 

 and enemies to the peace of the country. We 

 hear it said here very often that in order to en- 

 able us to judge correctly and act advisedly in 

 this matter we ought to have a general recogni- 

 tion of the State governments by Congress, that 

 we may act together and avoid conflict. All 

 this is plausible, but mischievous, because there 

 is really not a doubt but that the present State 

 governments are in the sole and undisputed pos- 

 session of their several States, and are obeyed 

 cheerfully as such. And the pretence that they 

 require investigation and legislation to restore 

 their relations with the Federal Government is 

 only urged as it indirectly attains the end so 

 much to be deprecated, namely, that of punish- 

 ing the people in an unlawful and unconstitu- 

 tional manner. 



" Another and fatal objection to the course 

 proposed in this resolution is that it provides 

 for the joint action of the House and Senate 

 in a matter which it is of the greatest moment 

 should be kept entirely separate. If joint ac- 

 tion can take place in cases of this kind, then 

 the advantages which the country expected, 

 and which it has realized, in the Senate of the 

 United States, are lost to it perhaps forever. 



" The constitutions of the two Houses are en- 

 tirely different. The House of Eepresentatives 

 is national, representing numbers ; the Senate is 

 Federal, representing States. The great States 

 of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois, are 

 therefore potent in the House, but in the Sen- 

 ate, Ehode Island, Delaware, Vermont, and 

 New Hampshire are their equals, and serve as 

 a kind of breakwater to prevent the effects 

 of the sudden impulses of such heavy popula- 

 tions as inhabit the States first named. The 

 Senate is indeed the bulwark of the smaller 

 States, and they ought therefore to be the es- 

 pecial guardians of the Constitution, because it 

 is only by maintaining the strictest reverence 

 for it they can expect to maintain their equal 

 rights. I have been much surprised therefore 

 to find Senators on this floor, whose interests 

 of all others were most in danger, show such 

 apathy with regard to these innovations, which 

 if they are ever to become precedents will 

 assuredly work the destruction of the lesser 

 States. 



"Now, the Constitution expressly provides 

 that 



Each House shall be the judge of the elections ro- 

 turns, and qualifications of its own members. 



u A provision that must strike every one at 

 first sight as necessary i the bodies are to be a 

 check one upon the other. Because if the Sen- 

 ate had to decide who shall go into the House 

 or who shall not go in, the House would soon 

 become the creature of the Senate and de- 

 pendent upon it for its existence; and so if 

 the Senate were to allow the House the same 

 rights over its members. This resolution, how- 

 ever, very ungenerously selects only a single 

 point upon which to apply the joint action 

 complained of, and that is this: that both 

 Houses shall jointly decide which are the States 

 entitled to representation. That is the whole 

 of it. 



"" Now, Mr. President, can any thing be clearer 

 than that this very question has been already 

 settled authoritatively and beyond dispute ? Has 

 not the Constitution settled it ? Is it not to be 

 found on every line and page of our laws and 

 especially in the act of March 4, 1862 ? 



" Then, if this be so, the joint committee 

 prevents the Senate from deciding on the elec- 

 tions, returns, and qualifications of its mem- 

 bers, because it gets behind the whole and 

 denies the right of States to members at all. 

 It does not deny but that they have Legisla- 

 tures competent to elect if it did, the answer 

 would be obvious : the Senate will decide that 

 on the question of elections but it declares 

 at once, boldly, that although the people of 

 these States are desirous of submitting to the 

 laws they offended against, we will impose 

 upon them a new penalty not known to the 

 law. 



" Mr. President, I think I have shown beyond 

 question that at the breaking out of the rebel- 

 lion there was not any considerable number of 

 people, in any of the States in question, who 

 ever were guilty of treason to the United States, 

 if we admit the law to be as I hold it is, namely, 

 that if the legitimate Government of any coun- 

 try suffers itself to be dispossessed and a hos- 

 tile Government to be established and put in 

 possession in its stead, so that it cannot protect 

 its citizens in their resistance to such hostile 

 Government, then it cannot punish them for 

 acts done afterward under the authority of and 

 in obedience to the hostile government; such 

 acts cannot amount to treason, and the law ex- 

 cuses them. 



"I think I have also shown that the mo- 

 ment the rebels yield and surrender, they are 

 immediately in the custody of the law, and 

 can only be subjected to such punishment as 

 it provides to be inflicted upon them through 

 the courts according to 'due process' of law. 



"I have shown that for any guilty part 

 taken by the people in the late war, that the 

 sufferings and losses they endured in that war 

 were the natural and sufficient punishment; 

 that after it they remained purged, and ought 

 to be remitted to all their constitutional rights 

 at once. 



