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CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



State governments; and that being the case, 

 the gentleman will find an answer to his ques- 

 tion in this : that it follows from the premises, 

 that the legislative power of the Government 

 of the United States is exclusive within those 

 States, and so will continue until the people 

 thereof reorganize constitutional State govern- 

 ments, and the same shall he recognized by 

 Congress." 



Mr. Lawrenc'e, of Ohio, said : " For myself, 

 I am ready to set aside, by law, all these illegal 

 governments. They have rejected all fair terms 

 of reconstruction; they have rejected the con- 

 stitutional amendments we have tendered them ; 

 they are engines of oppression against all loyal 

 men; they are not republican in form or in 

 practice. Let them not only be ignored as 

 legal governments, but set aside because they 

 are illegal. And, inasmuch as the force of 

 circumstances will not permit us to pass ' en- 

 abling acts' that would be faithfully carried 

 into effect, we may properly confer upon the 

 national courts already existing in the rebel 

 States the power to exercise all necessary juris- 

 diction in all cases where judicial authority may 

 be requisite. This jurisdiction can be conferred 

 on existing national courts just as fully as it is 

 conferred on courts created in the Territories. 

 This will give to all the people the protection 

 of a judiciary under national authority. This 

 bill provides that each district shall have as- 

 signed to it an officer of the regular Army, 

 who might be called, but is not, a military or 

 provisional governor. He will be the execu- 

 tive authority, just as Andrew Johnson was 

 military governor of Tennessee, when its mili- 

 tary necessities required such an officer there. 



" With this military and judicial authority in 

 operation, the people can by voluntary action, 

 as in the case of Tennessee, form a State gov- 

 ernment in each State and submit it to Con- 

 gress for its ratification and approval. And 

 such governments, when properly organized 

 and in loyal hands, and, like Tennessee, ac- 

 cepting the proper terms of reconstruction, can 

 by the action of Congress be ratified, and the 

 States restored to their proper practical rela- 

 tions in the Union. The amendments I have 

 to suggest will complete this bill, and give that 

 civil jurisdiction which this bill does not. All 

 this is authorized by the Constitution in that 

 clause which makes it the duty of Congress to 

 guarantee to every State a republican form of 

 government. Congress is the sole judge of 

 the means necessary to accomplish this end. 

 The ten unreconstructed rebel States have no 

 lawful State governments, and it is the duty of 

 Congress now to take the steps necessary to 

 create new State governments." 



Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, said : " If I agreed 

 with the other side of this House in regard to 

 the state of fact and the resulting state of law 

 that is now upon our country, I would most 

 heartily and thoroughly agree with them that 

 it would not only be incompetent but mon- 

 strous for us to pass this bill into law on the 



state of facts assumed by my friends on the 

 other side of the House : that we are in a state 

 of profound peace, that there is peace in every 

 sense of the word all over the Eepublic in the 

 civil administration of the law ; that the courts 

 are open everywhere, and redress for violence 

 and wrong can be obtained. I say if that is 

 the* state of the Republic, we must not pass this 

 bill. 



u Your Constitution, with that strange wis- 

 dom that amounts to inspiration, which, as we 

 go along in these troublous times, only excites 

 more and more the admiration of every right- 

 thinking man, has foreseen and provided for 

 the exact state of the country which is now, 

 alas ! upon us. In that provision of your Con- 

 stitution to which I now allude, and which is 

 the one touching the suspension of the habeas 

 corpus, the framers of the instrument provided 

 for and have indicated what the duties of the 

 hour are. Whenever in time of rebellion or 

 of invasion the public safety requires that the 

 privileges of that writ shall be suspended, it 

 becomes not only the right, but the duty of the 

 Government of the United States, either Con- 

 gress or the Executive and for the purposes 

 of this inquiry it makes no difference whether 

 the power be lodged in the President or in 

 Congress to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. 

 That is this bill in all its scope and effect, and 

 nothing beyond that. The bill assumes that 

 the Republic is in a condition of rebellion when 

 the public safety requires that the privileges of 

 the writ of habeas corpus shall be suspended, 

 because the courts are unable to administer the 

 law. Now, if we are mistaken in that fact, 

 then this bill must be wrong, as, indeed, must 

 every other conceivable method of reconstruc- 

 tion." 



Mr. Raymond, of New York, said : " The 

 character of the bill may be stated in a very 

 few words. It is% simple abnegation of all 

 attempts for the time to protect the people in 

 the Southern States by the ordinary exercise of 

 civil authority. It hands over all authority in 

 those States to officers of the Army of the > 

 United States, and clothes them, as officers of 

 the Army, with complete, absolute, unrestricted 

 power, to administer the affairs of those States 

 according to their sovereign will and pleasure. 

 Gentlemen may say that those officers are there 

 to enforce the laws and protect the rights of 

 the people secured to them by law. What 

 laws, what rights, what statutes, define the 

 rights which these officers of the army are to 

 protect the people in enjoying ? Not the laws 

 of those States, for those States are discarded, 

 and their authority to make law at all is ex- 

 pressly repudiated. Not the laws of the United 

 States, for there is no law of the United States 

 to punish larceny, felony, murder, or crime of 

 any sort. There is no law of the United States 

 to enforce contracts or to regulate the rela- 

 tions of individuals as members of the com- 

 munity, as citizens of the States in which they 

 live, and those States are not allowed to make 



