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CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



prise that -while the executive department of 

 the Government recognizes the people and the 

 States where the insurrection once existed as 

 the people of States and as States, and while 

 the judicial department gives to them the same 

 recognition, this, the legislative department of 

 the Government, is the only one which denies 

 to them such rights. We have lately, as well 

 as during the last session, appointed judges, 

 appointed marshals, appointed district attor- 

 neys, 'appointed tax-gatherers, appointed post- 

 masters for these States, in like manner, and 

 in the exercise of the same power, in and under 

 which we have appointed them for the other 

 States, without. the slightest distinction. The 

 Supreme Court of the United States now at 

 this moment, as well as at the last session, is 

 entertaining appeals and writs of error taken 

 or prosecuted from the decisions of the supe- 

 rior courts of the States, as I think they are, 

 of the South. Bills 'are now depending hefore 

 it, and without the objection from any quarter 

 of the authority of the States to present them, 

 filed by States which were in insurrection 

 against other States that were not in insurrec- 

 tion, although it was perfectly open, on objec- 

 tion by demurrer or by plea, that the State 

 suing was not a State of the United States, 

 and consequently not entitled to sue, not en- 

 titled to invoke the original jurisdiction of the 

 Supreme Court of the United States. 



" There is now pending, instituted by one of 

 the States you propose to place under military 

 rule, a bill by the State of Virginia against 

 West Virginia, to settle a disputed question of 

 boundary, and that disputed question of bound- 

 ary must be decided as against West Virginia, 

 even if the court should not entertain juris- 

 diction at the instance of the State of Virginia, 

 if it be true that the State of Virginia is not 

 now a State in the Union, if she was not when 

 she agreed to divide herself and to have created 

 within her original limits the State of West 

 Virginia. And yet, no lawyer in that forum, 

 no statesman, if there be any such, and I sup- 

 pose there are as many there as there are in 

 any of the States of the Union, has ventured 

 to deny the right of the State of Virginia to file 

 that bill upon the ground that she was no State 

 within the meaning of the clause which gives 

 original jurisdiction to the Supreme Court of 

 the United States in cases between State and 

 State. No member of this body now, how- 

 ever it may have been some time ago, denies 

 that West Virginia was a State of the United 

 States ; but if the consequence of the insur- 

 rection of Virginia was, while West Virginia 

 was within her limits, that she ceased to be a 

 State of the Union, she had no authority to 

 assent to a division of her own territory ; and 

 if the proposition necessarily involved in this 

 bill be true, my friends who so ably represent 

 West Virginia have no place in this Chamber. 

 And yet, no member of the body suggests that 

 they shall be removed upon the ground that 

 they were improperly admitted. 



"Entertaining the view I have held from the 

 first, and having an instinctive repugnance, 

 made the sti'onger by historical reading, and 

 still stronger, if possible, by what I have seen 

 since this war commenced, to military rule, 

 there is no condition of things which could 

 induce me to vote for a bill which is to place 

 under such military rule any portion of the 

 United States. There have been occasions 

 during the late war when I believed that the 

 safety of the country demanded the exercise 

 of powers more or less doubtful, and when I 

 was willing to see them exercised, being deter- 

 mined to have the country saved from the peril 

 to its existence in which it was then placed ; 

 but that peril was from insurrection, culminated 

 into a civil war, which aimed to dismember and 

 destroy our Government. That insurrection 

 is at an end. I am not required to place the 

 truth of that fact upon any assertion of my 

 own ; the very amendments before us in rela- 

 tion to the restoration of these States admit 

 that the insurrection is at an end. The Recon- 

 struction Committee, to whom this subject was 

 referred at the last session, and in whose hands 

 it has been since, when they reported an article 

 for an amendment to the Constitution, reported 

 a bill to accompany it; first, as conclusive evi- 

 dence to show that in the opinion of a majority 

 of that body those States were then States, the 

 constitutional amendment was submitted to the 

 States ; secondly, because the bill itself in its 

 preamble stated that ' it is expedient that the 

 States lately in insurrection ' should be re- 

 stored to their relations to the United States, 

 and the very title of the bill was, ' A bill to 

 provide for restoring the States lately in insur- 

 rection to their full political rights.' 



" That being the position in which, as I sup- 

 pose, the States stand, the Senate will not be 

 surprised when I state, or repeat what I stated 

 this morning, that under no circumstances can 

 I vote for the bill as it is, unless it be so 

 amended as entirely to alter its nature. 



" I have said thus much merely as preliminary 

 to what I am about to say in relation to this 

 amendment. I want, what the committee who 

 reported the original constitutional amend- 

 ment and the bill which accompanied it de- 

 clared that they wanted, and what the hon- 

 orable chairman of that committee on the part 

 of the Senate has more thau once said in 

 debate on this floor, with a sincerity that 

 nobody could doubt, if they could doubt his 

 sincerity at all on any subject, that they and 

 he look to an early restoration of the Union 

 with an anxious solicitude. Now, what do you 

 propose by the bill as it stands without the 

 amendment? To place the whole South under 

 what is neither more nor less than a military 

 despotism. To terminate when ? Not when, in 

 the judgment of the members of the present 

 Congress, who think that under ' the particular 

 circumstances of this case such a despotism 

 is necessary to secure the rights of the peo- 

 ple, that necessity shall cease to exist, but 



