CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



153 



" There is, then, no truth in the allegation 

 that there is any attempt to place the Southern 

 States under negro supremacy; and if the 

 white people of those States are subjected 

 to any such supremacy, it is because they 

 chose it. They have in nearly every one of 

 those States a majority of votes. In all the 

 conventions which have been held, with the 

 exception of perhaps South Carolina, a large 

 majority of the members have been white. So 

 that this accusation of the Senator not being 

 true in point of fact, there is no need of re- 

 plying to the horrid condition of affairs which 

 he has painted as resulting from negro suprem- 

 acy." 



Mr. Morton, of Indiana, said: "The issue 

 here to-day is the same which prevails through- 

 out the country, and which will be the issue of 

 this canvass, and perhaps for years to come. 

 To repeat what I have had occasion to say else- 

 where, it is between two paramount ideas, 

 each struggling for the supremacy. One is, 

 that the war to suppress the rebellion was 

 right and just on our part; that the rebels for- 

 feited their civil and political rights, and can 

 only be restored to them upon such conditions 

 as the nation may prescribe for its future safety 

 and prosperity. The other idea is, that the 

 rebellion was not sinful, but was right; that 

 those engaged in it forfeited no rights, civil or 

 political, and have a right to take charge of 

 their State governments, and be restored to 

 their representation in Congress, just as if 

 there had been no rebellion and nothing had 

 occurred. The immediate issue before the 

 Senate now is between the existing State gov- 

 ernments, established under the policy of the 

 President of the United States in the rebel 

 States, and the plan of reconstruction presented 

 by Congress. 



" When a surveyor first enters a new terri- 

 tory, he endeavors to ascertain the exact lati- 

 tude and longitude of a given spot, and from 

 that can safely begin his survey ; and so I will 

 endeavor to ascertain a proposition in this de- 

 bate, upon which both parties are agreed, and 

 start from that proposition. That proposition 

 is, that at the end of the war, in the spring of 

 1865, the rebel States were without State 

 governments of any kind. The loyal State 

 governments existing at the beginning of the 

 war had been overturned by the rebels ; the 

 rebel State governments erected during the war 

 had been overturned by our armies, and at the 

 end of the war there were no governm'ents of 

 any kind existing in those States. This fact 

 was recognized distinctly by the President of 

 the United States, in his proclamation, under 

 which the work of reconstruction was com- 

 menced in North Carolina in 1865, to which I 

 beg leave to refer. The others were mere cop- 

 ies of this proclamation. In that proclamation, 

 he says : 



And whereas the rebellion which has been waged 

 by a portion of the people of the United States against 

 the properly constituted authorities of the Govern- 



ment thereof, in the most violent and revolting form, 

 "but whose organized and armed forces have now been 

 almost entirely overcome, has in its revolutionary 

 progress deprived the people of the State of North 

 Carolina of all civil government. 



" Here the President must be allowed to 

 speak for his party, and I shall accept this as a 

 proposition agreed upon on both sides: that at 

 the end of the war there were no governments 

 of any kind existing in those States. 



"The fourth section of the fourth article 

 of the Constitution declares that 'the United 

 States shall guarantee to every State in this 

 Union a republican form of government.' This 

 provision contains a vast, undefined power that 

 has never yet been ascertained a great super- 

 visory power given to the United States to en- 

 able them to keep the States in their orbits, to 

 preserve them from anarchy, revolution, and 

 rebellion. The measure of power thus con- 

 ferred upon the Government of the United 

 States can only be determined by that which 

 is requisite to guarantee or maintain in each 

 State a legal and republican form of govern- 

 ment. "Whatever power, therefore, may be 

 necessary to enable the Government of the 

 United States thus to maintain in each State 

 a republican form of government is conveyed 

 by this provision. 



" Now, Mr. President, when the war ended 

 and these States were found without govern- 

 ments of any kind, the jurisdiction of the uni- 

 ted States under this provision of the Consti- 

 tution, at once attached; the power to reor- 

 ganize State governments, to use the common 

 word, to reconstruct, to maintain and guarantee 

 republican State governments in those States, 

 at once attached under this provision. Upon 

 this proposition there is also a concurrence of 

 the two parties. The President has distinctly 

 recognized the application of this clause of the 

 Constitution. He has recognized the fact that 

 its jurisdiction attached when those States were 

 found without republican State governments, 

 and he himself claimed to act under this clause 

 of the Constitution. 



"It is true he recites in his proclamation 

 that he is the Command er-in-Chief of the Army 

 of the United States ; but at the same time he 

 puts his plan of reconstruction, not upon the 

 exercise of the military power which is called 

 to its aid, but on the execution of the guaran- 

 tee provided by the clause of the Constitution 

 to which I have referred. He appoints a Gov- 

 ernor for North Carolina and for these other 

 States, the office being civil in its character, 

 but military in its effects. This Governor has 

 all the power of one of the district command- 

 ers, and, in fact, far greater power than was 

 conferred upon General Pope or General 

 Sheridan, or any general in command of a 

 district ; for it is further provided : . 



That the military commander of the department, 

 and all officers and persons in the military and naval 

 service, aid and assist the said provisional governor 

 in carrying into effect this proclamation. 



" We are, then, agreed upon the second prop- 



