ready! This is the cry which is daily rung out here from a chorus of voices. We ourselves are all ready, individually, for the most radical policy, if the country would sustain us. Impartial suffrage is openly indorsed as the true doctrine, which, in due season, the people will be prepared to accept. They may be ready, we are told, after the fall elections, and the hope is frequently expressed that then we shall meet the issue squarely. Almost everybody, save the most unblushing Copperheads, says that negro voting in the South is the true reconstruction, and is absolutely necessary if the rebels are to vote; but the country is not ripe for it. "Personally," as Henry Clay said of the annexation of Texas, all of us "would be glad to see it," but the issue is premature. Sir, gentlemen are themselves premature, in all such statements. The people are ready, in this battle of politics, and would gladly go to the front if they could, leaving the politicians to straggle in the rear. And if the voice of the loyal millions could be faithfully executed to-day, treason would be made infamous, traitors would be disfranchised, and the loyal men of the South, irrespective of color, would take the front seats in the work of reconstruction and government. Do you doubt this? If there is real union among Union men everywhere, upon any single point, it is in their . absolute determination to make sure the fruits of their victory, through whatever measures may be found needful. Sir, remembering the past, can any man really believe the loyal masses will take fright at the spectacle of negro ballots in the regions blasted by treason? All civil government there is overthrown. The President himself has so officially declared. The governments extemporized there by himself are purely military, and so far as they have assumed to be more than that they are simply usurpations. This is also perfectly understood by the country. The work of organizing civil governments in these regions belongs to their people, subject entirely to the control and direction of Congress. This, too, has been officially admitted by the President. And now, if Congress, at this session, should pass the enabling act referred to, reported by the venerable gentleman from Pennsylvania, authorizing the holding of conventions to form new State governments, and prescribing the same rule of impartial suffrage as was done by this House for the District of Columbia, would the people revolt against it? Would they even be offended? Does any intelligent, fair-minded man really believe it? The restoration of civil government in the South is undeniably necessary. That Congress alone, in coöperation with the people, can do this, is equally certain. The mode of organizing civil government in regions under the national jurisdiction is perfectly familiar to the people, and well settled by long and uniform practice. Who, then, shall be alarmed, if Congress, in rightfully initiating new governments, shall secure a voice to the colored millions who constitute more than two fifths of the people and an overwhelming majority of those who are loyal? What Union man will recoil from a policy of impartial justice? Do we still so love our "Southern brethren" that we must necessarily give them the ballot, and so sympathize with their tastes and dread their ill-will that we must deny it to the freedmen? Are the people to be dealt with as idiots or madmen on this subject, and counted rational on every other? Sir, let us put away timid counsels, and face the truth like men. Let us be wise to-day. Let us have faith in the sturdy common sense and unquenchable loyalty and patriotism of the people, as becomes those who have seen them confront the greatest of trials, and never yet found them wanting. Let us not doubt, for a moment, that they will sustain us, if we ourselves have the courage which "mounteth with occasion," and will only "dare do all that may become a man." Above all, let us remember that Providential guidance which in our trials hitherto has favored us exactly in the degree we have allied our cause to justice, and withheld from us the coveted prize of success as often as we have sought it at the expense of the rights of man. That same Providential discipline will most assuredly go with us to the end, whether we bravely meet the great duties of the crisis or prove ourselves unequal to our day and our work. Nothing, therefore, is so safe, and so sure to win, as the policy which shall make this truth our guide. give us faith in his counsels, and courage to follow them! let us not forget that "The wise and active conquer difficulties, By daring to attempt them; sloth and folly God And REGENERATION BEFORE RECONSTRUCTION. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 28, 1867.1 [The principles embodied in this strong protest against hasty and ill-judged Reconstruction find their best vindication in the scenes of rapine and misrule which have since afflicted the States of the South, and which it is confidently believed might have been averted by the methods here so urgently commended.} MR. SPEAKER, In view of the time already consumed in the discussion of the measure now before us, and the general desire of members to reach an early vote on the pending motion to commit, I shall endeavor to address the House as briefly as possible; and I therefore prefer, on this occasion, to submit my views without interruption. I cannot support the amendment proposed by the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. STEVENS] in its present form; but I shall not vote to send it to the Committee on Reconstruction at this late hour in the session. I believe the time has come for action, and that having this great subject now before us we should proceed earnestly, and with as little delay as may be, to mature some measure which may meet the demand of the people. Nearly two years have elapsed since the close of the war, during the whole of which time the regions blasted by treason have been subject to the authority of Congress; and yet these regions are still unprovided with any valid civil governments, and no loyal man within their limits, black or white, is safe in his person or estate. The Civil Rights Act and the Freedmen's Bureau Bill are set at open defiance, while freedom of speech and of the press are unknown. The loyal people of these districts, with sorely-tried patience and hopes long deferred, plead with us for our speedy interposition in their behalf; and even the conquered rebels themselves, who are supreme in this general reign of terror, seem to be growing weary of their term of lawlessness and misrule. Sir, let us tolerate no further procrastination; and while we justly hold the President responsible for the trouble and maladministration which now curse the South and disturb the peace of the country, let us remember that the national odium already perpetually linked with the name of An 1 On House Bill 543 to restore the States lately in rebellion to their political rights. drew Johnson will be shared by us, if we fail in the great duty which is now brought to our doors. Mr. Speaker, my first objection to the amendment proposed is that it practically confounds the distinction between treason and loyalty by allowing the elective franchise to the great body of the criminals who strove, through four bloody years, to destroy the nation's life. No such policy can have my sanction. The sixth section of the amendment, which seeks to guard against this by the affidavit which it requires, would prove a delusion and a snare. I will read the form of the oath which it prescribes: “I, A B, do solemnly swear, on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God, that on the 4th day of March, 1864, and at all times thereafter, I would willingly have complied with the requirements of the proclamation of the President of the United States, issued on the 8th day of December, 1863, had a safe opportunity of so doing been allowed me; that on the said 4th of March, 1864, and at all times thereafter, I was opposed to the continuance of the rebellion and to the establishment of the so-called Confederate Government, and voluntarily gave no aid or encouragement thereto, but earnestly desired the success of the Union, and the suppression of all armed resistance to the Government of the United States; and that I will henceforth faithfully support the Constitution of the United States and the Union of the States thereunder." Sir, of what value would be such an oath? In exacting it, instead of protecting the rights of loyal men we should build a safe bridge over which every rebel in the South could pass back into power. How could perjury be assigned upon such an affidavit? By what process could the prosecutor prove, on the trial, the hidden purpose or the secret intention of the party? I have little faith in the oaths of rebels under any circumstances. If our experience in the late war establishes any general rule in such cases, it is that the oath of a traitor proves nothing but the perjury of the villain who takes it. Most assuredly we could not rely upon it where the man who swears runs no risk of being brought to account; and the exaction of such an oath of men who have ruthlessly lifted their hands against their country is scarcely less than a mockery. But if it be granted that this oath would be honestly taken, it does not follow that we should now restore the franchise on any such cheap and easy conditions. Are we willing thus to degrade and belittle this great right, the highest expression of citizenship, and its truest safeguard? Must we make haste to share the gov erning power of the country with the rebel hordes who fought us nearly three years, because they grew weary of their enterprise on the 4th day of March, 1864, and desired then to give it up? Is treason against the nation an offense so slight, an affair so trifling, that no real atonement for it shall be demanded? Sir, these are grave questions, and the state of our country to-day demands that Congress shall ponder them. The citizen's duty of allegiance and the nation's obligation of protection are reciprocal. The one is the price of the other, and the compact is alike binding upon both parties. When the rebels broke this compact by attempting the crime of national murder, their right of citizenship was forfeited, and the nation has the undoubted right to declare the consequences of that forfeiture by law. It not only has the right, but in my judgment is sacredly bound to exercise it. And why? Because, in the language of Vattel, "Every nation is obliged to perform the duty of selfpreservation." The only solid foundation of national security is the allegiance of the citizen; and the most solemn duty which is at this moment devolved upon the Congress of the United States is the duty of keeping the government of the country in the hands of loyal men. No government can be secure, and no government deserves to live, which allows its enemies a common and equal voice with its friends in the exercise of its powers. This nation has hitherto recognized this principle. In the very first years of the Republic Congress sanctioned the perpetual disfranchisement of the leader and principal officers of Shay's rebellion; and the acts of Congress which warrant the exercise of this power of disfranchisement stand in full force and unchallenged on your statute-books. Congress, during the rebellion, deprived of all rights of citizenship those who deserted from the military or naval service, or who, after being " duly enrolled," left the United States or their military districts to avoid a draft. Certainly these offenses are no greater than the crime of treason, persisted in for successive years. The authority of Congress in all such cases rests upon the universal law of nations. It grows out of the contract of allegiance and the duty of every nation to preserve its own life; and therefore no trial and conviction by any judicial tribunal are necessary as a condition of the declared forfeiture. The forfeiture is not declared as a punishment for the violation of any criminal law, but as a safeguard against national danger. It is an expression of the same policy which excludes aliens from the rights of citizens. The power is not unconstitutional, for our fathers, in framing the Constitution, recognized the law of nations, as they were compelled |