third section of the article reported by the committee. I freely confess that the adoption of the third section is not necessary to the subject-matter which we have in hand. My own views of reconstruction lead me in the opposite direction. I should prefer to include those who are our friends rather than exclude even those who are our enemies. But inasmuch as gentlemen on this floor are not prepared, as they say, to include those in the governing force of the country who have sustained the country, I see no safety for the present except in some sort of exclusion of those who are its enemies. We are to consider what sort of enemies these men are. We have defeated them in arms; but, in the proposition of the Democratic party, we invite them to the only field in which they have any chance of success in the contest in which they have been engaged.

They have been beaten; and what do you ask, and what do you offer? You ask them to come into the councils of the nation, where they have a chance of success, and where the only chance of success remains. Who are these men? They are the men who to-day are radically, honestly, persistently, and religiously opposed to this government, if this government exercises its functions. The gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Eldridge] may not have heard of what Mr. Stephens told the committee; and who is Mr. Stephens? Mr. Stephens was believed to be the most conservative, most Union-loving man in the whole Southern country; and, if the opinions to which I shall refer be his opinions, with how much stronger reason may we infer that they are the opinions of those to whom formerly he himself was

somewhat opposed! What does he tell us? He tells us that in 1861 he protested against the action of the secessionists, not because he believed that they had not a constitutional basis upon which to stand, but because he thought secession bad policy, and he says that to-day his opinions are unchanged. That is to say, Mr. Stephens believes that this government has no right to exist, if the insignificant State of Florida, for instance, thinks it ought not to exist; and what Mr. Stephens believes, according to his own testimony, is believed by the great majority of the people whom he represents in Georgia, and in various portions of the South, and whose views he understands. These are the men that you are invited to receive into the government of the country, men who deny the right of this government to exist.

It is said by gentlemen on the other side of the House, that, when they present a Representative here, he must be a loyal man. I need not say to gentlemen acquainted with the technicalities of the law, that a loyal man, for all purposes of representation, is a man whose disloyalty cannot be proved. When we open the doors of the Senate and of this House to representatives from that section of the country, they will be required only to present men who cannot be convicted of having participated actively and willingly in the work of treason; but they may send men here who represent treasonable and disunion opinions, and we shall have no power to protect ourselves against them. When ever was a more insidious idea presented to the people of this country than that there is any security in demanding merely loyal

representatives? We are false to our duty if we do not go further, and require that in each of these States, before they are allowed representation, the masses of the people shall be loyal. The representative will reflect the views of the people. You cannot "gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles." You must wait, if it be necessary to wait, until there is a loyal controlling public sentiment in each one of these States. It is nothing to this country that Tennessee sends Mr. Maynard, a loyal man, here. We want to know what Tennessee is; and the circumstance that Mr. Maynard is himself a loyal man, if his State is not loyal, is a reason why he should neither ask to be received or we submit to his admission. And it is not sufficient that there be loyal districts in the State. A State is represented in the Senate and in the House as a State. There is no constitutional capacity for representation except through a State organization. Representatives in this House are apportioned by the Constitution among the several States, and the State is necessarily a unit for the election of Senators.

When we find that Tennessee is, as a whole, loyal to the government, then we may accept Representatives and Senators from Tennessee, and trust to the people to send loyal men here. But if we accept Representatives from Tennessee because they, individually, are loyal, while Tennessee herself is disloyal, she will soon thrust into this House, and into the government of the country, disloyal men. What does this policy portend? Mr. Stephens denies the constitutional efficacy of our amendment

abolishing slavery. He says that slavery has been abolished by the States, implying thereby that it may be re-established by the States. He says that the law taxing the people of this country has no constitutional force, because the eleven States are not represented. Do you not see that his insidious and dangerous doctrines, which are responded to by the whole Democratic party of the country, portend the destruction of the public credit, the repudiation of the public debt, and the disorganization of society? We are the conservative, the order-seeking, the Union-loving, the loyal men of the country. They who oppose measures for the pacification of the country with reference to the rights of the States and the rights of individuals are the disorganizers, the disloyal and dangerous men of the republic.

Sir, it will be found that the Union party stands unitedly upon two propositions. The first is equality of representation, about which there is no difference of opinion. The second is, that there shall be a loyal people in each applicant State before any representative from that State is admitted into Congress. And there is a third: a vast majority of the Republican party, soon to be the controlling and entire force of that party, demand suffrage for our friends, for those who have stood by us in our days of tribulation. And for myself, with the right, of course, to change my opinion, I believe in the constitutional power of the government to-day to extend the elective franchise to every loyal male citizen of the republic.

468

EQUALITY OF THE NEGRO.

A SPEECH DELIVERED IN FANEUIL HALL, MAY 31, 1866.

ENTLEMEN, I am in a good degree sur

GENTLEMEN,

prised by the kind reception you give me, and I think that for the moment you must have forgotten that I am a member of the central directory, an organization, as I understand, dangerous to the peace and liberties of this country. In connection with the organization of the Committee on Reconstruction is an event now historical, which I think was a chief means of public security and national life. I refer to the resolution adopted by the House of Representatives on the first day of its session, declaring that no Senator or Representative should be received into either branch of Congress, until the right of the State from which the person came had been recognized by Congress, with the concurrence of the President. It was in that act that we raised a bulwark against all the efforts that from that day to this have been made by the executive, by corrupt men, by parties, and by presses, to force the Congress of this country to deal with individuals, instead of dealing primarily and chiefly with the right of those eleven States respectively to be represented in Congress.

There are two questions, or two topics, as I observe from the responses given, in which you have