Mr. DAVIS. If the honorable Senator will permit me I desire to make a suggestion. I want to go to my room because I have a very sick headache. I desire to speak some twenty or thirty minutes on the subject. If the understanding should be to-night that I shall have that opportunity in the morning, I have no objection to this matter going on; but I do not feel well enough to remain here and say what little I have to say on this subject to-night, and I therefore would prefer that gentlemen should understand that the question will not be pressed before morning.

Mr. EDMUNDS. It is perfectly obvious that it would be useless to press the question to-night as there is no quorum to-night, and at this hour it is not at all likely that there will be. I feel authorized for one, therefore, to say to the Senator from Kentucky that I shall not ask the Senate to vote to-night in the absence of a quorum, as there is not a quorum present now. Mr. DAVIS. That is entirely satisfactory to me. I withdraw the motion I made.

Mr. BUCKALEW. Before speaking on this subject I should like to know which one of the three propositions that have been presented to our attention is the result of the caucus consultation among the majority of the Senate. Mr. EDMUNDS. What did I understand the Senator to say?

Mr. BUCKALEW. I should like to know which one of the three propositions is acceptable to or accepted by the majority of the Senate upon consultation among themselves. It is hardly necessary to expend logic upon the two propositions which are not likely to obtain assent in that quarter. As the thermometer is now at a very high figure, it would, indeed, be a very bad expenditure of energy and time. I should like, therefore, to confine myself to the one proposition which has a sanction or some pretense of sanction before it comes up regularly for debate.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I should be very happy,|| for one, to gratify the honorable Senator from Pennsylvania if I was any wiser upon that subject than he is; but inasmuch as the Republican party always acts from the individual judgment of its members, and the Democratic party never does, and the Republican_party therefore generally divides, and the Democratic party never does, and inasmuch as there has been no consultation on this subject, I must leave it to the genius of my friend to discover which he thinks is most likely to be acceptable to Republicans.

Mr. BUCKALEW. Mr. President, the Senator from Indiana, [Mr. MORTON,] this afternoon argued at great length to convince the Senate that the expressed opinion of one individual member of the Democratic party was the platform of the party. He went to the extent of having such an expression of opinion read by the Chief Clerk of the Senate and sent forth to the country. Now, the Senator from Vermont lays down a very different doctrine. He insists that the opinions of an individual member of a party go for nothing.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Of the Republican party, I said.

Mr. BUCKALEW. Of the Republican party? I suppose the same principles of reasoning will apply to one political organiza- | tion that do to another.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Not by any means. Mr. BUCKALEW. Human nature will be very much the same however men may be arranged under particular party names or designations.

Mr. President, the Senator from Indiana this afternoon exhibited a degree of zeal and promptness in the performance of public duty which entitles him, perhaps, to some words of commendation, even from one not ordinarily think with him or act with him in public affairs. We received somewhere about two o'clock this afternoon by telegraph the announcement of the nominations made at New York. Thereupon the Senator from Indiana was found upon his feet before five o'clock with a regular piece of declamation,

eloquent in its terms, and earnest in its delivery, against one of the candidates. Within one hundred and fifty minutes after the nominations took place in the city of New York the Senator from Indiana was upon duty. He is in the advance guard and may be put down in the political history of the country as having made the opening speech of the campaign of 1868. He made it under somewhat unfavor able circumstances, without the opportunity of much previous deliberation, when the temperature was exceedingly inconvenient, and when the Senate itself was much fatigued.

The Senator from Indiana, instead of commencing with the chief candidate put in nomin ation at New York, flies at humbler game. He selects the gentleman who has been named for the office of Vice President for the advantage or the disadvantage-whichever it may be of his criticism and censure. He had read and sent forth to the country a letter written by that gentleman recently, giving his expression of individual opinion as to the proper course to be pursued by the successful candidate for the Presidency of the United States; that he should repudiate the legislation of Congress on the subject of reconstruction, that he should hold it as invalid, and by an energetic exercise of popular and of legal power with which he would be clothed in consequence of his election defeat what has been done and send back this subject of reconstruction in the southern country for another determination by the people concerned. The Senator had that letter read, and then he announced to us and to the country that that was the platform of the Democratic party. It was a little unfortunate that, after he had taken here that ground, his friend, the Senator from Vermont, to-night asserts a very different doctrine, namely, that a party is not bound by the expression of opinion which may proceed from an individual member. I beg to tell the Senator from Indiana that that letter was written by General Blair as a declaration of his own individual opinion. It was so expressly declared, and it is most clearly so to be taken. He announced his ground as a candidate for the presidential nomination. He was not, however, nominated for that office, and his declaration of opinion looking to such nomination may be held as of little conse quence. Now, sir, what the Senator should look to when he is concerning himself with the platform of the political organization to which he is opposed, is the official record as made up by the nominating convention.

Mr. STEWART. I should be very much gratified to learn if you indorse that platform? Mr. BUCKALEW. I will answer the Senator's question in due time; I am now attending to the Senator from Indiana. The Senator from Indiana, by referring to what was done by the convention at New York when its proceedings come before him, will find that there was a platform adopted by the convention for itself. It took no man's individual opinions and indorsed them; it received no letter as official and authoritative exposition of its doctrine, of its faith, of its opinions, or of its future policy. It made its own platform, full and complete, upon all the leading questions which are now before the country in our political discussions; and by referring to that platform the Senator can get a distinct understanding of the various points of debate which will be considered in the coming campaign.

As to the personal opinions of General Blair himself, he is competent to answer. It is not incumbent upon me, it is not incumbent upon the Democratic party, to answer for him. He gave an expression of his opinion of what would be inexpedient in a certain future contingency. What he and the mass of those concerned in

nominations York upon is this: that the legislation of Congress for the reorganization of the southern States is not warranted by the Constitution of the United States; that by that instrument Congress has no power to prescribe the rule of suffrage in any one of the States; that Congress has no power to admit a State to representation in

Congress upon conditions or terms relating to suffrage or relating to anything else which belongs to State policy alone; that Congress has no power to admit a State to representation in Congress upon fundamental conditions which shall place that State on a different footing from the other States which compose the American Union; that Congress has no power by the establishment of military authority in a State, superseding all civil authority and civil power, to organize after its own fashion and according to its own pleasure the civil institutions of a State. Much more, and beyond all this, that it is beyond any possible construction of the Constitution that Congress shall admit States as it has admitted the States of Arkansas and Alabama, with, in the one case, a constitution rejected under the very law which authorized the proceeding of reconstruction, and, in the other case, a constitution manifestly rejected by a popular vote of the people, and only sent here and approved by Congress because a mass of between two and three thousand utterly illegal votes were taken during a protracted period of some eighteen days by certain election officers in that State.

Upon all these various matters pointing to the invalidity of that scheme of reconstruction which has been adopted by Congress and pursued by it down to this time, all parties concerned in the convention in New York and all who agree with them in opinion stand upon common ground; and that agreement and that opinion are expressed in the platform which was adopted. But as to a question in the future, as to what should be or what may be done after a presidential election shall have taken place and some man shall have been elected to the presidential office by virtue of Democratic votes, there is no decision and there is no position taken; and manifestly this arises froin the very necessity of the case. It is impossible that a large association of men concerned in the business of making a nomination should now foresee what will be the condition of the country at that future time. It is impossible now to foresee what States will vote for the respective candidates who will be before the people for their support. It is impossible to foresee what will be the course of electoral action in the southern States themselves. In short, it is impossible now to take into account or even to conceive in an intelligible manner all the mass of facts and circumstances which will surround this question of reconstruction after the election in November next, much less to conceive how they will stand subsequently after Congress shall have reassembled and after further measures shall have been passed by it upon this subject. I take it for granted that the majority in Congress are not done with this question of reconstruction; they will be found enacting laws upon it next winter as they have been engaged in enacting such laws for several winters and for several sessions past. Now, then, from the very necessity of the case a large body of men, looking to the present condition of things and concerned in their platform only with the declaration of general principles and with general views upon public policy, could not specifically state to the country, nor was it expected that they should, what particular line of action they would adopt next year if successful at the coming election. There is, therefore, no declaration of opinion on that subject; and the Senator from Indiana has only the expression of the individual opinion of the gentleman who was selected not for the principal office of the country, but selected for the second and subordinate office. He has the advantage of knowing what that gentleman's opinions are and of discussing them before the country, and far cerned holding him responsible for what he has

said.

Mr. President, inasmuch as this question is up, as it has been raised by the Senator from Indiana, I will restate what I have stated before at the present session. As things now stand in this country, I am of opinion that the

presidential election of 1868 must be decided by those States which are now represented in Congress. Of course I, in common with half at least of the electoral population of the United States, believe that this whole system of reconstruction is invalid under the Constitution, and that it can have no validity in future time except it get it from popular assent. I agree that if the people concerned in the southern States shall acquiesce in that system in the course of time it may become valid, just as in the case of a corporation where, by a supplemental act, the purpose or object of the corporation is entirely changed and there is a right in any one of the corporators to object to that change and to take the supplemental act into a court of law or a court of equity and have it pronounced invalid and to escape its operation altogether; yet if such stockholder stand by, if he acquiesce in what is done by his corporation in accepting the supplement and acting under it, in the course of time he, as well as all others concerned in the corporation, become bound by the law. And just so in the case of the States of the South with

which our legislation is concerned. If the inhabitants of those States shall accept this system of reconstruction, if they shall proceed to act under the laws relating to it, and by open and notorious conduct through a series of years shall give to that system their assent and acquiescence, they may become bound by it.

The Senator does not expect that consummation; at least he does not expect it within a reasonable time. All the apparent assent that he will get from the great mass of the white population of the South in the present year or within any reasonable period of time will be coerced; it will be given under duress; it will not constitute a sanction for his legislation. Although these persons may go to some of the elections and formally vote, yet, protesting as they will against the entire system, you cannot infer their assent and their acquiescence.

But there is another kind of acquiescence and assent-from my point of view less conclusive, but, perhaps, for all practical purposes equally efficacious-which is the assent of a majority of the people of the northern and adhering States deliberately given. That has never been given to your system of reconstruction. It is only necessary to refer to notorious facts to establish this.

In 1866 you sent down to the Legislatures of the several States a constitutional amendment for adoption, which proposed some half a dozen things all in one amendment combined, united together, and to be accepted or to be rejected as an entire thing. You held your elections for the present Congress in that year, and in view of that proposition of constitutional amendment, and you obtained majorities in most of the adhering States. But there has been since that time no general popular election throughout the northern States to select members of Congress; and you now go to the people for the first time upon all these measures which you have adopted since 1866. You now submit to them in the elections of the present year your reconstruction act of March 2, 1867; of March 23, 1867; of July 19, 1867; and of the 11th of March, 1868, and the more recent acts readmitting certain of those States of the South to renewed representation in the two Houses of Congress. All this body of legislation is to be submitted by you to the people in the adhering States for the first time in the elections of the present year. They have never pronounced their opinion upon the reconstruction laws except indirectly and partially in the elections of last year; and as there was then no choice in most of the States of members of Congress, as the elections were mainly for State officers alone, their expression of opinion was not so distinct and emphatic as it will be the present year, when the gentlemen in the other House of Congress who have been voting upon these measures go home and submit themselves once more to the judgment of their constituents, to be reëlected or to be condemned, as the case

may be, and according as the currents of public opinion may run in their several districts.

What I have to say then, Mr. President, is this: you are to go to the people of the adhering States now represented in Congress, and submit your policy to their judgment. If you get their concurrence and their approval, you will have a sanction for your course, for pursuing the policy which you have heretofore adopted and pursued.

This leads me to the third thought which I intended to present in rising to speak in answer to the Senator from Indiana. The first idea already mentioned is that your reconstruction system must receive to its justification a popular sanction in the States directly concerned, which must be the work of time if it shall ever be given. In the next place, an inferior sanction, but one which may be thought efficacious, may be given in the adhering States, North, West, and in the central section of the Union where your policy upon reconstruction has never yet been submitted, has never yet been approved. They may give an indorsement (though not a justification) of what you have

done.

But now there is a third mode or manner of obtaining assent and approval, or at least indorsement of your policy, which some gentlemen propose, and which is indicated in the present measure; and that is this: that although you may despise the assent of the white population in the southern States, although you may not require that it it shall be given to your policy, and although when you go to the people of the adhering States a majority may decide against you, may condemn the policy of reconstruction which you have adopted, you will still have a resource in the extremity of your fortunes.

This bill points to it. What is the bill? That the States of the South that you have admitted here into Congress shall vote in the presidential election, and that those that you do not receive and approve shall not vote.

That is your proposition, to pick out certain of these States and count their electoral votes and to refuse votes to the others. This is a most extraordinary proposition. One thing is certain, it will not be misunderstood; it will be perfectly comprehended in this country from one end to the other; that you shall not have the assent of the people in the South to your work of reconstruction, those who were formerly electors, recognized as such; that you shall not have the assent of a majority of the adhering States to your work; but that you shall make up and count up a majority by picking out States, by selecting among them, counting the votes of such as you please, and rejecting the votes of the others. That is this bill, and it is to be sent forth at the present session as a parting gift by the Fortieth Congress to the American people.

Virginia is not to vote. Why shall she not vote? Let me take the case from your standpoint, departing for the time being from mine. You have said that these ten States of the South shall be restored to representation in Congress and in the Electoral Colleges upon a particular scheme which you have devised, with certain supplemental or fundamental conditions added as a sort addendum to the system, when the States actually come here through their representatives. Now, the proceeding has been perfected in seven States, and their electoral votes are to be counted; but how is Virginia to stand? A convention was held and a constitution formed some time since.

The

convention adjourned, and what was the next information we had? There was to be no elec tion because there were no funds for holding it. All the moneys which you had voted to the purpos. s of reconstruction, so far as the share of Virginia was concerned, were exhausted, and the election could not be held. That was announced, and the information sent here. What was done? Nothing. We have voted money for almost every imaginable object except holding an election in Virginia, and I take it for granted there is to be no appropriation at the present session.

We have had committees in both Houses laboriously engaged in seeking out all the corners of our revenue and of our expenditure systems; but never once has a committee in either House cast its glance upon this State of Virginia and upon the pressing demands of reconstruction there. No election has been ordered, no money has been voted, no step taken to perfect the work which was begun and carried on to the point of a formation of a constitution in that State; and you are about to adjourn, leaving her in that condition, without the necessary means to hold the election under your own reconstruction laws; and now you are about to pass a bill to prevent her holding voluntarily an election for presidential electors and casting her vote in an Electoral College. You forbid her to act even by the registered voters whose names have been enrolled under your own laws and with the coöperation of the authorities which you yourselves have set up

in that State.

What are we to understand by this? Why, evidently, that some gentlemen think that the vote of the State is not certain to be cast in the direction they desire.

Mississippi is also to be counted out, though I believe they are holding an election in that State. There is Texas also. Why should she not vote? One thing is certain. The majority in Congress have had complete control over this whole subject from the beginning, and there has been no indisposition to exercise that control. It only needed the will, and each one of these three States would now be in the same situation as the other seven, or, at all events, there would have been an election held in each and a decision made upon the question of the acceptance or rejection of a constitution in conformity with the reconstruction laws.

Mr. President, can any one state a reason founded upon any principle of equality and fairness why three of these States should by act of Congress be forbidden to vote in the presidential election, while the other seven are permitted? Especially, can there be any justification for this bill when the majority in Congress is itself responsible for the whole management of reconstruction, and for the existing condition of all these States? I pass, however, to another consideration.

Why should this bill be passed with reference to any purpose of counting or rejecting electoral votes? What necessity is there for it? Next winter the same Senate and the same House of Representatives will convene. They will be in session until the 4th of March, when the Congress will expire. They will possess the same powers which they now hold, and may now exercise. If there be any necessity to pass any law in regard to the counting of electoral votes it can be done then and done by the same men who will now pass this bill.

There is no necessity for passing a bill of this kind at present in order to avoid difficulty in the counting of electoral votes. Is not this but anticipating trouble which may never arise? Do you know that there will be any controversy to settle at all by such a law? It is all conjecture. You are borrowing trouble from the future of which you have no evidence, and which if it shall come may be determined when it comes better than now. Why, then, I repeat, should this bill be passed at present?

Mr. EDMUNDS. Will my friend from Pennsylvania permit me to ask him a question? Mr. BUCKALEW. Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I wish to ask my friend whether he thinks that the appropriate method of determining such a question is by the joint convention of the two Houses when they meet to count the votes, or by a rule prescribed by law in advance?

Mr. BUCKALEW. I am coming to that. The question anticipates the course of my remarks. Assuming that you have power to pass such a bill, can it not be passed at the next session of Congress, as well as now? Can it not meet an actual emergency when it is known better than anticipate it before it has occurred?

But, sir, have you the power to pass such a bill? That is a question hitherto unnoticed. The Constitution says that each State may vote for electors of President and Vice-Presi dent, as the Legislature of the State may direct; that those votes shall be transmitted to the President of the Senate, and then in joint convention of the two Houses they shall be opened and counted. The Constitution addresses itself to the Legislatures and citizens of the respective States so far as regards the choice of electors and the casting of electoral votes Electors are to be chosen as the State itself shall prescribe. Then they are to vote in an Electoral College. So far the Constitution addresses itself to the States. It addresses itself to the President of the Senate in enjoining him to receive the electoral votes. It commands the two Houses of Congress to convene when those votes are counted. But where is the authority to the two Houses of Congress to pass laws regarding the choice of electors in the several States?

Mr. EDMUNDS. Will the Senator permit me to ask him another question?

Mr. BUCKALEW. Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Suppose there should happen to be from the State of Pennsylvania two sets of votes returned to the President of the Senate from what purported to be and ostensibly were two sets of electoral colleges, each claiming to represent the vote of the State of Pennsylvania; is the President of the Senate to settle which of the two represents the voice of that State, or who is to do it? Mr. BUCKALEW. The Senator is simply anticipating the points to which I am coming. Mr. EDMUNDS. Well, go on, then.

Mr. BUCKALEW. The Constitution, I say, addresses itself to the States. It does not, address itself to Congress except in the single particular of convening at the counting the votes. Where, then, is your grant of power to say when a State shall vote and when it shall not; to prescribe how and under what circumstances it shall vote? You have no jurisdiction over the subject-matter. Your interference with it is, if I may be allowed the expression, a pure impertinence, because it is not among the duties which have been charged upon you by the Constitution.

Mr. EDMUNDS. I wish to know what the Senator's opinion is in order to guide my own. Mr. BUCKALEW. Several years ago, the year before the close of the war, when it was impossible-I use the word with reflectionthat presidential elections should be held in the States of the South, and when there was an attempt, countenanced to some extent even by Mr. Lincoln, to choose electors in those States, Congress passed a joint resolution on that subject. What was it? It was not a law. It was not in the nature of a law. The authority and the propriety of passing it, the Senator will find by referring to the debates of that time, were very much questioned, and there was a large vote in the Senate against passing it, given upon the ground that as a legislative body we had nothing to do with the question. Finally the resolution was passed, declaring in the then existing condition of those States their electoral votes could not be taken and should not be counted. It was the declaration of a fact of which most were fully convinced and against which view there was very little pretense of argument.

The war was then going on. It extended over every one of those States. We had but partial, limited possession of some parts of some of them, and very irregular and frail provisional governments were maintained by our bayonets. They were in such condition-I think that was the very word used in the resolution-that as a matter of fact they could not vote, and that joint resolution simply declared the fact, and there was then (even by many of those who voted for that measure) a denial of any power in Congress to admit or to forbid the voting of a State.

Mr. EDMUNDS. me to correct him? Mr. BUCKALEW. The Senator had better hear me conclude on this pont.

Will the Senator permit

Mr. EDMUNDS. I merely wish to correct the Senator on a matter of fact as to the point he is now stating if he will permit me to do so. It appears from the debates that two gentlemen at least-I only remember these at the moment-who are now with my honorable friend, the three great lights of the Democratic party in this body, its representative men, the Senator from Wisconsin [Mr. DOOLITTLE] and the Senator from Maryland, who left us to-day, [Mr. JOHNSON, ] found fault with that provision upon the ground that the provision ought to have been made for such an emergency by a law passed antecedent to the fact upon which it was to operate; that is to say before the election; and that it was one of the highest duties of the legislative power under the Constitution to make such a regulation; and I will read the evidence to the Senator whenever he wants it.

Mr. BUCKALEW. The correction was quite unnecessary. I said that many of those who supported that measure held to the view I stated. I will add that most of the support

Mr. President, the question of a contested presidential election is one of the most delicate and difficult which can engage the attention of any gentleman who studies our political system and takes into account the dangers to which it may be subjected in future time. A provision for determining a contested election has not been pointed out; and the only inference of power that can arise from an express provision of the Constitution arises upon that provision which confers upon the two Houses the power, or rather prescribes the duty, of convening together when the votes are counted. The duty is charged upon the President of the Senate to open the returns and to announce them before the two Houses. Upon a celebrated occasioners held that it was a convenient measure as a the President of the Senate, in opening the returns when there was a question with reference to the vote of a particular State, directed the result to be announced as it would stand if the vote of that State were counted and to be announced, also, as it would stand if the vote of that State were not counted. Very prudently and properly at that time the question of how a difficulty in regard to the counting of votes should be determined was passed by, because the necessity did not exist for deciding it, the result would be the same whether the vote of the State should be counted or should be rejected.

Therefore, speaking in the light of our history, and speaking with reference to any express provision of the Constitution of the United States, I am authorized to say, and I do say, that the question propounded to me by the Senator from Vermont is an open question; it has received no adjudication; it has not been decided. It is one upon which gentlemen are entitled to hold opinions such as they can form from the exercise of their best judgment.

rule or direction to the presiding officer of the convention, as a rule of order, as a declaration of the opinion of the two Houses; not as a law which would bind that convention when it was convened.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Did you not vote for it in the form of a law?

Mr. BUCKALEW. In the form of a resolution.

Mr. EDMUNDS. A joint resolution?

Mr. BUCKALEW. Yes; in the form of a joint resolution. It was a declaration of Congress put in the form of a joint resolution and passed through the two Houses, announcing their judgment upon the condition of things in the South, and that, as the case stood, it was impossible that they should vote or that their votes should be received in the Electoral College.

Mr. EDMUNDS. They had voted.

Mr. BUCKALEW. There was no pretense of a denial of right. No man who voted for that resolution supposed there was any right to vote in a State that was incapable of voting,

incapacitated in the very nature of the case. Those States had been engaged in the rebellion from the beginning. They were then engaged in flagrant open war against us, and I, for one, thought it shocking that one tenth of the population of one of those States should wield the whole electoral vote of the State, that any pretense should be made that such a one tenth part of a fugitive, straggling population within inilitary lines should in this Government of ours claim that they had capacity to wield the political power of that State in this Government, to vote down the freemen of the northern States who were then engaged in behalf of this Government against those States to repress the insurrection which had broken out in them.

That congressional declaration stood upon those grounds, and the only question that then arose in my mind and in the minds of others was that the precedent might be misconceived and misapplied hereafter. There was hesitation for that reason with some gentlemen. If I had anticipated that it was to be cited as a precedent for a law which in time of peace should deprive any State of this Union by act of Congress of its right to poll electoral votes, I should have looked upon it as a much more important measure than I then regarded it, and one of an exceedingly pernicious character.

What right have you to say whether the State of Georgia shall vote or not, as a Congress, as a legislative body? Where did you get your authority? Under what clause of the Constitution? Under what inference from or construction of any clause? There is nothing of the sort. If you can deliberately say that the State of Georgia or the State of Arkansas shall not vote, and make your declaration a law, what is to hinder you from passing a law applicable to Pennsylvania in which you shall say that her vote shall not be counted? You may say that you have a better reason in the one case than you can suppose you would have in the other; but if the power be granted its exercise must be in the discretion of Congress. You have no such power. I can understand gentlemen who argue that when from a particular State votes are sent to be opened before the two Houses convened together under the direction of the Constitution there must be, by necessary implication, power of judgment upon the return vested in the two Houses. That is intelligible. It is not necessary now to argue whether it is a good opinion or not.

MESSAGE FROM THE HOUSE.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. Will the Senator give way to receive a message from the House of Representatives?

Mr. BUCKALEW. Certainly.

Mr. MCPHERSON, Clerk of the House of Representatives, appeared below the bar and said: Mr. President, I am directed to inform the Senate that the House of Representatives has passed a bill (H. R. No. 1381) providing for an election in Virginia, in which it requests the concurrence of the Senate.

Mr. BUCKALEW. You see, Mr. President, by the announcement from the House of Representatives the impropriety of the bill now before the Senate. By the bill we are considering provision is made that although the State of Virginia may hold an election under your reconstruction laws and adopt a Constitution, yet she shall not vote in the Electoral College unless Congress receives her, admits her to representation, which is not to be expected at the present session.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Why is that impossible? Mr. BUCKALEW. It is impossible to hold an election in Virginia and receive her representatives if we adjourn within any reasonable time.

Mr. EDMUNDS. The bill does not require that we shall receive her representatives.

Mr. BUCKALEW. Mr. President, there is an old saying in a good book which is very applicable to this bill, "Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." I have already endeavored to point out that the very same Houses of Congress that are now in session will be in session

Mr. EDMUNDS. Does the Senator want that answered now?

Mr. BUCKALEW. Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS. For the same reason that in 1885 upon the Senator's vote an elector in the State of Pennsylvania was permitted to vote and was not permitted to vote in the State of Georgia; that is to say, that the rebellion has left the State of Texas in such condition that she has not yet been reorganized. I do not know but that it would suit the purposes of my friend quite as well to have her vote in a rebellious condition as well as an organized condition. He can answer for that. Mr. BUCKALEW. The Senator's flippant observation does not touch my point. The res olution of 1865 was passed upon the ground that it was impossible for the people to vote, because it was the theater of actual war. bill passed now that a man in Texas shall not vote stands upon no ground of impossibility; it stands upon the pleasure, or rather upon the will of Congress. There is no difficulty in taking votes in Texas, and has been none for three years. They have voted long since upon the subject of holding a convention under your own laws, and other elections have been held there. There is no incapacity in Texas.

A

Mr. EDMUNDS. What elections have been held under our law in Texas?

Mr. BUCKALEW. An election for members of the convention.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Did they hold a convention?

Mr. BUCKALEW. The Senator goes off on a new question.

Mr. EDMUNDS. They voted that they would not reorganize; that they would not have any convention.

Mr. BUCKALEW. I am speaking as to the possibility of holding elections in Texas. The ground on which the resolution of 1865 was passed was that it was impossible, in the condition of things then existing, that those States could vote; that they were incapable from the circumstances in which they were placed of holding elections and selecting electors of President.

Mr. EDMUNDS. That was a mere judg ment of Congress, because they had held an election in two of those States in 1864, and Congress declared by the aid of the Senator's vote, that the elections were held under such circumstances that they ought not to be considered as valid.

Mr. BUCKALEW. No, sir; there was no election held in those States, not the slightest just pretense of an election held in those States under any authority of the State.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Where did the electoral votes come from?

Mr. BUCKALEW. There were elections held under military power for municipal purposes; and when it was attempted to expand that authority into a national one, we said it was an absurdity.

Mr. EDMUNDS. Does the Senator call the election for electors of President a municipal election for municipal purposes?

Mr. BUCKALEW. No, sir. Mr. EDMUNDS. Does the Senator deny that in two of those States, Louisiana and Tennessee, elections were held for electors of President, and the votes were forwarded by the Electoral Colleges, having all the prima facie appearance of validity? And yet by the Senator's aid-loyal and good aid it was, too-it was declared to be an improper and invalid proceeding.

Mr. BUCKALEW. I have not denied that.

I spoke about that some time since, and gave my view of that subject, and stated the reason why those elections were not in fact elections in those States. A large part of Louisiana at that time was within the lines of the enemy.

Mr. EDMUNDS. And you assumed the right to decide that.

Mr. BUCKALEW. I assumed the right to decide a fact, not a matter of right, not to pass an enactment of legislation; I have already stated my view of the resolution of 1865?

Mr. President, the three particular points which I rose to mention I have gone through with and have given such replies as I supposed were appropriate to the questions of the Senator from Vermont. I only took the floor tonight under some inconvenience arising from fatigue and the heat of the Chamber because I was unwilling that this bill should pass the Sen ate without a formal and earnest protest. Of course I have not attempted to argue the subject of the validity of the reconstruction laws at length. I have not attempted to go over the different grounds upon which, as I think, their invalidity can be demonstrated. That field of debate is too large and too important to be entered upon at this time. But the grounds upon which objection can be made to this bill as an exercise of a power by Congress to forbid the votes of the States in the presidential election lie within a comparatively narrow compass. What I desire to enforce upon the Senate is this: that, in my judgment, there will be no acquiescence by our people in the result of a presidential election dependent upon votes introduced into the Electoral College by act of Congress while at the same time other electoral votes are forbidden. I insist that the people of the United States will not permit the result of a presidential election to be determined by act of Congress.

Mr. EDMUNDS. determined by?

What, will they have it

Mr. BUCKALEW. The Senator has asked a sufficient number of questions, and if he will permit me I prefer to conclude what I have to say. I have yielded, I believe, to the full extent required by courtesy. In my judgment the people of the United States will not agree that a majority in Congress shall manipulate the votes by which the presidential election is to be determined. They will demand that the States represented in Congress during the war, who bore the heat and burden of the struggle, who are now unquestionably clothed with the political power of this Union, shall determine the results of this comparatively friendly, yet earnest political contest upon which we are entering. Its result is not to be changed or altered by devices of any description gotten up here, and passed by the men who are to reap the fruits of their own ingenuity and management. They will not agree that the vote of Virginia shall be counted out and the vote of South Carolina in; the vote of Texas out and the vote of Arkansas in. They know as well as you, sir, that your congressional legislation is outside of constitutional power, and that it must rest eventually for support upon the assent or acquiescence of the people of the United States, South and North, or at least either South or North; that when you reconstruct States in the South, you must get the assent of the electors of those States, or you must get the fair assent of a majority of adhering States; you cannot ignore both.

The Senator from Indiana speaks of the expression of individual opinion by General Blair. I agree with General Blair most fully in the whole material matter contained in his letter relating to the existing condition of things. I say your reconstruction laws are dependent upon the votes of the people. If you get their votes for them, if yet get popular acquiescence for them, they may stand; they cannot stand upon your votes here; they cannot stand upon resolutions, whether joint or not, in Congress; they must have popular support. Do you not know, sir, and does not the whole country know, that your reconstruction at present is a reconstruction coerced; a thing of duress; you have

Do

compelled everything that has been done. you not know, and does not the country know, that republican government can stand upon no foundation except the consent of the governed. Republican institutions cannot be dietated by any earthly power except that of the people who are to be bound by and enjoy them; and a constitution in Georgia is as void when made under congressional command or coercion or under congressional direction which insures a particular result, as if it was prescribed to that State by the monarch of some foreign nation. How vain and idle, then, are such bills as this which decide nothing.

Mr. MORTON. Will the Senator allow me to ask him one question?

Mr. BUCKALEW. Yes, sir.

Mr. MORTON. I would ask the Senator if he approves of that part of General Blair's letter in which he says it will be the duty of the President-elect, at the coming election, to use the Army for the purpose of overthrowing what he designates as the "carpet-bag governments;" in other words, the new governments just constructed under the laws of Congress? He asserts that it would be the duty of the President to use the military power of the United States to overthrow those governments. Does my honorable friend from Pennsylvania indorse that part of the letter?

Mr. BUCKALEW. I am glad the Senator has called my attention to that. In answering him I will complete what I meant to say about the letter. My answer is, that for myself I say no such thing; I advise no extreme action. Early in my remarks I pointed out distinctly, in order to instruct the Senator from Indiana upon the position which I hold, and as I understand the Democratic party hold in their platform, that the question of a future remedy for what is wrong in reconstruction is left open and undetermined by the convention. We are deciding what belongs to the present time. The particular course that may be adopted with reference to the southern States is one of expediency-connected with ideas of justice, of course when the question comes to be determined. It might, under a certain state of facts, be convenient and advisable that amendments even of those irregular constitutions should be submitted to popular acceptance, and stability, with reformed constitutions, be obtained in that way. There might be other courses adopted. General Blair has only expressed his individual opinion in favor of more stern and summary action, but the question is an open one and may be considered hereafter.

To come back to the point on which I was speaking, I repeat that, in my judgment, for the purpose of obtaining validity to reconstruction, safety to reconstruction, continuance to it, effect for it as it has been undertaken by Congress, it is necessary that a majority of the people in the adhering States shall indorse it in the elections of 1868. It has no support at present besides congressional will. Your own chief man-the master of the House-told us long since that your work was "outside of the Constitution." I have attempted to point out the only possible modes in which it can receive a sanction, in which it can get validity. It rests now upon congressional will. It must be baptized with popular approval; it must get the judgment of the people, and from those whose right to vote in this Union and to control its political destinies is unquestioned. If, when you carry your body of laws passed since 1866 to the people of the North and of the West and of the great central States, they say "Well done, good and faithful servants; you have performed our will and executed our wishes, and your work shall stand," then, and then only, will you command the situation; then, and then only, will you be entitled to ask of me and of others acquiescence in what you have done. I acknowledge a sort of common law in this country upon constitutional questions. I acknowledge that when a controverted question of public power long in debate has been sent to the people and deliberately determined by them their decision cannot be