ernor. Glaring irregularities and unwarranted | ticipating at once in that Government which assumptions of power are manifest in several cases, particularly in South Carolina, where the convention, although disbanded by the provisional governor on the ground that it was a revolutionary body, assumed to redistrict the State. they had for four years been fighting to overthrow. Allowed and encouraged by the Executive to organize State governments, they at once placed in power leading rebels, unrepentant and unpardoned, excluding with contempt those who had manifested an attachment to the Union, and preferring, in many instances, those who had the face of the law requiring an oath which would necessarily exclude all such men from federal offices, they elect, with very few exceptions, as Senators and Representatives in Congress men who had actively participated in the rebellion, insultingly denouncing the law as unconstitutional. It is only necessary to instance the election to the Senate of the late vice president of the Confederacy, a man who, against his It is quite evident from all these facts, and indeed from the whole mass of testimony sub-rendered themselves the most obnoxious. In mitted by the President to the Senate, that in no instance was regard paid to any other consideration than obtaining immediate admission to Congress, under the barren form of an election in which no precautions were taken to secure regularity of proceedings or the assent of the people. No constitution has been legally adopted except, perhaps, in the State of Tennessee, and such elections as have been held were without authority of law. Your committee are accord-own declared convictions, had lent all the weight ingly forced to the conclusion that the States referred to have not placed themselves in a con dition to claim representation in Congress, unless all the rules which have, since the foundation of the Government, been deemed essential in such cases should be disregarded. of his acknowledged ability and of his influence as a most prominent public man to the cause of the rebellion, and who, unpardoned rebel as he is, with that oath staring him in the face, had the assurance to lay his credentials on the table of the Senate. Other rebels of scarcely less note or notoriety were selected from other quarters. Professing no repentance, glorying apparently in the crime they had committed, avowing still, as the uncoatradicted testimony of Mr. Stephens and many others proves, an adherence to the pernicious doctrine of secession, and declaring that they yielded only to necessity, they insist, with unanimous voice, upon their rights as States, and proclaim that they will submit to no con sumption of power under that Constitution which they still claim the right to repudiate. It would undoubtedly be competent for Congress to waive all formalities and to admit these Confederate States to representation at once, trusting that time and experience would set all things right. Whether it would be advisable to do so, however, must depend upon other considerations of which it remains to treat. But it may well be observed, that the inducements to such a step should be of the very highest character. It seems to your committee not unreason-ditions whatever as preliminary to their reable to require satisfactory evidence that the ordinances and constitutional provisions which the President deemed essential in the first instance will be permanently adhered to by the people of the States seeking restoration, after being admitted to full participation in the government, and will not be repudiated when that object shall have been accomplished. And here the burden of proof rests upon the late insurgents who are seeking restoration to the rights and privileges which they willingly abandoned, and not upon the people of the United States who have never undertaken, directly or indirectly, to deprive them thereof. It should appear affirmatively that they are prepared and disposed in good faith to accept the results of the war, to abandon their hostility to the Government, and to live in peace and amity with the people of the loyal States, extending to all classes of citizens equal rights and privileges, and conforming to the republican idea of liberty and equality. They should exhibit in their acts something more than an unwilling submission to an unavoidable necessity-a feeling, if not cheerful, certainly not offensive and defiant. And they should evince an entire repudiation of all hostility to the General Government, by an acceptance of such just and reasonable conditions as that Government should think the public safety demands. Has this been done? Let us look at the facts shown by the evidence taken by the committee. Hardly is the war closed before the people of these insurrectionary States come forward and haughtily claim, as a right, the privilege of par Examining the evidence taken by your committee still further, in connection with facts too notorious to be disputed, it appears that the southern press, with few exceptions, and those mostly of newspapers recently established by northern men, abound with weekly and daily abuse of the institutions and people of the loyal States; defends the men who led, and the principles which incited, the rebellion; denounces and reviles southern men who adhered to the Union; and strives, constantly and unscrupulously, by every means in its power, to keep alive the fire of hate and discord between the sections; calling upon the President to violate his oath of office, overturn the Government by force of arms, and drive the representatives of the people from their seats in Congress. The national banner is openly insulted, and the national airs scoffed at, not only by an ignorant populace, but at public meetings, and once, among other notable instances, at a dinner given in honor of a notorious rebel who had violated his oath and abandoned his flag. The same individual is elected to an important office in the leading city of his State, although an unpardoned rebel, and so offensive that the President refuses to allow him to enter upon his official duties. In another State the leading general of the rebel armies is openly nominated for governor by the speaker of the house of delegates, and the nomination is hailed by the people with shouts of satisfaction, and openly indorsed by the press. Looking still further at the evidence taken by your committee, it is found to be clearly | cisive. While it appears that nearly all åre shown, by witnesses of the highest character, willing to submit, at least for the time being, to and having the best means of observation, that the federal authority, it is equally clear that the the Freedmen's Bureau, instituted for the relief ruling motive is a desire to obtain the advanta and protection of freedmen and refugees, is ges which will be derived from a representation almost universally opposed by the mass of the in Congress. Officers of the Union army on population, and exists in an efficient condition duty, and northern men who go South to enonly under military protection, while the Union gage in business, are generally detested and promen of the South are earnest in its defence, scribed. Southern men who adhered to the declaring with one voice that without its pro- Union are bitterly hated and relentlessly persetection the colored people would not be permit-cuted. In some localities prosecutions have ted to labor at fair prices, and could hardly live been instituted in State courts against Union in safety. They also testify that without the officers for acts done in the line of official duty, protection of United States troops Union men, and similar prosecutions are threatened elsewhether of northern or southern origin, would where as soon as the United States troops are be obliged to abandon their homes. The feeling removed. All such demonstrations show a state in many portions of the country towards the of feeling against which it is unmistakably neemancipated slaves, especially among the uned- cessary to guard. ucated and ignorant, is one of vindictive and malicious hatred. This deep-seated prejudice against color is assiduously cultivated by the public journals, and leads to acts of cruelty, oppression, and murder, which the local authorities are at no pains to prevent or punish. There is no general disposition to place the colored race, constituting at least two fifths of the population, upon terms even of civil equality. While many instances may be found where large planters and men of the better class accept the situation, and honestly strive to bring about a better order of things, by employing the freedmen at fair wages and treating them kindly, the general feeling and disposition among all classes are yet totally averse to the toleration of any class of people friendly to the Union, be they white or black; and this aversion is not unfrequently manifested in an insulting and offensive manner. The testimony is conclusive that after the collapse of the Confederacy the feeling of the people of the rebellious States was that of abject submission. Having appealed to the tribunal of arms, they had no hope except that by the magnanimity of their conquerors their lives, and possibly their property, might be preserved. Unfortunately, the general issue of pardons to persons who had been prominent in the rebellion, and the feeling of kindness and conciliation manifested by the Executive, and very generally indicated through the northern press, had the effect to render whole communities forgetful of the crime they had committed, defiant towards the Federal Government, and regardless of their duties as citizens. The conciliatory measures of the Government do not seem to have been met even half way. The bitterness and defiance exhibited toward the United States under such circumstances is without a parallel in the history The witnesses examined as to the willingness of the world. In return for our leniency we of the people of the South to contribute, under receive only an insulting denial of our authorexisting laws, to the payment of the nationality. In return for our kind desire for the redebt, prove that the taxes levied by the United States will be paid only on compulsion and with great reluctance, while there prevails, to a considerable extent, an expectation that compensation will be made for slaves emancipated and property destroyed during the war. The testimony on this point comes from officers of the Union army, officers of the late rebel army, Union men of the Southern States, and avowed secessionists, almost all of whom state that, in their opinion, the people of the rebellious States would, if they should see a prospect of success, repudiate the national debt." While there is scarcely any hope or desire among leading men to renew the attempt at secession at any future time, there is still, according to a large number of witnesses, including A. H. Stephens, who may be regarded as good authority on that point, a generally prevailing opinion which defends the legal right of secession, and upholds the doctrine that the first allegiance of the people is due to the States, and not to the United States. This belief evidently prevails among leading and prominent men as well as among the masses everywhere, except in some of the northern counties of Alabama and the eastern counties of Tennessee. The evidence of an intense hostility to the Federal Union, and an equally intense love of the late Confederacy, nurtured by the war, is de sumption of fraternal relations we receive only an insolent assumption of rights and privileges long since forfeited. The crime we have punished is paraded as a virtue, and the principles of republican government which we have vindicated at so terrible cost are denounced as unjust and oppressive. If we add to this evidence the fact that, although peace has been declared by the President, he has not, to this day, deemed it safe to restore the writ of habeas corpus, to relieve the insurrectionary States of martial law, nor to withdraw the troops from many localities, and that the commanding general deems an increase of the army indispensable to the preservation of order and the protection of loyal and welldisposed people in the South, the proof of a condition of feeling hostile to the Union and dangerous to the Government throughout the insurrectionary States would seem to be overwhelming. With such evidence before them, it is the opinion of your committee I. That the States lately in rebellion were, at the close of the war, disorganized communities, without civil government, and without constitutions or other forms, by virtue of which political relations could legally exist between them and the Federal Government. II. That Congress cannot be expected to re cognize as valid the election of representatives | tion of the same States into a confederacy, which from disorganized communities, which, from the very nature of the case, were unable to present their claim to representation under those established and recognized rules, the observance of which has been hitherto required. III. That Congress would not be justified in admitting such communities to a participation in the government of the country without first providing such constitutional or other guarantees as will tend to secure the civil rights of all citizens of the Republic; a just equality of representation; protection against claims founded in rebellion and crime; a temporary restoration of the right of suffrage to those who have not actively participated in the efforts to destroy the Union and overthrow the Government; and the exclusion from positions of public trust of at least a portion of those whose crimes have proved them to be enemies to the Union, and unworthy of public confidence. Your committee will, perhaps, hardly be deemed excusable for extending this report further; but inasmuch as immediate and unconditional representation of the States lately in rebellion is demanded as a matter of right, and delay, and even hesitation, is denounced as grossly oppressive and unjust, as well as unwise and impolitic, it may not be amiss again to call attention to a few undisputed and notorious facts, and the principles of public law applicable thereto, in order that the propriety of that claim may be fully considered and well understood. The State of Tennessee occupies a position distinct from all the other insurrectionary States, and has been the subject of a separate report, which your committee have not thought it expedient to disturb. Whether Congress shall see fit to make that State the subject of separate action, or to include it in the same category with all others, so far as concerns the imposition of preliminary conditions, it is not within the province of this committee either to determine or advise. 46 To ascertain whether any of the so-called Confederate States are entitled to be represented in either House of Congress," the essential inquiry is, whether there is, in any one of them, a constituency qualified to be represented in Congress. The question how far persons claiming seats in either House possess the credentials necessary to enable them to represent a duly qualified constituency is one for the consideration of each House separately, after the preliminary question shall have been finally determined. We now propose to re-state, as briefly as possible, the general facts and principles applicable to all the States recently in rebellion. First. The seats of the senators and representatives from the so-called Confederate States became vacant in the year 1861, during the second session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, by the voluntary withdrawal of their incumbents, with the sanction and by direction of the legislatures or conventions of their respective States. This was done as a hostile act against the Constitution and Government of the United States, with a declared intent to overthrow the same by forming a southern confederation. This act of declared hostility was speedily followed by an organiza levied and waged war, by sea and land, against the United States. This war continued more than four years, within which period the rebel armies besieged the national capital, invaded the loyal States, burned their towns and cities, robbed their citizens, destroyed more than 250,000 loyal soldiers, and imposed an increased national burden of not less than $3,500,000,000, of which seven or eight hundred millions have already been met and paid. From the time these confederated States thus withdrew their representation in Congress and levied war against the United States, the great mass of their people became and were insurgents, rebels, traitors, and all of them assumed and occupied the political, legal, and practical relation of enemies of the United States, This position is established by acts of Congress and judicial decisions, and is recognized repeatedly by the President in public proclamations, documents, and speeches. Second. The States thus confederated prosecuted their war against the United States to final arbitrament, and did not cease until all their armies were captured, their military power destroyed, their civil officers, State and confederate, taken prisoners or put to flight, every vestige of State and confederate government obliterated, their territory overrun and occupied by the federal armies, and their people reduced to the condition of enemies conquered in war, entitled only by public law to such rights, privileges, and conditions as might be vouchsafed by the conqueror. This position is also established by judicial decisions, and is recognized by the President in public proclamations, documents, and speeches. Third. Having voluntarily deprived themselves of representation in Congress, for the criminal purpose of destroying the Federal Union, and having reduced themselves, by the act of levying war, to the condition of public enemies, they have no right to complain of temporary exclusion from Congress; but on the contrary, having voluntarily renounced the right to representation, and disqualified themselves by crime from participating in the Government, the burden now rests upon them, before claiming to be reinstated in their former condition, to show that they are qualified to resume federal relations. In order to do this, they must prove that they have established, with the consent of the people, republican forms of government in harmony with the Constitution and laws of the United States, that all hostile purposes have ceased, and should give adequate guarantees against future treason and rebellion-guarantees which shall prove satisfactory to the Government against which they rebelled, and by whose arms they were subdued. Fourth. Having, by this treasonable withdrawal from Congress, and by flagrant rebellion and war, forfeited all civil and political rights and privileges under the Constitution, they can only be restored thereto by the permission and authority of that constitutional power against which they rebelled and by which they were subdued. Fifth. These rebellious enemies were conquered by the people of the United States, acting through all the co-ordinate branches of the Government, and not by the executive depart ment alone. The powers of conqueror are not stitutional form of government is thereby pracso vested in the President that he can fix and tically destroyed, and its powers absorbed in regulate the terms of settlement and confer the Executive. And while your committee de congressional representation on conquered reb- not for a moment impute to the President any els and traitors. Nor can he, in any way, qualify such design, but cheerfully concede to him the enemies of the Government to exercise its law-most patriotic motives, they cannot but look making power. The authority to restore rebels with alarm upon a precedent so fraught with to political power in the Federal Government danger to the Republic. can be exercised only with the concurrence of Ninth. The necessity of providing adequate all the departments in which political power is safeguards for the future, before restoring the invested; and hence the several proclamations of surrectionary States to a participation in the the President to the people of the Confederate direction of public affairs, is apparent from the States cannot be considered as extending beyond bitter hostility to the Government and people of the purposes declared, and can only be regarded the United States yet existing throughout the as provisional permission by the commander-in-conquered territory, as proved incontestably by chief of the army to do certain acts, the effect the testimony of many witnesses and by unand validity whereof is to be determined by the disputed facts. constitutional government, and not solely by the executive power. Tenth. The conclusion of your committee therefore is, that the so-called Confederate States Sixth. The question before Congress is, then, are not at present entitled to representation in whether conquered enemies have the right, and the Congress of the United States; that, before shall be permitted at their own pleasure and on allowing such representation, adequate security their own terms, to participate in making laws for future peace and safety should be required; for their conquerors; whether conquered rebels that this can only be found in such changes of may change their theatre of operations from the organic law as shall determine the civil the battle-field, where they were defeated and rights and privileges of all citizens in all parts overthrown, to the halls of Congress, and, of the Republic, shall place representation on an through their representatives, seize upon the Government which they fought to destroy; whether the national treasury, the army of the nation, its navy, its forts and arsenals, its whole civil administration, its credit, its pensioners, the widows an orphans of those who perished in the war, the public honor, peace and safety, shall all be turned over to the keeping of its recent enemies without delay, and without imposing such conditions as, in the opinion of Congress, the security of the country and its institutions may demand. Seventh. The history of mankind exhibits no example of such madness and folly. The instinct of self-preservation protests against it. The surrender by Grant to Lee, and by Sherman to Johnston, would have been disasters of less magnitude, for new armies could have been raised, new battles fought, and the Government saved. The anti-coercive policy, which, under pretext of avoiding bloodshed, allowed the rebellion to take form and gather force, would be surpassed in infamy by the matchless wickedness that would now surrender the halls of Congress to those so recently in rebellion, until proper precautions shall have been taken to secure the national faith and the national safety. Eighth. As has been shown in this report, and in the evidence submitted, no proof has been afforded by Congress of a constituency in any one of the so-called Confederate States, unless we except the State of Tennessee, qualified to elect Senators and Representatives in Congress. No State constitution, or amendment to a State constitution, has had the sanction of the people. All the so-called legislation of State conventions and legislatures has been had under military dictation. If the President may, at his will, and under his own authority, whether as military commander or chief executive, qualify persons to appoint Senators and elect Representatives, and empower others to appoint and elect them, he thereby practically controls the organization of the legislative department. The con equitable basis, shall fix a stigma upon treason, and protect the loyal people against future claims for the expenses incurred in support of rebellion and for manumitted slaves, together with an express grant of power in Congress to enforce those provisions. To this end they offer a joint resolution for amending the Constitution of the United States, and the two several bills designed to carry the same into effect, before referred to. Before closing this report, your committee beg leave to state that the specific recommendations. submitted by them are the result of mutual concession, after a long and careful comparison of conflicting opinions. Upon a question of such magnitude, infinitely important as it is to the future of the Republic, it was not to be expected that all should think alike. Sensible of the imperfections of the scheme, your committee submit it to Congress as the best they could agree upon, in the hope that its imperfections may be cured, and its deficiencies supplied, by legislative wisdom; and that, when finally adopted, it may tend to restore peace and harmony to the whole country, and to place our republican institutions on a more stable foundation. W. P. FESSENDEN, JUSTIN S. MORRILL, JNO. A. BINGHAM, Minority Report. June 22-Mr. JOHNSON in the Senate, and Mr. ROGERS in the House, submitted this REPORT: The undersigned, a minority of the joint com In order to obtain a correct apprehension of the subject, and as having a direct bearing upon it, the undersigned think it all important clearly to ascertain what was the effect of the late insurrection upon the relations of the States where it prevailed to the General Government and of the people collectively and individually of such States. To this inquiry they therefore first address themselves. mittee of the Senate and House of Representa- | the Constitution was adopted. In each instance tives, constituted under the concurrent resolu- the State admitted has been "declared to be one tion of the 13th of December, 1865, making it of the United States, on an equal footing with their duty to "inquire into the condition of the the original States in all respects whatever." States which formed the so-called Confederate The Constitution, too, so far as most of the States of America, and to report whether they or powers it contains are concerned, operates directly any of them are entitled to be represented in upon the people in their individual and aggreeither House of Congress, with leave to report by gate capacity, and on all alike. Each citizen, bill or otherwise," not being able to concur in therefore, of every State owes the same allethe measures recommended by the majority, or giance to the General Government, and is entiin the grounds upon which they base them, beg tled to the same protection. The obligation of leave to report: this allegiance it is not within the legal power of his State or of himself to annul or evade. It is made paramount and perpetual, and for that very reason it is equally the paramount duty of the General Government to allow to the citizens of each State, and to the State, the rights secured to both, and the protection necessary to their full enjoyment. A citizen may, no doubt, forfeit such rights by committing a crime against the United States upon conviction of the same, where such forfeiture by law antecedently passed is made a part of the punishment. But a State cannot in its corporate capacity be made liable to such a forfeiture, for a State, as such, under the Constitution, cannot commit or be indicted for a crime. No legal proceeding, criminal or civil, can be instituted to deprive a State of the benefits of the Constitution, by forfeiting_as against her any of the rights it secures. Her citizens, be they few or many, may be proceeded against under the law and convicted, but the State remains a State of the Union. To concede that, by the illegal conduct of her own citizens, she can be withdrawn from the Union, is virtually to concede the right of secession. For what difference does it make as regards the result whether a State can rightfully secede, (a doctrine, by-the-by, heretofore maintained by statesmen North as well as South,) or whether by the illegal conduct of her citizens she ceases to be a State of the Union? In either case the end is the same. The only difference is that by the one theory she ceases by law to be such a State, and by the other by crime, without and against law. But the doctrine is wholly erroneous. A State once in the Union' must abide in it forever. She can never withdraw from or be expelled from it. A different principle would subject the Union to dissolution at any moment. It is, therefore, alike perilous and unsound. First, as to the States. Did the insurrection at its commencement, or at any subsequent time, legally dissolve the connection between those States and the General Government? In our judgment, so far from this being a "profitless abstraction," it is a vital inquiry. For if that connection was not disturbed, such States during the entire rebellion were as completely component States of the United States as they were before the rebellion, and were bound by all the obligations which the Constitution imposes, and entitled to all its privileges. Was not this their condition? The opposite view alone can justify the denial of such rights and privileges. That a State of the Union can exist without possessing them is inconsistent with the very nature of the Government and terms of the Constitution. In its nature the Government is formed of and by States possessing equal rights and powers. States unequal are not known to the Constitution. In its original formation perfect equality was secured. They were granted the same representation in the Senate, and the same right to be represented in the House of Representatives; the difference in the latter being regulated only by a difference in population. But every State, however small its population, was secured one Representative in that branch. Each State was given the right, and the same right, to participate in the election of President and Vice President, and all alike were secured the benefit of the judicial department. The Constitution, too, was submitted to the people of each State separately, and adopted by them in that capacity. The convention which framed it considered, as they were bound to do, each as a separate sovereignty, that could not be subjected to the Constitution except by its own consent. That consent was consequently asked and given. The equality, therefore, of rights was the condition of the original thirteen States before the Government was formed, and such equality was not only not interfered with, but guaranteed to them as well in regard to the powers conferred upon the General Government, as to those reserved to the States or to the people of the States. The same equality is secured to the States which have been admitted into the Union since Nor do we see that it has any support in the measures recommended by the majority of the committee. The insurrectionary States are by these measures conceded to be States of the Union. The proposed constitutional amendment is to be submitted to them as well as to the other States. In this respect each is placed on the same ground. To consult a State not in the Union on the propriety of adopting a constitutional amendment to the government of the Union, and which is necessarily to affect those States only composing the Union, would be an absurdity; and to allow an amendment, which States in the Union might desire, to be defeated by the votes of States not in the Union, would be alike nonsensical and unjust. The very measure, therefore, of submitting to all the States forming the Union before the insurrection a constitutional amendment, makes the inquiry, whether all at this time are in or out of the Union, a vital one. If they are |