in the heavens. My regret is, for I must speak frankly, that Congress was not at that time called together. I believe it would have hastened the work of reconstruction. I believe that Congress, and the President, by his approval of their legislation, would have united last summer on a policy of reconstruction which would have been acceptable to both branches of the Government, and in which the South, seeing this concurrent action, would have acquiesced. The Constitution of the United States declares that the President, on extraordinary occasions, may convene Congress. It has seemed to me that last April was an extraordinary occasion. The President had been murdered by a rebel conspirator, and the Vice-President had assumed the Presidential functions; the rebellion had seen its flag trampled in the dust and its armies surrendered. It has seemed to me that, if there ever was an 'extraordinary occasion,' this was one. But the President-and I recognize his full Constitutional authority to decide the question-deemed that it was not expedient to call Congress together, and went on himself with the work of reconstruction. I believe that he entered upon and proceeded with that work at the outset, intending it as an experiment that it would be best to test before Congress reassembled. confirmed in that belief by the messages which he sent to the Governors of Florida and Mississippi, stating that the restoration of their States would depend upon Congress; but I do not think it resulted in developing loyalty at the South. Congress at last convened on the first Monday of December last. It could not convene earlier, for it had no power to meet until its regular session, unless convened by the President. It appointed a committee to examine into the condition of the late

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Confederate States, and it was only one short month ago they received official documents from the Executive Departments, which enabled them to know what transpired during the long recess of Congress, and now it is able to act intelligently, with some official knowledge of the situation.

"You will ask, perhaps, what is my policy of reconstruction. I will tell you in a few words. It is the policy of reconstruction laid down by Andrew Johnson with such emphasis and earnestness in his speeches made to the public between the month of June, 1864, and the month of May, 1865. Whatever may be the change in his views now, they showed his construction then of the Baltimore platform; his radical speeches in Tennessee were indorsed by his election, and I stand by those declarations. They can be condensed into one single sentence, and that is, 'Loyal men shall govern a preserved Republic.'

CHAPTER XXVIII.

LETTER OF MR. COLFAX, JULY, 1866, TO CONVENTION OF

NINTH CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT OF INDIANA-HIS RENOMINATION-RECEPTION AT HOME-RE-ELECTION— RESPONSE AT WASHINGTON TO THE WELCOME BACK GIVEN TO THE THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS.

UPON the adjournment of Congress in July, the contest between the President and Congress was continued

before the people. The election for members of the Fortieth Congress was pending. Mr. Colfax wrote the following letter to the nominating convention of his district:

"HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

"WASHINGTON, July 2, 1866. "DEAR SIRS: The harmony and success of the Union organization, welded together in the furnace-fire of a four years' war, is of such paramount importance to all other considerations, that I write you this letter to be read at the Westville Convention, that my position may be unmistakably understood by those who have honored me with their confidence so cordially and so long.

"Last winter, when my name had been suggested by several papers in various parts of the State for the Senate, I published a card, stating that I was not, and never had been, a candidate for that distinguished position, having always preferred service in the House. But my name must not be in the way a single moment, if any considerable portion of the Convention prefer some other standard bearer, even though that portion should be a minority. In that event, the delegation from St. Joseph county are requested to withdraw my name, and to pledge my most earnest exertions to whoever of the many active and faithful friends of the Union cause the Convention may prefer to nominate.

"The contest before us is of as vital importance to the truest and best interests of the nation as the exciting contests of 1862 and 1864; and the issues should be clearly and distinctly before the people. They can be condensed into a single question, Which shall govern in the councils of the nation, loyalty or disloyalty?' It has

been well said, in language as terse as it is true, that the power to carry on war for national existence carries with it the power to prescribe the terms of peace. The duty of guarding the land against the danger of a second rebellion is as imperative as its preservation from the first. And nothing seems clearer than that the same authority which prevented eleven States from destroying the Union, has a right, as indisputable as the right of self defence, to regulate the resumption of the relations of these States.

"When the rebel armies surrendered, the President decided, and rightly, that civil government had been destroyed in each of the rebel States, and he officially proclaimed that fact in his commissions to provisional Governors thereof. The Congressional policy starts from the same initial point. The President declared that essential conditions, involving great changes, must be complied with by those States before they could resume their forfeited rights. And so does Congress. The President required the ratification of an important Constitutional amendment, which had been submitted by a Congress representing the loyal States, and in which the rebel States had no voice. And Congress makes a similar demand to-day. If the President could rightfully require their ratification of one amendment, changing their whole system of labor, and destroying what they regarded as vested rights of property, proposed by a Congress in which they were unrepresented, and in conflict, as it was, with their life-long prejudices, why cannot the Congress, elected as the law-making power of the country by the same voters as himself, require the ratification of another amendment, preventing the rebel States from wielding increased power in Congress

hereafter, because of the war, which, against their desires, had lifted their slaves into the full stature of freemen?

"That this amendment is in accordance with the wishes of the loyal millions who won the brilliant political victory of 1864, is proven by the unanimity with which it was supported in the House of Representatives. Every man, elected as a Union member, whether from the North or the South, from the East or the West, gave it his vote; not barely the two-thirds required by the Constitution, but nearly four-fifths. On this amendment, as a security for the future, the Union party of the nation have planted themselves; and I shall stand with them most cordially, vindicating its justice, wisdom, and necessity, and willing on it to stand or fall.

"For one, I do not doubt the result. Shall rebels settle their own terms of coming back to govern us? Shall they reascend to enlarged and increased powers, using as steps the graves of the Union dead? Should not Congress, whose solemn duty it is to see that the Republic suffers no evil, pause before the bitter foes of yesterday are admitted to the inner sanctuary of the nation's life? Ought they not to guard the halls of national legislation from being trodden by the feet of those who have been murdering the defenders of the Union for fidelity to an allegiance they themselves so wickedly repudiated ?

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Every newspaper in the land, North or South, which eulogized Jefferson Davis and villified Abraham Lincoln, now denounces Congress in the severest terms. Every unrepentant rebel and unscrupulous sympathizer joins them in their revilings. But I rejoice that it has been so faithful, so inflexible, in what it has regarded as the