THE PRACTICE OF JUSTICE OUR ONLY SECURITY FOR THE FUTURE. Ꭱ Ꭼ Ꮇ Ꭺ Ꭱ Ꮶ Ꮪ OF ON. WILLIAM D. KELLEY, OF PENNSYLVANIA, IN SUPPORT OF HIS PROPOSED AMENDMENT TO THE BILL GUARANTY TO CERTAIN STATES WHOSE GOVERNMENTS HAVE DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JANUARY 16, 1865. WASHINGTON: REMARKS. The House having under consideration the bill to guarauty to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government," Mr. KELLEY moved to amend the bill by inserting after the words "to enroll all the white male citizens of the United States" the words and all other male citizens of the United States who may be able to read the constitution thereof," and said: us. Mr. SPEAKER These are indeed terrible times the eve of overthrow. It belongs to us to govern the territory we have conquered, and the question of reconstruction presses itself upon our attention; and our legislation in this behalf will, though it comprise no specific provisions on the subject, determine whether guerrilla war shall harass communities for long years, or be suppressed in a brief time by punisliments administered through courts and law, to marauders for the crimes they may commit under the name of partisan warfare. At the close of an international war, the wronged but victorious party may justly make two claims: indemnity for the past, and security for the future; indemnity for the past in money or in ter for timid peop' Use and wont no longer serve The gus traitorously fired upon Fort Sumter threw us all out of the well-beaten ruts of habit, and as the war progresses men find themselves less and less able to express their political views by naming a party or uttering its shibbo-ritory; security for the future by new treaties, the leth. It is no longer safe for any of us to wait till the election comes and accept the platform and tickets presented by a party. We may have served in its ranks for a life-time and find at lastcostly and painful experience being our guide-that to obtain the ends we had in view we should have acted independently of, and in opposition to it and its leaders. In seasons like this, an age on ages telling, the feeblest man in whom there is faith or honesty is made to feel that he is not quite powerless, that duty is laid on him too, and that the force that is in him ought to be expressed in accordance with his own convictions and in a way to promote some end seen or hoped for. The questions with which we have to deal, the grave doubts that confound us, the difficulties that environ us, the results our action will produce, fraught with weal or woe to centuries and constantly-increasing millions,are such as have rarely been confided to a generation. But happily we are not without guidance. Our situation, though novel, does not necessarily cast us upon the field of mere experiment. True, we have not specific precedents which we may safely follow; but the founders of our Government gave us, in a few brief sentences, laws by which we may extricate our generation and country from the horrors that involve them, and secure peace broad as our country, enduring as its history, and beneficent as right and justice and love. The organized war power of the rebellion is on establishment of new boundaries, or the cession of military power and the territory upon which it dwells. Indemnity for the past we cannot hope to obtain. When we shall have punished the conspirators who involved the country in this sanguinary war, and pardoned the dupes and victims who have arrayed themselves or been forced to do battle under their flag, we shall but have repossessed our ancient territory, reëstablished the boundaries of our country, restored to our flag and Constitution their supremacy over territory which was ours, but which the insurgents meant to dismember and possess. The other demand we may and must successfully make. Security for the future is accessible to us, and we must demand it; and to obtain it with amplest guarantees requires the adoption of no new idea, the making of no experiment, the entering upon no sea of political speculation. Ours would have been an era of peace and prosperity, had we and our fathers accepted in full faith the great principles that impelled their fathers to demand the independence of the United Colonies, gave them strength in counsel, patience, courage, and long endurance in the field, and guided them in establishing a Constitution which all ages will recognize as the miracle of the era in which it was framed and adopted, and the influence of which shall modify and change, and bring into its own similitude, the Governments of the world. Had and the generation that preceded us, accepted we, and been guided by the self-evident truths to which I allude, the world would never have known the martial power of the American people, or realized the fact that a Government that sits so lightly as ours upon the people in peace is so infinitely strong in the terrible season of war. The founders of our institutions labored consciously and reverently in the sight of God. They knew that they were the creatures of His power, and that their work could only be well done by being done in the recognition of His attributes, and in harmony with the enduring laws of His providence. They knew that His ways were ways of pleasantness, and His paths the paths of peace; and they endeavored to embody His righteousness and justice in the Government they were fashioning for unknown ages, and untold millions of men. Their children, in the enjoyment of the prosperity thus secured to them, lost their faith in these great truths, treated them with utter disregard, violated them, legislated in opposition to them, and finally strove to govern the country in active hostility to them. And for a little while they seemed to succeed. But at length we have been made to feel and know that God's justice does not sleep always; and amid the ruins of the country and the desolation of our homes let us resolve that we will return to the ancient ways, look to Him for guidance, and follow humbly in the footsteps of our wise and pious forefathers; and that, as grateful children, we will erect to their memory and to that of the brave men who have died in defense of their work in this the grandest of all wars, a monument broad as our country, pure as was their wisdom, and enduring as Christian civilization. So shall we by our firmness and equity exalt the humble, restrain the rapacious and arrogant, and bind the people to each other by the manifold cords of common sympathies and interest, and to the Government by the gratitude due to a just and generous guardian. But, Mr. Speaker, I hear gentlemen inquire how this is to be done. The process is simple, easy, and inviting: it is by accepting in child-like faith, and executing with firm and steady purpose three or four of the simple dogmas which the founders of our Government proclaimed to the world, and which, alas! too often with hypocritical lip service, are professed by all Americans, even those who are how striving, through blood, and carnage, and devastation, to found a broad empire, the corner-stone of which was to be human slavery. In announcing the reasons which impelled the colonies to a separation from the mother country, the American people declared that "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind” required "a declaration of the causes which impelled them to the separation;" and in assigning those causes. announced a few general propositions, embody- || ing eternal and ever-operating principles, among which were, First, that all men are created equal, are endowed with certain inalienable rights," and that "among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" Second, that "to insure these rights, Governments are instituted among men;" Third, that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed;' Fourth, that "whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. And in these four propositions we have an all-sufficient guide to enduring peace and prosperity. If in the legislation we propose we regard these self-evident truths, our posterity shall not only enjoy peace, but teach the world the way to universal freedom; but if we fail to regard them, God alone in His infinite wisdom knows what years of agitation, war, and misery we may entail on posterity, and whether the overthrow of our Government, the division of our country, and all the ills thus entailed on mankind may not be justly chargeable to us. This table, as will be observed, embraces the whole of Virginia as she was in 1860; and as I have not the means of distinguishing the proportion of her population that is embraced in the new State of West Virginia, I permit it to stand as it is. The new State is in the Union; her citizens never assented to the ordinance of secession; they have provided for the extinguishment of slavery within her limits; and my remarks, save in the general scope in which they may be applicable to any or all of the States of the Union, will not be understood as applying to her. It is of the territory for which it is the duty of Congress to provide governments that I speak. I should also call attention to the fact that the Superintendent of the Census includes the few Indians that remained in some of these States in the column of white inhabitants. Their number is not important; but it certainly should not be so stated as to create the impression that they enjoyed the rights or performed the duties of citizens. How unfair this classification is will appear from the fact that the following section from the Code of Tennessee of 1858, section 3,858, indicates very fairly the position they held under the legislation of each and all the above-named States: "A negro, mulatto, Indian, or person of mixed blood, |