this paper? A quasi constitution? Apar-
tial constitution? A contingent, conditional
constitution? This sort of proceeding strikes
me as violating every principle we owe to
those who sent us here, every principle that
could be expected atour hands to beadopted.
I feel very unwilling to indulge in harsh ex-
pressions. I feel very unwilling to charac-
terize such proceedings by terms which I
think become it. It does strike me as a most
monstrous encroachment upon the plainest
rights that can possibly be claimed by a free
people.
There are gentlemen here who profess to
regard the act of assembly as obligatory.
That has been the general sentiment, at least
one very frequently expressed here. You
are trampling upon that. What does that
tell you? Your constitution, before it has
any legal effect, before it can operate upon
any one either to restrain his vote or to open
the polls to him, before it can have any effect
any how or anywhere or on any one, must
be confirmed by the people. I repeat again
that any voter in the State has said so; not
by putting it on his ticket, not perhaps by
open declaration, but in his own person, in
his own mind, he has as fixedly so determined
as be has to put his ticket in the ballot-box;
without, I say again, a dissenting voice upon
the subject. We talk sometimes very gravely
about regarding the popular will, the rights
of the people, their sovereignty, their possession
of all power, being the source of all power,
and of our obligation to regard their will and
their wishes. I appeal to the people. I appeal
to their wishes and their will. I say that has
been violated in the person of every voter, if
such a claim as this is suffered to be carried
into effect. We have by the constitution as
it exists a large class of citizens whose vote
will probably be rejected under the provisions
of this constitution. I have had occasion be-
fore to say that there are many persons in
this State as innocent, in the category now
made criminals for the first time, as any other
person living. There are persons who make
very free with the terms "rebel," "seces-
sionist," and all that sort of thing, de-
nouncing men as good and pure as them-
selves.
There are cases, I cite my own as one of
them, where the language of this oath cer-
tainly would seem to apply. A man must
never have given comfort, aid, countenance,
or services to the rebels. I have issue of
my own body, blood of my blood, bone of
my bone, a man who was in the South long
ago, a man Who there enlisted with as
firm a purpose upon his part to do right, as
you or anybody else, with no thought of do-
ing wrong; a person suffering from wound
and disease. I have furnished him relief.
How? Surreptitiously? Criminally? Vio-
lating any law in doing so? No, sir; by
going to the officers of the government, offi- |
cers wearing the uniform of the country,
men who do their duty, and passing through
their hands the necessary means to afford aid
and comfort to that wounded and sick prison-
er. Am I to be excluded? Is every principle
of every law to be violated in my person?
It is not only a law in violation of the will of
the people when they voted upon this sub-
ject; not only such a law as your own bill of
rights denounces, an (expost facto law; but it
is a law in violation of the dictates and the
feelings which pod Almighty has planted in
every human breast, which has not become
degraded. I am insensible however to any
such act. The great God who has made us,
made me at least of such materials that all
the conventions, and all the oaths that hu-
man ingenuity can pour in my face, shall
never prevent me from helping an afflicted,
wounded, diseased grandson. I would do it
though this convention should pronounce it
a cause of death, and erect the gallows in the
place where you sit.
These are my sentiments. I avow it. It
seems that it has been brought within the
criminal code, I think: that is the language,
nobody shall vote but one who shall swear
by virtue of this constitution, no constitution
before, no law before, nobody but he that shall
swear that he has not furnished aid or com-
fort, or countenance to any individual in the
rebel service.
Mr. President, I have expressed these senti-
ments, restraining myself within such terms as
I hope have not been personally offensive to
any gentleman upon this floor. I have be-
fore made appeals to the calm considerate
reason of gentlemen. I have before depre-
cated the influence of party feeling, and party
connection, by which gentlemen are induced
to surrender their judgments to the control of
political influences. I ask them in the name
of every principle that is dear to freemen;
in the name of every obligation they owe to
their constituents, in the name of every
principle which belongs to constitutional
right, to political privilege, to forbear this
last and final step. Yon have been brought
here, the majority of this body, to frame cer-
tain propositions, and to submit them to the
people of the State. There have been many
of them very offensive to those of us who
form the minority of this body. Your right
to do so has not been impeached. It is a
duty which yon are to perform on the respon-
sibility you owe to your God, to your con-
stituents, and to yourselves. That is not the
case in this matter. You are now taking a
step, not to do that which you were sent here
to do, not to do that which is a proposition
which the people may accept or reject, not to
propose a constitution to have effect or to have
none according to the vote which shall pur-
sue it. Yon are sent here for no such pur-
pose as to deprive those who have enjoyed
constitutional rights of the fair exercise of |
