ngth. He presented extracts from the President's speech of the day
before, in which he had arrayed himself against the right of Congress
to decide whether a rebel State is in condition to be represented.

Mr. Fessenden considered the pending resolution as "transcending in
importance the question of the amendment of the Constitution, which
had been under discussion for several days." He deemed the resolution
necessary now, "in order that Congress may assert distinctly its own
rights and its own powers; in order that there may be no mistake
anywhere, in the mind of the Executive or in the minds of the people
of this country; that Congress, under the circumstances of this case,
with this attempted limitation of its powers with regard to its own
organization, is prepared to say to the Executive and to the country,
respectfully but firmly, over this subject they have, and they mean to
exercise, the most full and plenary jurisdiction. We will judge for
ourselves, not only upon credentials and the character of men and the
position of men, but upon the position of the States which sent those
men here. In other words, to use the language of the President again,
when the question is to be decided, whether they obey the
Constitution, whether they have a fitting constitution of their own,
whether they are loyal, whether they are prepared to obey the laws as
a preliminary, as the President says it is, to their admission, we
will say whether those preliminary requirements have been complied
with, and not he, and nobody but ourselves."

Mr. Fessenden made an extended argument on the subject of
reconstruction, affirming that while the people of the rebel States
had not passed from under the jurisdiction of the United States
Government, yet having no existence as States with rights in the Union
and rights to representation in Congress. "My judgment is," said he,
"that we hold the power over the whole subject in our hands, that it
is our duty to hold it in our hands, and to regard it as a matter of
the most intense interest to the whole people, involving the good of
the whole people, calling for our most careful consideration, and to
be adjudged without passion, without temper, without any of that
feeling which may be supposed to have arisen out of the unexampled
state of things through which we have passed."

On the 26th of February, Mr. Sherman addressed the Senate on the
pending concurrent resolution. He approved the principle but d