majority, it is not
deemed wholly prudent to part with that majority out of mere comity to
men from whom no assistance could be expected. Finally, by way of
closing the suggestive instructions, you may give your constituents to
understand that, as you went out of Congress rebel end foremost, you
will not probably get into those vacant seats over yonder except that
you come back Union end foremost."

Mr. Stewart, of Nevada, held opinions of the pending question
different from those maintained by his colleague. He thought "the
power to suspend the right of a State to representation might imply a
dangerous power, and might imply a right to suspend it for any reason
that Congress might see fit. The power to suspend the right of a State
to be represented might hereafter be a terrible precedent." "There is
no provision in the Constitution," said Mr. Stewart, "conferring such
a power upon Congress. No authority of the kind is expressed in that
instrument, nor can I find any place where it is implied." In another
portion of his speech, which was very long, and occupied part of the
session of the succeeding day, Mr. Stewart remarked: "In the darkest
time of the rebellion, I deny that the right to represent Tennessee in
this hall by those who were loyal ever was for a moment suspended, but
their power to obey the law, their power to represent it was prevented
by treason. They were overpowered, and they were denied the right of
representation, not by Congress, not by the Government. This war was
to maintain for them that right which rebellion had sought to take
away from them, and had for a time suspended the harmonious relations
of the State to the General Government; and it will be too much to
admit that this Government has ever been in such a fix that the people
thereof were really not entitled to the protection of the
Constitution, and because they were denied it this war was brought on,
this war was prosecuted."

Mr. Johnson opposed the resolution in a protracted speech in which he
reviewed the entire subject of reconstruction. Of the condition and
rights of the Southern States he said: "They are as much States as
they were when the insurrection was inaugurated, and their relation to
their sister States, and their consequent relation to the Government
of the United States, is the same relation in which they stood to both
when the insurrection was inaugurated. That would seem to follow
logically as a necessary result, and i