r, and I do not know but the President of the United
States would have the power, in case of such a division, to send his
private secretary with messages to one body and not send them to the
other. Perhaps that might occur; but it is one of those cases that are
not to be supposed or to be tolerated."

Mr. Wilson advocated the resolution: "The nation," said he, "is
divided into two classes; that the one class imperiously demands the
immediate and unconditional admission into these halls of legislation
of the rebellious States, _rebel end foremost_; that the other class
seeks their admission into Congress, at an early day, _loyal end
foremost_. He would hear, too, the blended voices of unrepentant
rebels and rebel sympathizers and apologists mingling in full chorus,
not for the restoration of a broken Union, for the unity and
indivisibility of the republic has been assured on bloody fields of
victory, but for the restoration to these vacant chairs of the
'natural leaders' of the South."

Referring to Mr. Davis' programme for the President's interference
with the Senate, Mr. Wilson said: "Sir, there was a time when a
Senator who should have said what we have recently heard on this floor
would have sunk into his seat under the withering rebuke of his
associates. No Senator or Representative has a right to tell us what
the Executive will do. The President acts upon his own responsibility.
We are Senators, this is the Senate of the United States, and it
becomes us to maintain the rights and the dignity of the Senate of the
United States. The people demand that their Senators and
Representatives shall enact the needed measures to restore, at the
earliest possible day, the complete practical relations of the seceded
States to the National Government, and protect the rights and
liberties of all the people, without regard to color, race, or
descent."

Mr. Fessenden, having the resolution in charge, made a second speech,
in which he answered objections which had been urged, and defended the
Committee of Fifteen against imputations of a disposition to delay the
work of reconstruction.

Mr. McDougal took occasion to say a few words against the resolution.
He said: "I would not dare to vote for this proposition, because I
have some regard for the great Judge who lives above. The question
pending now, as practically useless as it will be as rule, is yet
mischievous. It is in the way of teaching bad precedents, false law,
unsound