re to-day as it ever has been since the first gun was fired upon
Fort Sumter. The rebellion is alive. It is strong--strong in the
number of its votaries, strong in its social influences, strong in its
political power, strong in the belief that the executive department of
this Government is in sympathy and community of purpose with them,
strong in the belief that the controlling majority of the supreme
judiciary of the land is with them in legal opinion, strong in the
belief that the controversy in this body between impracticable zeal
and incorrigible timidity will prevent any thing of importance being
accomplished or any legislation matured."

"It is," said Mr. Allison, "because of the interference of the
President of the United States with the military law which exists in
those States that this bill is rendered necessary. In my judgment, if
we had to-day an Executive who was desirous of enforcing the laws of
the United States to protect loyal men in those States, instead of
defending the rebel element, this bill would not be needed."

Mr. Blaine submitted an amendment providing that any one of the "late
so-called Confederate States" might be restored to representation and
relieved of military rule when, in addition to having accepted the
Constitutional Amendment, it should have conferred the elective
franchise impartially upon all male citizens over twenty-one years of
age.

Mr. Blaine maintained that the people in the elections of 1866 had
declared in favor of "universal, or, at least, impartial suffrage as
the basis of restoration."

On the 13th of February the discussion was continued. "That the spirit
of rebellion still lives," said Mr. Van Horn, of New York, "and now
thrives in the South no sane man can deny; that the determination
exists to make their rebellion honorable and the loyalty of the South
a lasting disgrace and a permanent badge of dishonor is equally true
and can not be denied. The leaders of the rebellion, being in power in
all the ten States unreconstructed, still defy the authority of the
United States to a great extent, and deny the-power of the loyal
millions of the country, who have saved our nation's life against
their treason and rebellion, to prescribe terms of settlement of this
great controversy, and deny also that they have lost any rights they
had before the war or committed any treason against the Government."

The measure before the House, as it came from the Committee on
Reconstr