the United States, loosely described under the general term of "the rules and usages of war," and new crimes, defined by no law, called "military offenses;" and without the authority of any statute, constitutional or unconstitutional, pointing these lawsconfined by the usage of the world to enemies in enemies' territory-against our own citizens in our own territory, the government has repeatedly deprived many citizens of the United States. of their liberty, has condemned many to death, who have only been redeemed from that extreme penalty by the kindness of the President's heart, aided doubtless by the serious scruples he can not but feel touching the legality of the judgment that assigned them to death.

There have been many cases in which judgments of confinement in the penitentiary have been inflicted for acts not punishable either under the usages of war or under any statute of the United States by any military tribunal; crimes for which the laws of the United States prescribe the punishment have been visited with other and severer punishments by military tribunals; violations of contract with the government, real or imputed, have been construed by these tribunals into frauds, and punished illegally as crimes; excessive bail has been demanded, and, when furnished, impudently reduced; and the attempt of Congress to discriminate between crimes committed by persons in the military forces and citizens not in those forces has been annulled, and the very offenses it specifically required to be tried before the courts of the United States have been tried before military tribunals dependent upon the will of the President.

The President, when petitioned humbly, has refused or neglected more than once to stop the illegal proceedings and submit the case to courts of the United States.

"Courts-martial are organized to convict" is the sinister declaration of the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and the President still tolerates his presence!

That hand inserted, under the innocent title of a bill to increase the paymasters of the navy, a section subjecting every agent and servant of the Navy Department to trial by courtmartial, which passed the Senate and the House without discovery or exposure, and now hangs on a motion to reconsider.

It was the settled purpose of oppression disclosed by that

act which occasioned this amendment, and forbids its abandonment.

The committee remember that such things are inconsistent with the endurance of republican government. The party which tolerates or defends them must destroy itself or the republic. They felt they had reached a point at which a vote must be cast which may break up political parties, or if it do not, will break up or save a great republican government. Before these alternatives they could not hesitate. They thought it best now, at this time, to leave this law standing as a broken dike in the midst of the rising flood of lawless power around us, to show to this generation how high that flood of lawless power has risen in only three years of civil war, as a warning to those who are to come after us, as an awakening to those who are now with us.

They have, therefore, come to the determination, so far as the constitutional privileges and prerogatives of this House will enable them to accomplish the result, that this bill shall not become a law if these words do not stand as part of it-the affirmation by the representatives of the States and of the people of the inalienable birthright of every American citizen; and on that question they appeal from the judgment of the Senate to the judgment of the American people.

Mr. LITTLEJOHN. Believing, sir, as I do, that this great republic could not have been given to posterity except by the exercise of the very power of which the amendment of my friend from Maryland [Mr. Davis] seeks at this time to deprive the executive, I agreed with the Senate committee, and it was our desire to report unanimously, advising that the House recede from its amendment. We could not agree, however, and hence we have narrowed down the question as much as possible. I propose therefore, if it be in order, that the House concur in the report of the Committee of Conference upon all except the amendment known as the Winter Davis amendment, and upon that I move that the House recede, so as to bring the question to a direct vote. And upon these motions I move the previous question.

Mr. DAVIS, of Maryland. I am in earnest in this matter, and am determined that not one item of this bill shall pass without the whole of it.

Mr. KASSON. I appeal to the gentleman to allow the appropriation for the insane to be made.

Mr. LITTLEJOHN. I agree with the gentleman from Maryland. I object to any such proposition. This whole bill must pass through, or none of it.

A determination being thus manifested that the bill should not become a law without the amendment securing citizens against trials by courts-martial, the House, after one or two dilatory votes, proceeded to other business till adjournment sine die.

LETTER ON RECONSTRUCTION.-UNIVERSAL

SUFFRAGE.

To the rising of the Thirty-eighth Congress rapidly succeeded the events which astounded the country-the surrender of the rebel armies under Lee, the assassination of the President, the attempts to assassinate the Vice-President and the Secretary of State, and the final dispersion of the armed rebellion in the Southern States.

Mr. Davis had left Congress, with health impaired by labors and exposure there, but he still continued his efforts in relation to the matter of reconstruction of the governments in the Southern States.

In May he wrote to a friend in Washington upon that subject the following letter, which contains the first formal declaration of his opinion as to the necessity of conferring the right of suffrage on the colored race in those States.

Baltimore, May 27, 1865.

MY DEAR SIR,-Please accept my acknowledgments for your kind note.

I wish I could give you a short and satisfactory answer to your brief and pregnant question touching our prospects under President Johnson.

The future of the nation is summed up in the restoration of political power to the States lately in rebellion.

Of what the President's policy is on that topic I know nothing. The conditions of the problem are plain, and the consequences of the several possible solutions follow with logical certainty. It rests with the President, in the state in which Congress has left the question, to take the initiative, and the mode in which that is done will determine all that follows. Whatever State governments he allows to be organized, and to elect representatives and senators to Congress, will be recognized by Congress in December in all probability.

None exist now in any State which rebelled; none can be organized legally without the assent of the United States, and no steps to secure that assent can be taken without his permission.

The President's only power over the question rests in his right

to refuse permission for any Convention or election to be held, unless on terms satisfactory to him; but that power is decisive. If he refuse to permit any election or any Convention to be held, things will await the solution of Congress.

If he permit the aggregate white population of the South, qualified to vote under the old governments abrogated by the rebellion, to organize the State governments, that installs the revolutionary faction in power in the States, and fills Congress with their representatives and senators.

That is to place the sceptre in the hands from which we have just wrested the sword.

If the President attempt to discriminate the loyal from the disloyal, and exclude from voting all who have given aid and comfort to the rebellion, a mere handful of the population will remain, wholly incompetent to form or maintain a State government, and sure to be overwhelmed by the political counter-revolution at the next election, which will restore power to the leaders of the rebellion. While it stands under the protection of the United States it will constitute an odious oligarchy, disposing of the lives and property of the great mass of their fellow-citizens, without any responsibility, and controlling the national legislation by the people for whom they vote.

This result is unavoidable. The whole mass of the population of the South has given aid and comfort to the rebellion. The war was made by the accession of the Union men to the rebel faction. It is idle to talk of a quiescent mass of loyal men overborne by violence. It was the Union men who passed the Ordinance of Secession in Virginia, and who made it effectual after it was passed. In no State was the rebellion dangerous without the active aid of those opposed to secession.

But the United States had no friends in the rebel States against those States, and they have none to-day. ·

The Union men of the South preferred union and peace to disunion; they deplored the outbreak of the war, but they never If there was to be war, hesitated a moment which side to take. they were for their States and against the United States. There was no respectable number of Union men willing to aid the United States in compelling submission to the Constitution, and there All submit to force. Many are willing to acquiesce in the unavoidable. All are willing to govern the United

are none, now.