In the name of the poor, who are liable to be enrolled, I ask it.

Let it appear to the country, that, while requiring this draft, we recognize inequalities of condition,--that some are poor and some rich, and that the same sum ought not to be exacted from all alike.

And now, Sir, as I conclude, let me say that I desire to take and subscribe the new oath in open Senate, that I may in all respects qualify myself for the discharge of my duties as a Senator.

In requiring that a person shall purge himself with regard to the past, we simply take a new assurance of fidelity for the present.

I do not think so; and I gladly seize the earliest opportunity, since the commentary of the Senator from Maryland, to declare my conviction that no person, whose loyalty is not manifest to the Senate, can be allowed to approach your desk…

This is not the first time that I have made this declaration: nor have I contented myself with making the declaration; I have argued it.

Nothing is clearer than this: a traitor cannot be a member of the Senate.

But a person who cannot take this oath, retroactive though it be, must have been a traitor.

Anything short of this will be the betrayal of those who have a right to our protection.

It is enough that it hands over the State to misrule and violence.

How can you hesitate to take every heed and precaution against even the possibility of such an occurrence?

How feeble is the argument, that, because Governor Bullock was chosen Governor and the Legislature commenced its session at a given date now past, therefore in this process of Reconstruction the constitutional term of the Governor and of…

Besides ignoring all the controlling powers of Congress, this assumption ignores also the conduct of this very Legislature by which its organization was for a while defeated.

The very form of government underwent a change when persons clearly ineligible from disloyalty were allowed to take part in it, while citizens entitled to equal rights, and especially protected by the Reconstruction Laws, were tyrannically…

Had this violation of underlying covenants been anticipated, Reconstruction would have been postponed.

But Congress, in view of what has occurred, may justly do what it would have done, had it anticipated the result.

It may postpone Reconstruction,--treating the Legislature meanwhile as provisional, and recognizing its acts only so far as in the judgment of Congress they are fit to be recognized.

We but follow the simple principles of these texts, when we declare that the outrage perpetrated in Georgia so far changed the condition of things that the Legislature lost all title to recognition by Congress.

To recognize such a body as the first regular Legislature is a fraud on the State Constitution.

To insist that members chosen as the first regular Legislature shall be treated as provisional only is unjust to them.

To insist that such members shall be despoiled of the regular term is a direct surrender to the disorganizers, who will rejoice to see Congress sacrifice the true men to whom it owes protection.

To my mind there can be no surer rule than so to act that these disorganizers shall not rejoice.

And here allow me to say, that, in superintending the process of Reconstruction, Congress is a Court of Equity, bound to supply deficiencies in the existing law, to enjoin against threatened wrong, and generally to see justice done in…

No strictness of law can prevail against conscience.

Let us at all hazards prevent the extension of Slavery and the increase of the Slave Power.