Report of the
Committee.

of a large number of their present constitutional
representation, otherwise it is said the Southern
States will be great gainers by the rebellion.
"The question before Congress," says the Report,
"is whether conquered rebels may change
their theatre of operations from the battle field,
where they were defeated, and overthrown, to the
halls of Congress, and through their Representa-
tives seize upon the Government they fought to
destroy; whether the National Treasury, the
Army of the nation, its Navy, its forts and Arse-
nals, its whole civil administration, its credit, its
pensioners, the widows and orphans of those who
perished in the war, the public honor, peace and
safety, shall all be turned over to the keeping of
its recent enemies without delay and without im-
posing such conditions, as in the opinion of Con-
gress, the security of the county and its institu-
tions may demand." It is somewhat difficult to
conceive how this "change of base" could be
successfully accomplished.
The institution of domestic servitude and the
right of secession, both involving the right of
self-government, as it was asserted by the Con-
federate States, were the subjects of contest upon
the "battle field," where they were defeated and
overthrown. ' '
How "in the Halls of Congress, through their
Representatives," they could hope for better suc-
cess, reverse the decision of the "battle field" and
"seize upon the Government, passes our compre-
hension.
It is undoubtedly true that freeing the slaves
enlarged the basis of representation in the former
slave States. But it was an incident which it was
well known constitutionally attached to the fact
of freedom.
Leaving those States still in a hopeless minority
"in the halls of Congress, the incident is small
compared with the sum-total of their losses.
It would be inadmissible to question the sin-
cerity of the Reconstruction Committee in their
apprehensions of such extreme danger from the
admission of Southern Representatives in the halls