The Senator from Nevada said, that, if we oppose the present bill, we sacrifice the Legislature of the State. I suggest to that Senator, that, if we do not oppose this bill, we sacrifice the people of the State. What, Sir, is a Legislature chosen as this recent Legislature has been chosen in Virginia, composed of recent Rebels still filled and seething with that old Rebel fire,--what is that Legislature in the scale, compared with the safety of that great people? Sir, I put in one scale the welfare of the State of Virginia, the future security of its large population, historic and memorable in our annals, and in the other scale I put a Legislature composed of recent Rebels. To save that Legislature the Senator from Nevada presses forward to sacrifice the people of the State. The motion to postpone was rejected,--Yeas 25, Nays 26,--and the debate on the Joint Resolution proceeded: the first question being on an amendment offered by Mr. Drake, of Missouri, providing that the passage by the Legislature of Virginia, at any time thereafter, of any act or resolution rescinding or annulling its ratification of the Fifteenth Article of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States should operate to exclude the State from representation in Congress and remand it to its former provisional government. January 11th, Mr. Sumner, following Mr. Morton, of Indiana, in support of Mr. Drake’s proposed amendment, and, with him, maintaining the continued power of Congress over a State after reconstruction, said:-- MR. PRESIDENT,--I have but one word to say, and it is one of gratitude to the Senator from Indiana for the complete adhesion he now makes to a principle of Constitutional Law which I have no doubt is unassailable. The Congress of the United States will have forevermore the power to protect Reconstruction. No one of these States, by anything that it may do hereafter, can escape from that far-reaching power. I call it far-reaching: it will reach just as far as the endeavor to counteract it; it is coextensive with the Constitution itself. I have no doubt of it, and I am delighted that the distinguished Senator from Indiana has given to it the support of his authority. While I feel so grateful to my friend from Indiana for what he has said on this point, he will allow me to express my dissent from another proposition of his. He says that we are now bound under our Reconstruction Acts to admit Virginia. I deny it. MR. MORTON. Will the Senator allow me one moment? MR. SUMNER. Certainly.