On the eighth day of January, two days after the re-assembling of Congress, Mr. Shellabarger of Ohio specifically answered the speech of Mr. Raymond. He spoke with care and preparation, as was his habit. He wasted no words, but in clear, crisp sentences subjected the whole question to the rigid test of logic. "I shall inquire," said Mr. Shellabarger, "whether the Constitution deals with States. I shall discuss the question whether an organized rebellion against a government is an organized State in that government; whether that which cannot become a State until all its officers have sworn to support the Constitution, remains a State after they have all sworn to overthrow that Constitution. If I find it does continue to be a State after that, then I shall strive to ascertain whether it will so continue to be a Government--a State--after, by means of universal treason, it has ceased to have any constitution, laws, legislatures, courts, or citizens in it." "If, in debating this question," continued Mr. Shellabarger, "I debate axioms, my apology is that there are not other questions to debate in Reconstruction. If," said he with well-timed sarcasm, "in the discussion, I make self-evident things obscure or incomprehensible, my defense shall be that I am conforming to the usages of Congress. I will not inquire whether any subject of this Government, by reason of the revolt, passed from under its sovereignty or ceased to owe it allegiance; nor shall I inquire whether any territory passed from under that jurisdiction, because I know of no one who thinks that any of these things did occur. I shall not consider, whether, by the Rebellion, any State lost its territorial character or its defined boundaries or subdivisions, for I know of no one who would obliterate these geographical qualities of the States. These questions, however much discussed, are in no practical sense before Congress." "What is before Congress?" asked Mr. Shellabarger. "I at once define and affirm it in a single sentence. It is, under our Constitution, possible to, and the late Rebellion did in fact, so overthrow and usurp, in the insurrectionary States, the loyal State Governments, as that during such usurpation such States and their people ceased to have any of the rights or powers of Government as States of the Union, and this loss of the rights and powers of Government was such that the United States may, and ought to, assume and exercise local powers of the lost State Governments, and may control the re-admission of such States to their powers of Government in this Union, subject to, and in accordance with, the obligation to guarantee to each State a republican form of Government."