After the defeat in the Senate of the amendment touching representation, and the postponement by the House of another amendment reported from the Committee on Reconstruction touching the protection of citizens in their rights and immunities, there was a general cassation of discussion on the question of changing the Constitution, and a common understanding in both branches to await the formal and final report of the Committee. That report was made by Mr. Stevens on Monday, the 30th of April.(1) It consisted of a joint resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in which were consolidated under one article the several amendments which had been proposed, and which in their aggregate, as finally shaped, made up the famous Fourteenth Amendment. In addition to this was a bill reciting the desirability of restoring the lately revolted States to full participation in all political rights, and enacting in substance that when the Constitutional amendment should be agreed to by them, their senators and representatives in Congress might be admitted. A further bill was reported, declaring certain persons who had been engaged in rebellion to be ineligible to office under the Government of the United States. The debate on the consolidated Fourteenth Amendment was opened on the 8th of May by Mr. Stevens. The House had agreed that all speeches should be limited to half an hour. The debate was therefore condensed and direct. Mr. Stevens complained of the Senate for having defeated the amendment relating to representation, and though assenting to that which was now reported by the committee, thought it inferior to, and less effective than, the one which had failed. The third section he thought too lenient. "There is," said he, "a morbid sensibility sometimes called mercy, which affects a few of all classes from the priest to the clown, which has more sympathy for the murderer on the gallows than for his victim. I hope I have a heart as capable of feeling for human woe as others. I have long since wished that capital punishment were abolished. But I never dreamed that all punishment could be dispensed with in human society. Anarchy, treason and violence would reign triumphant. The punishment now prescribed is the mildest ever inflicted upon traitors. I might not consent to the extreme severity pronounced upon them by a provisional Governor of Tennessee--I mean the late lamented Andrew Johnson of blessed memory--but I would have increased the severity in this section. . . . In my judgment we do not sufficiently protect the loyal men in the rebel States from the vindictive persecutions of their rebel neighbors."