The fact that the
territory and people had existed as a State, could with regard to
none of them be obliterated, and, therefore, they could not be
erected into absolutely new States. The process of
reconstructing them could not be the same as that of creating new
States. In creating a new State, Congress, ex necessitate,
because there is no other power except the national convention
competent to do it, defines the boundaries of the new State, and
prescribes the electoral people, or who may take part in the
preliminary organization but in reconstructing States it does
neither, for both are done by a law Congress is not competent to
abrogate or modify, and which can be done only by the United
States in convention assembled, or by the State itself after its
restoration. The government has conceded this, and, in part, has
acted on it. It preserves, except in Virginia, the old
boundaries, and recognizes, or rather professes to recognize the
old electoral law, only it claims the right to exclude from the
electoral people those who have voluntarily taken part in the
rebellion.
The work to be done in States that have seceded is that of
reconstruction, not creation; and this work is not and cannot be
done, exclusively nor chiefly by the General government, either
by the Executive or by Congress. That government can appoint
military, or even provisional governors, who may designate the
time and place of holding the convention of the electoral people
of the disorganized State, as also the time and place of holding
the elections of delegates to it, and superintend the elections
so far as to see the polls are opened, and that none but
qualified electors vote, but nothing more.
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