None of the secessionists have been
rebels or traitors, except in outward act, and there can, after
the act has ceased, be no just punishment where there has been no
criminal intent. Treason is the highest crime, and deserves
exemplary punishment; but not where there has been no treasonable
intent, where they who committed it did not believe it was
treason, and on principles held by the majority of their
countrymen, and by the party that had generally held the
government, there really was no treason. Concede State
sovereignty, and Jefferson Davis was no traitor in the war he
made on the United States, for he made none till his State had
seceded. He could not then be arraigned for his acts after
secession, and at most, only for conspiracy, if at all, before
secession.
But, if you permit all to vote in the re-organization of the
State who, under the old electoral law, have the elective
franchise, you throw the State into the hands of those who have
been disloyal to the Union. If so, and you cannot trust them,
the remedy is not in disfranchising the majority, but in
prohibiting re-organization, and in holding the territorial
people still longer under the provisional government, civil or
military. The old electoral law disqualifies all who have been
convicted of treason either to the State or the United States,
and neither Congress nor the Executive can declare any others
disqualified on account of disloyalty.
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