But you must throw the
State into the hands of those who took part, directly or
indirectly, in the rebellion, if you reconstruct the States at
all, for they are undeniably the great body of the territorial
people in all the States that seceded. These people having
submitted, and declared their intention to reconstruct the State
as a State in the Union, you must amend the constitution of the
United States, unless they are convicted of a disqualifying crime
by due process of law, before you can disfranchise them. It is
impossible to reconstruct any one of the disorganized States with
those alone, or as the dominant party, who have adhered to the
Union throughout the fearful struggle, as self-governing States.
The State, resting on so small a portion of the people, would
have no internal strength, no self-support, and could stand only
as upheld by federal arms, which would greatly impair the free
and healthy action of the whole American system.
The government attempted to do it in Virginia, Louisiana,
Arkansas, and Tennessee, before the rebellion was suppressed, but
without authority and without success. The organizations,
effected at great expense, and sustained only by military force,
were neither States nor State governments, nor capable of being
made so by any executive or congressional action. If the
disorganized States, as the government held, were still States in
the Union, these organizations were flagrantly revolutionary, as
effected not only without, but in defiance of State authority; if
they had seceded and ceased to be States, as was the fact, they
were equally unconstitutional and void of authority, because not
created by the free suffrage of the territorial people, who alone
are competent to construct or reconstruct a state.
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