*
The Government undoubtedly supposed, in the reconstructions it
attempted, that it was acting under the war power; but as
reconstruction can never be necessary for war purposes, and as it
is in its very nature a work of peace, incapable of being
effected by military force, since its validity depends entirely
on its being the free action of the territorial people to be
reconstructed, the General government had and could have, with
regard to it, only its ordinary
* This was the case in August, 1865. It may be quite otherwise
before these pages see the light.
peace powers. Reconstruction is
jure pacis, not jure belli.
Yet such illegal organizations, though they are neither States
nor State governments, and incapable of being legalized by any
action of the Executive or of Congress, may, nevertheless, be
legalized by being indorsed or acquiesced in by the territorial
people. They are wrong, as are all usurpations; they are
undemocratic, inasmuch as they attempt to give the minority the
power to rule the majority; they are dangerous inasmuch as they
place the State in the hands of a party that can stand only as
supported by the General government, and thus destroy the proper
freedom and independence of the State, and open the door to
corruption, tend to keep alive rancor and ill feeling, and to
retard the period of complete pacification, which might be
effected in three months as well as in three years, or twenty
years; yet they can become legal, as other governments illegal in
their origin become legal, with time and popular acquiescence.
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