CONGKES8, UNITED STATES. 



279 



even voted for the ratification of this constitu- 

 tion, but that it was a government formed by 

 coercion, under the influence of the military 

 authorities there. 



"After the convention had been in session 

 several weeks, Major-General Banks made them 

 a visit, was received with an address, and gra- 

 ciously told the convention that he was pleased 

 with what they had done so far. The power 

 and influence of the military authorities are seen 

 in this movement from the beginning to the end 

 of the work. Major-General Banks is here 

 urging with great assiduity and zeal, the ratifi- 

 cation of his actings and doings in Louisiana. 

 He is here, as he was in Louisiana, the most 

 prominent actor ; he has been before the com- 

 mittees of the two Houses, urging with hot zeal 

 the ratification of his work. I hope and trust 

 that he will not find the Senate and House of 

 Eepresentatives as obedient to his will as he 

 found less than one-tenth of the down-trodden 

 people of Louisiana. 



" Now, sir, I am of the opinion that a govern- 

 ment formed in that way will be of no service 

 to the people of Louisiana or to the Union ; I 

 believe it will be absolutely detrimental and 

 injurious. If the people of Louisiana are pre- 

 pared to return to their allegiance to the United 

 States, there certainly will be enough of them 

 there unawed and uninfluenced by military 

 power to reorganize their State government; 

 but if at the point of the bayonet you force and 

 coerce a small and insignificant minority to do 

 it, you will inflict great injury on the people of 

 that State." 



Mr. Henderson, of Missouri, followed, saying : 

 "The Senator from Massachusetts says that 

 these State constitutions are not republican in 

 form. Will he tell me in what respect? " 



Mr. Sumner : " Because they do not follow 

 out the principles of the Constitution of the 

 United States." 



Mr. Henderson : " I should like to know in 

 what particular. The answer is a very general 

 one, indeed. He refuses, then, to specify. The 

 Senator can answer more particularly hereafter, 

 if he chooses. He says these constitutions do 

 not follow the Constitution of the United States. 

 I have looked over them, and I find no objection 

 to them. I can tell the Senator that if the con- 

 stitution of Massachusetts is republican in form, 

 so are the constitutions of these two States. 



" If secession is potent enough to take a State 

 out, and that was mere revolution, why cannot 

 the loyal men perfect a revolution on the side 

 of the Government as well as rebels perfect a 

 revolution on the side of secession, outrage, and 

 wrong?" 



Mr. Sumner : " Does the Senator refer to me 

 as having ever said that the act of secession took 

 a State out?" 



Mr. Henderson : " I understand the Senator 

 to claim that these States are in a territorial 

 condition; that they are not States; that by 

 losing their State governments in the act of se- 

 cession, they lose their specific identity as States. 11 



Mr. Sumner : " I would rather the Senator 

 should use my language than his own, when he 

 undertakes to state my position. I have never 

 stated that any act of secession took a State out. 

 I have always said just the contrary. No act of 

 secession can take a State out of this Union, but 

 the State continues under the Constitution of the 

 United States, subject to all its requirements and 

 behests. The government of the State is sub- 

 verted by secession ; the Senator does not recog- 

 nize it as legal or constitutional, I believe, any 

 more than I do. Where, then, is the difference 

 between us ? There is no government which he 

 or I recognize, but we do hold that the whole re- 

 gion, the whole territory, is under the Constitu- 

 tion of the United States, to be protected and 

 governed by it." 



Mr. Henderson : " The Senator then admits 

 that the States are in the Union. Now, I ask 

 him if we can restore the Union without re- 

 storing State governments in the seceded 

 States?" 



Mr. Sumner : " That is the desire I have 

 most at heart, to restore State governments in 

 those States." 



Mr. Henderson: "Then I desire to ask the 

 Senator, if the loyal men in one of those States 

 acquiesce in the constitution presented here, are 

 they not entitled to govern the State under it?" 



Mr. Sumner: "If the loyal men, white and 

 black, recognize it, then it will be republican 

 in form. Unless that is done, it will not be." 



Mr. Henderson : " Now, Mr. President, I de- 

 sire to ask the Senator if the Congress of the 

 United States can interfere with .the right of 

 suffrage in one of the American States of this 

 Union ? I put the question to him as a constitu- 

 tional lawyer." 



Mr. Sumner : " I answer at once as a consti- 

 tutional lawyer that at the present time, under 

 the words of the Constitution of the United States 

 declaring that the United States shall guarantee 

 to every State a republican form of government, 

 it is the bounden duty of the United States, by 

 act of Congress, to guarantee complete freedom 

 to every citizen, and immunity from all oppres- 

 sion, and absolute equality before the law. No 

 government that does not guarantee these things, 

 can be recognized as republican in form accord- 

 ing to the theory of the Constitution of the 

 United States, if the United States are called 

 to enforce the constitutional guarantee." 



Mr. Henderson : "I ask the Senator now in 

 all candor, as he believes the Government of the 

 United States can thus interfere with the right 

 of suffrage in one of the States, does he not also 

 believe that the Congress of the United States 

 may to-day declare that a State constitution is 

 not republican in form because it denies the 

 electoral franchise to women, because it pro- 

 hibits intermarriage between whites and blacks* 

 because it declares that one man shall be en- 

 titled to hold more property in the State than 

 another? I content myself at present with lay- 

 ing down the following propositions as true, 

 and if true the States should be admitted. 



