284 



CONGKESS, UNITED STATES. 



Has any other State or people? No. Has the 

 rebel government that right? _No; for that 

 government is abolished and its agents dis- 

 persed. Have the conquered rebel people that 

 right ? No ; for that would be to allow them 

 at once to expel their conquerors by a popular 

 decree, and to deny the supremacy of the Fed- 

 oral Government that had subdued them. Has 

 the old State government, the once loyal gov- 

 ernment, the right to govern the conquered 

 people ? No ; there is no such government. It 

 has long since ceased to exist. Its function- 

 aries have all forsworn and abandoned the old 

 State government. They are gone ; some driven 

 into exile, many dead, but by far the largest part 

 of them open traitors, hostile to the conquerors, 

 and utterly opposed to reestablishing any State 

 government acknowledging allegiance or friend- 

 ship to the United States. In fact, there is no 

 government there, none at all, which can for a 

 moment be recognized or permitted by the 

 United States, as the party now holding the 

 actual mastery of the country ; and like every 

 other case where the possession of a country 

 has arisen from the use of superior force, the 

 will of the conqueror is the law that is, the will 

 of the United States expressed, in the absence 

 of acts of Congress, by the Commander-in-chief 

 of the army, but by the acts of Congress after 

 Congress has spoken. 



"I can see no escape from this conclusion, 

 that the United States, as the other hostile party, 

 the party who, in suppressing the rebellion by 

 military power, has conquered the rebel country, 

 and who holds it, as it must necessarily hold it, 

 in the iron gripe of war ; that the United States 

 have the right, as the conqueror, to rule and 

 govern the State as conquered country, subject 

 for a time at least to their sole will. If this be 

 not the case, then the State is without any gov- 

 ernment, and is exposed to all the horrors of 

 anarchy, to murder, and private rapine. No 

 one will deny that we have a right to subdue 

 by arms and to reduce to quietude and submission 

 a rebel State, that is, the people of a State in 

 insurrection. But how absurd to make this 

 concession, and at the same time to deny to us 

 the constitutional power to occupy and hold the 

 territory and its people in our military grasp ! 

 an occupation just as necessary to the end in 

 view as the firing of cannon, the charging of 

 cavalry, or any other operation in the field. 



" But the question forces itself upon us, has 

 the Government of the United States the same 

 rights of conquest, the same ample powers of 

 control and disposition of a conquered State, as 

 of a conquered foreign territory ? 



" What, then, are the powers of the United 

 States over the rebellious States? I reject the 

 idea that they can be converted into Territories. 

 Plainly, under our system, a Territory of the 

 United States implies land never lying in any 

 State, land ceded to the United States either by 

 the old States, or purchased or conquered from 

 foreign nations. The term never has been used 

 to describe a State, or any part of a State ; and 



it implies not only the ownership of the soil and 

 right of disposition, but full and complete politi- 

 cal jurisdiction in the Federal Government over 

 the people resident there. On a question of 

 such magnitude we ought to avoid inappropriate 

 language and terms of equivocal meaning. 



" The objects of the conquest being such as I 

 have stated, it follows that it is the duty of 

 Congress, on taking military possession, to en- 

 deavor by all reasonable means to effect those 

 objects, and that in its very nature such forcible 

 occupancy is temporary, and ought to cease the 

 moment those objects are attained. This can- 

 not be done without establishing a government 

 to preserve order, life, and property a provi- 

 sional government, for that is the true historic 

 name to be applied in this as in all cases where 

 an old government has been overthrown; a 

 provisional government instituted by the con- 

 queror, and to be continued just so long as Con- 

 gress may find it necessary to continue it for the 

 attainment, and while attaining, those high ob- 

 jects. The occupancy, that is, the possession 

 of all the reins of local government by the Fed- 

 eral authorities (for I do not wish to be mis- 

 understood or to mislead by mere generality of 

 phrase), is but temporary, provisional, fiduciary. 

 It must necessarily last until the Federal Gov- 

 ernment has done its duty in the reUstablish- 

 ment of order and the revival of loyalty. Until 

 then it is, and must be, the omnipotent sov- 

 ereign of the State, holding actually by right of 

 conquest, though for a particular purpose, and 

 being itself necessarily the final judge to deter- 

 mine when its tutelary mission has been accom- 

 plished. 



"I have said the Government must be the 

 final judge how long this military occupation 

 shall last. Its duty in this respect is plain. It 

 is bound by the plain terms of the Constitution 

 not only to suppress the insurrection, which it 

 has done the moment it has obtained firm pos- 

 session of the hostile territory and not less than 

 the whole of it, but to guarantee to the once 

 loyal but now conquered State a republican form 

 of government. To perform this high and 

 sacred trust, time of course is necessary, and 

 not only time but a great variety of means and 

 instrumentalities, of all which the Government 

 of the United States must, because it has no 

 superior, no equal in the matter, be the sole and 

 final judge. These means may embrace acts of 

 provisional legislation, creating private rights 

 and duties not previously in existence, but exist- 

 ing by law and of a permanent nature, para- 

 mount to all subsequent State legislation be- 

 cause arising under the supreme authority of 

 the nation, as-far instance the giving freedom 

 to slaves; or they may undoubtedly embrace 

 conditions to be performed by the subdued 

 States on taking their places again in the Union, 

 such as would be an ordinance forever abolish- 

 ing slavery ia the State. And I cannot by any 

 means admit as the true interpretation of Jthis 

 clause the narrow view taken of it by the Sen- 

 ator from Missouri, that it applies only to a 



