UNITED STATES. 



799 



acceptable to and sustained by the Executive Gov- 

 ernment of the nation. I distinctly stated that this 

 was not the only plan which might possibly be accept- 

 able ; and I also distinctly protested that the Exec- 

 utive claimed no right to say when or whether mem- 

 bers should be admitted to seats in Congress from 

 such States. This plan was, in advance, submitted 

 to the then Cabinet, and distinctly approved by every 

 member of it. One of them suggested that I should 

 then, and in that connection, apply the Emancipation 

 Proclamation to the theretofore exceptcd parts of Vir- 

 ginia and Louisiana; that I should drop the sugges- 

 tion about apprenticeship for freed people, and that 

 I should omit the protest against my own power, in 

 regard to the admission of members of Congress ; but 

 even he approved every part and parcel of the plan 

 which has since been employed or touched by the 

 action of Louisiana. The new Constitution of Louis- 

 iana, declaring emancipation for the whole State, 

 practically applies the proclamation to the part pre- 

 viously excepted. It does not adopt apprenticeship 

 for freed people, and it is silent, as it could not well 

 be otherwise, about the admission of members to 

 Congress. So that, as it applies to Louisiana, every 

 member of the Cabinet fully approved the plan.. The 

 message went to Congress, and I received many com- 

 mendations of the plan, written and verbal ; and not 

 a single objection to it, from any professed emanci- 

 pationist, came to my knowledge, until after the news 

 reached Washington that the people of Louisiana had 

 begun to move in accordance with it. From about 

 July, 1862, 1 had corresponded with different persons, 

 supposed to be interested, seeking a reconstruction 

 of a State government for Louisiana. When the 

 message of 18C3, with the plan before mentioned, 

 reached New Orleans, General Banks wrote me that 

 he was confident the people, with his military co- 

 operation, would reconstruct substantially on that 

 plan. I wrote him and some of them to try it. They 

 tried it, and the result is known. Such only has been 

 my agency in getting up the Louisiana government. 

 As to sustaining it, my promise is out, as before 

 stated. But, as bad promises are better broken than 

 kept, I shall treat this as a bad promise, and break 

 it, whenever I shall be convinced that keeping it is 

 adverse to the public interest. But I have not yet 

 been so convinced. 



I have been shown a letter on this subject, sup- 

 posed to be an able one, in which the writer expresses 

 regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely 

 fixed on the question whether the seceded States, so 

 called, are in the Union or out of it. It would, per- 

 haps, add astonishment to his regret were he to learn 

 that, since I have found professed Union men en- 

 deavoring to answer that question, I have purposely 

 forborne any public expression upon it. It appears to 

 me that question has not been, nor yet is, a practically 

 material one, and that any discussion of it, while it 

 thus remains practically immaterial, could have no 

 effect other than the mischievous one of dividing our 

 friends. As yet, whatever it may hereafter become, 

 that question is bad, as the basis of a controversy, 

 and good for nothing at all a merely pernicious ab- 

 straction. We all agree that the seceded States, so 

 called, are out of their proper practical relation with 

 the Union, and that the sole object of the Govern- 

 ment, civil and military, in regard to those States, is 

 to again get them into that proper practical relation. 

 I believe it is not only possible, but in fact easier to 

 do this without deciding or even considering whether 

 these States have ever been out of the Union, than 

 with it. Finding themselves safely at home, it would 

 be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been 

 abroad. Let us all join in doing the acts necessary 

 to restoring the proper practical relations between 

 these States and the Union, and each forever after 

 innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing 

 the acts, he brought the States from without into the 

 Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they 

 never having been out of it. 



The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which 

 the new Louisiana Government rests, would be more 

 satisfactory to all if it contained fifty, thirty, or even 

 twenty thousand, instead of only about twelve thou- 

 sand, as it does. It is also unsatisfactory to some 

 that the elective franchise is not given to the colored 

 man. I would myself prefer that it were now con- 

 ferred on the very intelligent, and on those who 

 serve our cause as soldiers. Still the question is not 

 whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is 

 quite all that is desirable. The questions are : " Will 

 it be wiser to take it as it is, and help to improve it, 

 or to reject and disperse it?" "Can Louisiana be 

 brought into proper practical relation with the Union 

 sooner by sustaining or discarding her new State 

 government?" 



Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore 

 slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the 

 Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of 

 the State, held elections, organized a State govern- 

 ment, adopted a free State constitution, giving the 

 benefit of public schools equally to black and white, 

 and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective 

 franchise upon the colored man. Their Legislature 

 has already voted to ratify the constitutional amend- 

 ment, recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery 

 throughout the nation. These twelve thousand per- 

 sons are thus fully committed to the Union, and to. 

 perpetual freedom in the State; committed to the 

 very things and nearly all the things the nation 

 wants, and they ask the nation's recognition and its 

 assistance to make good their committal. Now, if 

 we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to dis- 

 organize and disperse them. We, in effect, say to 

 the white man, "You are worthless, or worse; we 

 will neither help you, nor be helped by you." To 

 the blacks we say, " This cup of liberty, which these, 

 your old masters, hold to your lips, we will dash 

 from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering 

 the spilled and scattered contents, in some vague and 

 undefined when, where, and how." If this course, 

 discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, 

 has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper 

 practical relations with the Union, I have, so far, 

 been unable to perceive it. If, on the contrary, we 

 recognize and sustain the new government of Louis- 

 iana, the converse of all this is made true. We en- 

 courage the hearts and nerve the arms of the twelve 

 thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, 

 and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and 

 grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The 

 colored man, too, in seeing all united for him, is in- 

 spired with vigilance, and energy, and daring to the 

 same end. Grant that he desires the elective fran- 

 chise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the al- 

 ready advanced steps toward it th'an by running 

 backward over them ? Concede that the 'new Gov- 

 ernment of Louisiana is only to what it should be as 

 the egg is to the fowl, we sfiall sooner have the fowl 

 by hatching the egg than by smashing it. (Laughter.) 

 Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote 

 in favor of the proposed amendment to the national 

 Constitution. To meet this proposition, it has been 

 argued that no more than three-fourths of those 

 States which have not attempted secession are neces- 

 sary to validly ratify the amendment. I do not com- 

 mit myself against this further than to say that such 

 a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be 

 persistently questioned ; while a ratification by three- 

 fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and 

 unquestionable. 



I repeat the question, " Can Louisiana be brought 

 into proper practical relation with the Union sooner 

 by sustaining or by discarding her new State Gov- 

 ernment?" What has been said of Louisiana will 

 apply generally to other States. And yet so great 

 peculiarities pertain to each State, and such import- 

 ant and sudden changes occur in the same State, and, 

 withal, so new and unprecedented is the whole case, 

 that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely bo 



