CONGRESS, U. S. 



295 



Those that are here represented are the only 

 governments existing within the limits of the 

 United States. Those that are not here repre- 

 sented are not governments of the States, re- 

 publican under the Constitution. And if they 

 be not, then they are military usurpations, in- 

 augurated as the permanent governments of 

 the States, contrary to the supreme law of the 

 land, arrayed in arms against the Government 

 of the United States ; and it is the duty, the 

 firat and highest duty, of the Government to 

 suppress and expel them. Congress must either 

 expel or recognize and support them. If it do 

 not guarantee them it is bound to expel them ; 

 and they who are not ready to suppress them 

 are bound to recognize them. 



" We are now engaged in suppressing a mil- 

 itary usurpation of the authority of the State 

 government. When that shall have been ac- 

 complished, there will be no form of State 

 authority in existence which Congress can re- 

 cognize. Our success will be the overthrow 

 of all semblance of government in the rebel 

 States. The Government of the United States 

 is then, in fact, the only Government existing 

 in those States, and it is there charged to guar- 

 antee them republican governments. 



" What jurisdiction does the duty of guaran- 

 teeing a republican government confer, under 

 such circumstances, upon Congress? What 

 right does it give? What laws may it pass? 

 What objects may it accomplish? What con- 

 ditions may it insist upon, and what judgment 

 may it exercise in determining what it will do ? 

 The duty of guaranteeing carries with it the 

 right to pass all laws necessary and proper to 

 guarantee. The duty of guaranteeing means the 

 duty to accomplish the result. It means that 

 the republican government shall exist. It 

 means that every opposition to republican gov- 

 ernment shall be put down. It means that 

 every thing inconsistent with the permanent 

 continuance of republican government shall be 

 weeded out. It places in the hands of Con- 

 gress the right to say what is and what is not, 

 with all the light of experience and all the les- 

 sons of the past, inconsistent, in its judgment, 

 with the permanent continuance of republican 

 government ; and if, in its judgment, any form, 

 of policy is radically and inherently inconsist- 

 ent with the permanent and enduring peace 

 of the country, with the permanent supremacy 

 of republican government, and it have the 

 manliness to say so, there is no power, judicial 

 or executive, in the United States that can 

 even, question this judgment but the people; 

 and they can do it only by sending other Rep- 

 resentatives here to undo our work. The very 

 language of the Constitution, and the necessary 

 logic of the case, involves that consequence. 

 The denial of the right of secession means that 

 all the territory of the United States shall re- 

 main under the jurisdiction of the Constitution. 

 If there can be no State government which does 

 not recognize the Constitution, and which the 

 authorities of the United States do not recog- 



nize, then there are these alternatives, and 

 these only. The rebel States must be governed 

 by Congress till they submit and form a State 

 government under the Constitution; or Con- 

 gress must recognize State governments which 

 do not recognize either Congress or the Con- 

 stitution of the United States; or there must 

 be an entire absence of all government in the 

 rebel States ; and that is anarchy. To recog- 

 nize a government which does not recognize 

 the Constitution is absurd, for a government is 

 not a constitution; and the recognition of a 

 State government means the acknowledgment 

 of men as Governors and legislators and judges 

 actually invested with power to make laws, to 

 judge of crimes, to convict the citizens of other 

 States, to demand the surrender of fugitives 

 from justice, to arm and command the militia, 

 to require the United States to repress all op- 

 position to its authority, and to protect it from 

 invasion against our own armies ; whose Sen- 

 ators and Representatives are entitled to seats 

 in Congress, and whose electoral votes must be 

 counted in the election of the President of a 

 Government which they disown and defy ! To 

 accept the alternative of anarchy as the consti- 

 tutional condition of a State, is to assert the 

 failure of the Constitution, and the end of re- 

 publican government. Until, therefore, Con- 

 gress recognize a State government, organized 

 under its auspices, there is no government in 

 the rebel States except the authority of Con- 

 gress. In the absence of all State government, 

 the duty is imposed on Congress to provide by 

 law to keep the peace, to administer justice, to 

 watch over the transmission of decedents' es- 

 tates, to sanction marriages ; in a word, to 

 administer civil government until the people 

 shall, under its guidance, submit to the Consti- 

 tution, of the United States, and, under the 

 laws which it shall impose, and on the condi- 

 tions Congress may require, reorganize a re- 

 publican government for themselves, and Con- 

 gress shall recognize that government. 



" There is no fact that we have learned from 

 any one who has been in the South, and has 

 come up from the darkness of that bottomless 

 pit, which indicates such repentance. There 

 is no fact that any one has stated on authority 

 at all reliable, that any respectable proportion of 

 the people of the Southern States now in re- 

 bellion are willing to accept any terms that 

 even our opponents on the other side of the 

 House are willing to offer them. 



" It has been repeatedly asserted Governor 

 Seymour, of K"ew York, in his message as- 

 serted that peace could be had upon any rea- 

 sonable terms. That was his guess ; it was his 

 wish ; it was his fond, vain hope. In fact there 

 is no ground for such hope, and to-day no man 

 can stand before the American people and say 

 that there is the least reason to suppose that 

 any public man in the South has declared him- 

 self willing to consider peace on any condi- 

 tions but that of independence. 



"In my judgment it is not safe to confide 



