The bill which I am directed by the committee on the rebellious States to report is one which provides for the restoration of civil government in States whose governments have been overthrown. It prescribes such conditions as will secure not only civil government to the people of the rebellious States, but will also secure to the people of the United States permanent peace after the suppression of the rebellion. The bill challenges the support of all who consider slavery the cause of the rebellion, and that in it the embers of rebellion will always smoulder; of those who think that free*For notes on Davis, see Appendix, p. 450.

dom and permanent peace are inseparable, and who are determined, so far as their constitutional authority will allow them, to secure these fruits by adequate legislation. ** ** It is entitled to the support of all gentlemen upon this side of the House, whatever their views may be of the nature of the rebellion, and the relation in which it has placed the people and States in rebellion toward the United States; not less of those who think that the rebellion has placed the citizens of the rebel States beyond the protection of the Constitution, and that Congress, therefore, has supreme power over them as conquered enemies, than of that other class who think that they have not ceased to be citizens and States of the United States, though incapable of exercising political privileges under the Constitution, but that Congress is charged with a high political power by the Constitution to guarantee republican governments in the States, and that this is the proper time and the proper mode of exercising it. It is also entitled to the favorable consideration of gentlemen upon the other side of the House who honestly and deliberately express their judgment that slavery is dead. To them it puts the question whether it is not advisable to

bury it out of sight, that its ghost may no longer stalk abroad to frighten us from our propriety. * * * 4

What is the nature of this case with which we have to deal, the evil we must remedy, the danger we must avert? In other words, what is that monster of political wrong which is called secession? It is not, Mr. Speaker, domestic violence, within the meaning of that clause of the Constitution, for the violence was the act of the people of those States through their governments, and was the offspring of their free and unforced will. It is not invasion, in the meaning of the Constitution, for no State has been invaded against the will of the government of the State by any power except the United States marching to overthrow the usurpers of its territory. It is, therefore, the act of the people of the States, carrying with it all the consequences of such an act. And therefore it must be either a legal revolution, which makes them independent, and makes of the United States a foreign country, or it is a usurpation against the authority of the United States, the erection of governments which do not recognize the Constitution of the United States, which the Constitution does not recog

Still

nize, and, therefore, not republican governments of the States in rebellion. The latter is the view which all parties take of it. I do not understand that any gentleman on the other side of the House says that any rebel government which does not recognize the Constitution of the United States, and which is not recognized by Congress, is a State government within the meaning of the Constitution. less can it be said that there is a State government, republican or unrepublican, in the State of Tennessee, where there is no government of any kind, no civil authority, no organized form of administration except that represented by the flag of the United States, obeying the will and under the orders of the military officer in command. 5 Those that are here represented are the only governments existing within the limits of the United States. Those that are not here represented are not governments of the States, republican under the Constitution. And if they be not, then they are military usurpations, inaugurated 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 first 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 are bound to recognize them."

We are now engaged in suppressing a military usurpation of the authority of the State governments. When that shall have been accomplished, there will be no form of State authority in existence which Congress can recognize Our success will be the overthrow of all sem. blance 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 guarantee 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 conditions 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