Such are six capital subjects of special guaranty: the unity of the Republic; the national obligations to the national freedmen; the national obligations to the national creditors; the rejection of the Rebel debt; the establishment of national peace and tranquillity, so that it cannot be disturbed by any monopoly and tyranny founded on color; and, lastly, the education of the people. All these are too important, too transcendent, too essential to the national safety, to be left the prey or sport of Rebel passions; nor can they be abandoned to any vague promise or inference of any kind. They must be fixed in characters clear as the sky and firm as the earth. Not to require this protection is unpardonable weakness. “If Philip dies,” said the Athenian orator, “you will soon raise another Philip; since it is not so much by his own power as by your carelessness that he grew to such greatness.” And so do I say now, even if the Rebellion is dead, you will soon raise another, unless you learn to be wise. Believe me, that man is dangerous who does not see danger in this Rebel Oligarchy, now conspiring to hoist itself into power.
Therefore I lay down one undeniable, essential principle,—that these guaranties must be established; and I appeal to my fellow-citizens throughout the country to insist upon them. As they concern the National Security and the National Faith, it is clear that they should be established by the Nation. The object is national. The power to establish them is national also. It is part of that great instinctive right of self-defence, common to nations and to men, which has no limits, except in the benign constraints of a Christian civilization. It is a right not only from the Constitution of the United States, but also from the constitution of civil society itself. There is no nation without it. In the weakest it is as manifest as in the mightiest. Never before was the occasion for its exercise plainer. And who shall say that the nation may defend itself on the murderous battle-field, and may not, when the battle has been won, require that “Security for the Future” which is the declared object of war?
Do you ask where in the Constitution this unquestionable power is found? I answer, in the same clause where you find the power to raise armies, and hurl them upon the Rebel enemy,—in the same clause where you find the power to erect fortifications, bastions, and bulwarks for the national defence,—in the same clause where you find the power to incur the national debt for the national defence,—and also in the same clause where President Lincoln found the power to emancipate the slave. It is a national power for the protection of the nation, and it may be exercised to any extent needed. It is idle to say that the war is over, and therefore the power is suspended. In one sense the war is over, and in another it is not. Battles have ceased; but Security for the Future is not yet obtained, and this security is found only in irreversible guaranties.
This national power is still in full operation, and as completely constitutional as the power to raise armies. It assumes for the present purpose two forms: first, the power to hold military possession of the Rebel States, so long as required for security,—whether months or years; and, secondly, the power to affix the terms of peace and restoration. As it is idle to say that the war is over, so it is equally idle to say that this power, in either of its forms, is limited by the Constitution. This same mistake was made by James Buchanan, when, at the beginning of the Rebellion, he weakly declared, that, under the Constitution, he could not “coerce a State,” and his Cabinet assented. God forbid that now, at another moment not less critical, the same pretension should triumph again. Of course all patriots see now how the golden opportunity was lost at first. May no such golden opportunity be lost again! Nobody doubts now that a State in rebellion may be “coerced.” Nobody doubts now that the victories of Grant, the march of Sherman, and the charge of Sheridan were strictly constitutional. But this “coercion” must endure just so long as may be needed to obtain Security for the Future,—it may be for months, or it may be for years. There is no argument for it at the beginning which is not equally strong for it now. There is nothing in the Constitution against it. Everything in the Constitution is for it. The rules or limitations which the Constitution may establish for a condition of peace are entirely inapplicable to a condition of rebellion in any of its stages, whether at beginning, middle, or end. Whatever is needed for the suppression of the Rebellion and the establishment of safeguards against its recurrence is constitutional. It is failure to exercise this power that is unconstitutional.
But beyond this ample, are two other powers in the Constitution, under which all needful guaranties can be secured. The first is that vast untried power springing from the injunction that “the United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form of government.” This power, long dormant, sprang into activity with the Acts of Secession. Loyal government being overthrown in fact, so that the whole region was like “a clean slate,” it became the duty of the national authority to set up loyal governments, and at the same time to see that they were republican in form,—which must mean at least that they are governments of the majority, and not of the minority; and I think I cannot err, if I add, that, according to fundamental principles of the Declaration of Independence, they must be founded on the equal rights of all men and “the consent of the governed.” It is very clear that in this clause of guaranty there is an inexhaustible power, by virtue of which the national authority can not only exact all needful guaranties, but can mould these rebel communities according to the model of a Christian Commonwealth.
There is still another source of power under the Constitution; and this is according to the analogies of the Territories. Since all loyal government has ceased to exist, the whole region, in all its divisions and subdivisions, has, from the necessity of the case, lapsed under the national jurisdiction, which is as complete for all practical purposes as that same jurisdiction over the District of Columbia.
I do not stop to dwell on these sources of power. Elsewhere I have vindicated them; and I have never been answered, except by the phrase that a State cannot go out of the Union: as if, in presence of the fact of rebellion, this was anything more than a phrase. It is indisputable, that, in fact, the Rebel States have ceased to be, as President Lincoln expressed it, in “proper practical relation with the Union,” and, still further, that they have long been without any government we can recognize. Surely this is enough to open the door for the national authority. When loyal government ceased, the jurisdiction of the National Government began, whether military or civil; and this jurisdiction still continues, complete in all respects, without hindrance or limitation from the Constitution.