Mr. Sumner. Does the Senator refer to me as having ever said that the act of secession took a State out?
Mr. Henderson. I understand the Senator to claim that these States are in a territorial condition,—that they are not States,—that, by losing their State Governments in the act of secession, they lose their specific identity as States.
Mr. Sumner. I would rather the Senator should use my language than his own, when he undertakes to state my position. I have never said that any act of secession took a State out. I have always said just the contrary. No act of secession can take a State out of this Union. Whatever may be attempted, the State continues under the Constitution of the United States, subject to all its requirements and behests. The Government of the State is subverted by secession; the Senator does not recognize the existing Government as legal or constitutional, any more than I do. Where, then, is the difference between us? There is no Government which he or I recognize; but we do hold that the whole region, the whole territory, is under the Constitution, to be protected and governed by it.
Mr. Henderson. The Senator, then, admits that the States are in the Union. Now I ask him if we can restore the Union without restoring State Governments in the seceded States.
Mr. Sumner. That is the desire I have most at heart. I wish to restore State Governments in those States.
Mr. Henderson. Then I desire to ask the Senator, if the loyal men in one of those States acquiesce in the Constitution presented here, are they not entitled to govern the State under it?
Mr. Sumner. If the loyal men, white and black, recognize it, then it will be republican in form. Unless that is done, it will not be.
Mr. Henderson. Now, Mr. President, I desire to ask the Senator if the Congress of the United States can interfere with the right of suffrage in one of the American States of this Union. I put the question to him as a constitutional lawyer.
Mr. Sumner. I answer at once, as a constitutional lawyer, that at the present time, under the words of the Constitution of the United States, declaring that the United States shall guaranty to every State a republican form of government, it is the bounden duty of the United States by Act of Congress to guaranty complete freedom to every citizen, immunity from all oppression, and absolute equality before the law. No Government failing to guaranty these things can be recognized as republican in form, when the United States are called to enforce the constitutional guaranty.