The powers of Congress over this subject are ample as they are beneficent. From four specific fountains they flow, each sufficient, all four swelling into an irresistible current, and tending to one conclusion: first, the necessity of the case, by which, according to analogy of the Territories, disloyal States, having no local government, lapse under the authority of Congress; secondly, the Rights of War, which do not expire or lose their grasp, except with the establishment of all needful guaranties; thirdly, the constitutional injunction to guaranty a republican form of government; and, fourthly, the Constitutional Amendment, by which Congress, in words of peculiar energy, is empowered to “enforce” the abolition of Slavery by “appropriate legislation.” According to the proverb of Catholic Europe, all roads lead to Rome; and so do all these powers lead to the jurisdiction of Congress over this whole subject. No matter which road you take, you arrive at the same point. The first two have already been discussed exhaustively.[44] The two latter have been considered less, and it is on these that I shall speak especially to-day. I propose, with the permission of the Senate, to show the necessity and duty of exercising the jurisdiction of Congress so as to secure that essential condition of a republican government, the Equal Rights of All. And I put aside, at the outset, the metaphysical question, worthy of schoolmen in the Dark Ages, whether certain States are in the Union or out of the Union. That is a question of form, and not of substance,—of words only, and not of facts; for the substance is clear, and the facts are unanswerable. All are agreed, according to the authority of President Lincoln, in his latest utterance before his lamented death, that these States have ceased to be in “practical relation with the Union”;[45] and this is enough to sustain the jurisdiction of Congress, even without the plain words of the Constitution in two separate texts.
The time has passed for phrases, which have been the chief resource in opposition to a just reconstruction. It is not enough to say “a State cannot secede,” “a State cannot get out of the Union,” “Louisiana is a State in the Union.” These are mere words, having no positive meaning, and improper for this debate. So far as they have meaning, they confound law and fact. It is very obvious that a State may, in point of law, be still in the list of States, and yet, in point of fact, its relations to the Union may have ceased through violence, foreign or domestic. In point of law, no man can commit suicide; but in point of fact, men do. The absurdity of denying that a man has committed suicide, because it is unlawful, is equalled by the kindred absurdity of saying that a State cannot do a certain thing, because it is unlawful. Unhappily, in this world, the fact is not always in conformity with the law.
Therefore I put aside all fine-spun theories running into the metaphysics of Constitutional Law. All such subtilties are absolutely futile. They must end in nothing. I found myself on existing facts, which are undeniable. Of these I select two.
Whatever may have been the effect of the acts of Secession in point of law, it is plain that de facto the Rebel States have ceased to take any part in the National Government. All loyal government in those States has been de facto subverted. They are all without magistrates or officers bound by oath to support the National Constitution according to its requirement, so that de facto there are no magistrates or officers of the Union in these States; nor are there any de facto Senators or Representatives in Congress from those States. Such are unquestionable facts, all of which concentre in the great unquestionable fact, that for the time being there are no State Governments in these States which the National Government can recognize as such.
There is another fact equally unquestionable. It is that the Rebel States have been de facto in war against the National Government. Armies have been mustered, battles have been fought, and the whole country has been convulsed by this war. An immense national debt, mourning families, widows and orphans, attest this terrible fact.
Everything has a natural consequence, and the consequence of this condition of things is that necessity which I have announced. These States cannot subsist without legal governments in just correlation with the other States and with the Nation.
Necessity and duty commingle. If what is necessary is not always according to duty, surely duty is always a necessity. On the present occasion they unite in one voice for the Great Guaranty. It is at once necessity and duty. Glancing at the promises of the Fathers, I shall exhibit,—
First, the overruling necessity of the times;
And, secondly, the positive mandate of the Constitution, compelling us to guaranty “a republican form of government,” and thus to determine what is meant by this requirement; all of which has been fortified by continuing Rights of War, and by the Constitutional Amendment authorizing Congress to enforce the abolition of Slavery.