It was at once determined by the Republican majority in Congress that the representatives of the eleven seceding States should not be admitted. The Constitution expressly gives to the House and Senate the exclusive power to judge of the admission and qualification of its own members.
We were surprised at the moderation of the President's message, which came in on Tuesday after Congress assembled. In tone and general character the message was wholly unlike Johnson. It was an admirable state document, one of the finest from a literary and probably from every other standpoint that ever came from an Executive to Congress. It was thought at the time that Mr. Seward wrote it, but it has since been asserted that it was the product of that foremost of American historians, J. C. Bancroft, one of Mr. Johnson's close personal friends.
There existed three theories of dealing with the Southern States: one was the President's theory of recognizing the State Governments, allowing the States to deal with the suffrage question as they might see fit; the Stevens policy of wiping out all State lines and dealing with the regions as conquered military provinces; and the Sumner theory of treating them as organized territories, recognizing the State lines.
Johnson dealt in a masterful manner with the subject in his message.
He said:
"States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the existence of the Constitution of the United States.
"The perpetuity of the Constitution bring with it the perpetuity of the States; their mutual relations makes us what we are, and in our political system this connection is indissoluble. The whole cannot exist without the parts nor the parts without the whole. So long as the Constitution of the United States endures, the States will endure; the destruction of the one is the destruction of the other; the preservation of the one is the preservation of the other.
"The true theory is that all pretended acts of secession were, from the beginning, null and void. The States cannot commit treason, nor screen the individual citizens who may have committed treason, any more than they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful commerce with any foreign power. The States attempting to secede placed themselves in a condition where their vitality was impaired but not extinguished, their functions suspended but not destroyed."
It was but the Johnson theory which we presented to the world, denying the right of any State to secede; asserting the perpetuity, the indissolubility of the Union.
But the question was, whether the members from the seceding States should be admitted to the Senate and House; and he dealt with this most difficult problem in a statesmanlike way. He said:
"The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, it would remain for the States whose powers have been so long in abeyance, to resume their places in the two branches of the National Legislature, and thereby complete the work of restoration. Here it is for you, fellow citizens of the Senate, and for you, fellow citizens of the House of Representatives, to judge, each of you for yourselves, of the elections, returns and qualifications of your own members."