"By these recent successes the reinauguration of the national authority-reconstruction-which has had a large share of thought from the first,is pressed more closely upon our attention.It is fraught with great difficulty.Unlike a case of war between independent nations,there is no authorized organ for us to treat with-no one man has authority to give up the rebellion for any other man.We simply must begin with,and mould from,disorganized and discordant elements.Nor is it a small additional embarrassment that we,the loyal people,differ among ourselves as to the mode,manner and measure of reconstruction.As a general rule,I abstain from reading the reports of attacks upon myself,wishing not to be provoked by that to which I can not properly offer an answer.In spite of this precaution,however,it comes to my knowledge that I am much censured for some supposed agency in setting up and seeking to sustain the new State government of Louisiana.
He reviewed in full the history of the Louisiana experiment From that he passed to the theories put forth by some of his enemies with regard to the constitutional status of the Seceded States.His own theory that the States never had been out of the Union because constitutionally they could not go out,that their governmental functions had merely been temporarily interrupted;this theory had always been roundly derided by the Vindictives and even by a few who were not Vindictives.Sumner had preached the idea that the Southern States by attempting to secede had committed "State suicide"and should now be treated as Territories.Stevens and the Vindictives generally,while avoiding Sumner's subtlety,called them "conquered provinces."And all these wanted to take them from under the protection of the President and place them helpless at the feet of Congress.
To prevent this is the purpose that shines between the lines in the latter part of Lincoln's valedictory:
"We all agree that the Seceded States,so called,are out of their proper practical relation with the Union,and that the sole object of the government,civil and military,in regard to those States,is to again get them into that proper practical relation.I believe that it is not only possible,but in fact easier,to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union,than with it Finding themselves safely at home,it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union,and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without into the Union,or only gave them proper assistance,they never having been out of it.
The amount of constituency,so to speak,on which the new Louisiana government rests would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000or 30,000,or even 20,000instead of only about 12,000,as it does.It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man.Iwould myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent,and on those who served our cause as soldiers.
