moment the rebel armies were dispersed? Has the
Government no authority to bring to punishment the authors of this
rebellion after the conflict of arms has ceased? no authority to hold
as prisoners, if necessary, all who have been captured with arms in
their hands? Can it be that, the moment the rebel armies are
dispersed, the military authority ceases, and they are to be turned
loose to arm and organize again for another conflict against the
Union? Why, sir, it would not be more preposterous on the part of the
traveler, after having, at the peril of his life, succeeded in
disarming a highwayman by whom he was assailed, to immediately turn
round and restore to the robber his weapons with which to make a new
assault.

"And yet this is what some gentlemen would have this nation do with
the worse than robbers who have assailed its life. They propose, the
rebel armies being overcome, that the rebels themselves shall be
instantly clothed with all the authority they possessed before the
conflict, and that the inhabitants of States who for more than four
years have carried on an organized war against the Government shall at
once be invested with all the powers they had at its commencement to
organize and begin it anew; nay, more, they insist that, without any
action of the Government, it is the right of the inhabitants of the
rebellious States, on laying down their arms, to resume their former
positions in the Union, with all the rights they possessed when they
began the war. If such are the consequences of this struggle, it is
the first conflict in the history of the world, between either
individuals or nations, from which such results have followed. What
man, after being despoiled of much of his substance, his children
slain, his own life periled, and his body bleeding from many wounds,
ever restored the authors of such calamities, when within his power,
to the rights they possessed before the conflict without taking some
security for the future.

"Sir, the war powers of the Government do not cease with the
dispersion of the rebel armies; they are to be continued and exercised
until the civil authority of the Government can be established firmly
and upon a sure foundation, not again to be disturbed or interfered
with. And such, sir, is the understanding of the Government. None of
the departments of the Government understand that its military
authority has ceased to operate over the rebellious States. It is but
a short ti