r Government
to our shameful suings for peace, went upon the defiant ground that no
terms would be offered or received except upon the prior
acknowledgment of the entire and permanent independence of the
Confederate States. After this, to deny that we have a right to treat
them as a conquered belligerent, severed from the Union in fact, is
not argument but mockery. Whether it be our interest to do so is the
only question hereafter and more deliberately to be considered.

"But suppose these powerful but now subdued belligerents, instead of
being out of the Union, are merely destroyed, and are now lying about,
a dead corpse, or with animation so suspended as to be incapable of
action, and wholly unable to heal themselves by any unaided movements
of their own. Then they may fall under the provision of the
Constitution which says, "the United States shall guarantee to every
State in the Union a republican form of government." Under that power,
can the judiciary, or the President, or the commander-in-chief of the
army, or the Senate or House of Representatives, acting separately,
restore them to life and reaedmit them into the Union? I insist that if
each acted separately, though the action of each was identical with
all the others, it would amount to nothing. Nothing but the joint
action of the two houses of Congress and the concurrence of the
President could do it. If the Senate admitted their Senators, and the
House their members, it would have no effect on the future action of
Congress. The Fortieth Congress might reject both. Such is the ragged
record of Congress for the last four years."

He cited a decision of the Supreme Court to show that "it rests with
Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State,"
and then remarked: "But Congress does not mean the Senate, or the
House of Representatives, and President, all acting severally. Their
joint action constitutes Congress. Hence a law of Congress must be
passed before any new State can be admitted or any dead ones revived.
Until then, no member can be lawfully admitted into either house.
Hence, it appears with how little knowledge of constitutional law each
branch is urged to admit members separately from these destroyed
States. The provision that "each house shall be the judge of the
elections, returns, and qualifications of its own members," has not
the most distant bearing on this question. Congress must create States
and declare when they are