e 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 50,000 or 30,000, or even 20,000 instead 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. I would myself prefer that it
were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who served our
cause as soldiers.

"Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it
stands, is quite all that is desirable. The question is, will it be
wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and
disperse it? Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation
with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State
government? Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave State of
Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the
rightful political power of the State, held elections, organized a State
government, adopted a free State constitution, giving the benefit of
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