er been
resorted to in the Senate and might with great advantage be abandoned
by the House.

The debate on Reconstruction, perhaps the longest in the history of
National legislation, was formally opened by Mr. Thaddeus Stevens on
the 18th of December (1865). He took the most radical and pronounced
ground touching the relation to the National Government of the States
lately in rebellion. He contended that "there are two provisions in
the Constitution, under one of which the case must fall." The Fourth
Article says that "new States may be admitted by the Congress into this
Union." "In my judgment," said Mr. Stevens, "this is the controlling
provision in this case. Unless the law of Nations is a dead letter,
the late war between the two acknowledged belligerents severed their
original contracts and broke all the ties that bound them together.
The future condition of the conquered power depends on the will of the
conqueror. They must come in as new States or remain as conquered
provinces." This was the theory which Mr. Stevens had steadily
maintained from the beginning of the war, and which he had asserted
as frequently as opportunity was given in the discussions of the House.
He proceeded to consider the probable alternative. "Suppose," said he,
"as some dreaming theorists imagine, that these States have never been
out of the Union, but have only destroyed their State governments, so
as to be incapable of political action, then the fourth section of the
Fourth Article applies, which says, 'The United States shall guarantee
to every State in this Union a republican form of government.'" "But,"
added he, "who is the United States? Not the Judiciary, not the
President; but the sovereign power of the people, exercised through
their representatives in congress, with the concurrence of the
Executive. It means political government--the concurrent action of
both branches of Congress and the Executive." He intended his line
of debate to be an attack, at the very beginning, upon the assumption
of the President in his attempt at Reconstruction. "The separate
action of the President, or the Senate or the House," added Mr.
Stevens, "amounts to nothing, either in admitting new States or
guaranteeing republican forms of government to lapsed or outlawed
States." "Whence springs," asked he, "the preposterous idea that any
one of these, acting separately, can determine the right of States to
send representatives or senators t