ense losses both of
life and property which they had inflicted upon the Nation, and gave
no consideration to the suffering which they had causelessly brought
upon the people. If the President's logic should be accepted as
indicting the true measure of Constitutional obligation imposed on the
different members of the Union, then any State might rebel at any
time, seize and destroy the National property, levy war, form alliances
with hostile nations, and thus subject the Republic to great peril and
great outlay, her citizens to murder and to pillage. If the rebellious
State be finally subdued, the National Government must not attach the
slightest condition to her re-admission to the Union; must not impose
discipline or even administer reproof. The fact that the rebellion
fails is the full warrant for its guilty authors to be at once
repossessed of all the rights and all the privileges which in the
frenzy of anger and disobedience they had thrown away. Such was in
effect the argument of the President throughout the Reconstruction
contest; such was the demand of the leaders of the Rebellion; such was
the concession which the Democratic party constantly urged in Congress,
through the press, and in all the channels through which its great
power was exerted.

The position of the Republicans was steadily the opposite of that
described. They held that the States which had rushed into a rebellion
so wicked, so causeless, and so destructive, should not be allowed to
resume their places of authority in the Union except under such
conditions as would guard, so far as human foresight could avail,
against the outbreak of another insurrection. They should return to
the Union on precisely the same terms as those on which the loyal
States held their places; they should have the same privileges and be
subjected to the same conditions. As slavery had been the chief
inciting cause of disunion, slavery should die. As the vicious theory
of State-rights had been constantly at enmity with the true spirit of
Nationality, the Organic Law of the Republic should be so amended that
no standing-room for the heresy would be left. As the basis of
representation in the Constitution has always given the slave States an
advantage, these States, now that slavery was abolished, should not be
permitted to oppress the negro population and use them merely for an
enlarged Congressional power to the white men who had precipitated the
rebellion. As the