and set aside by violence or fraud. The
insurrectionary government of the State may be only the government _de
facto_ and not _de jure_, using these terms with reference only to the
State and its people, and not with reference to the paramount authority
of the Union which, under all circumstances, deprives the
insurrectionary State organization of any legal character whatever. In
all cases of such usurped authority, the people of the States would have
the unquestionable right to be restored to the Union upon the terms of
their recent connection, without any conditions whatever. It would be
the solemn duty of the United States to defend each one of its members
from the violence which might thus have overthrown its legitimate
government. But, on the other hand, when the people of the States
themselves have inaugurated the insurrectionary movement and have
voluntarily sustained it in its war upon the Government, then no such
favor can reasonably be claimed for them. If excitement and delusion
have suddenly hurried them into rebellion against their better judgments
and their real inclinations, they are to be pitied for their misfortune,
and ought to be treated with great leniency and favor; but they cannot
claim exemption from those conditions which may be imperatively demanded
for the future security and tranquillity of the country.

If by possibility there might be some technical legal difficulty in this
view, there would be none whatever of a practical nature; for any mind
gifted with the most ordinary endowment of reason would not fail to be
impressed with the gross inconsistency and inequality of holding that
rebels may not only set aside the Constitution at their will and make
war for its destruction, but may set it up again and claim its
protection; while its defenders and faithful asserters must be held to
such strict and impracticable regard for its provisions that they may
not take the precautions necessary to preserve it, even in the emergency
of putting down a rebellion against it. Such an irrational predicament
of constitutional difficulties and political contradictions would soon
necessitate its own solution. The revolution on the one side would
induce a similar revolutionary movement on the other; attempted
destruction by violence would justify the measures necessary to the
restoration of the Government and to its permanent security in the
future. There would be little hesitation in adopting these measures in