e not "loyal and republican," and requires the people to
form them anew. What, then, in the opinion of Congress, is necessary to
make the constitution of a State "loyal and republican"? The original
act answers the question: It is universal negro suffrage--a question
which the Federal Constitution leaves exclusively to the States
themselves. All this legislative machinery of martial law, military
coercion, and political disfranchisement is avowedly for that purpose
and none other. The existing constitutions of the ten States conform to
the acknowledged standards of loyalty and republicanism. Indeed, if
there are degrees in republican forms of government, their constitutions
are more republican now than when these States, four of which were
members of the original thirteen, first became members of the Union.

Congress does not now demand that a single provision of their
constitutions be changed except such as confine suffrage to the white
population. It is apparent, therefore, that these provisions do not
conform to the standard of republicanism which Congress seeks to
establish. That there may be no mistake, it is only necessary that
reference should be made to the original act, which declares "such
constitution shall provide that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed
by all such persons as have the qualifications herein stated for
electors of delegates." What class of persons is here meant clearly
appears in the same section; that is to say, "the male citizens of said
State 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous
condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous
to the day of such election."

Without these provisions no constitution which can be framed in any one
of the ten States will be of any avail with Congress. This, then, is the
test of what the constitution of a State of this Union must contain to
make it republican. Measured by such a standard, how few of the States
now composing the Union have republican constitutions! If in the
exercise of the constitutional guaranty that Congress shall secure to
every State a republican form of government universal suffrage for
blacks as well as whites is a _sine qua non_, the work of reconstruction
may as well begin in Ohio as in Virginia, in Pennsylvania as in North
Carolina.

When I contemplate the millions of our fellow-citizens of the South
with no alternative left but to impose upon themselves this fearful
and untried expe