will, or are presumed
to will. The United States have by a constitutional amendment
abrogated the laws of the several States authorizing slavery, and
prohibited slavery forever within the jurisdiction of the Union; and no
State can now be reconstructed and be admitted into the Union with a
constitution that permits slavery, for that would be repugnant to the
constitution of the United States. If the constitutional amendment is
not recognized as ratified by the requisite number of States, it is the
fault of the government in persisting in counting as States what are no
States. Negro suffrage, as white suffrage, is at present a question
for States.

The United States guarantee to such State a republican form of
government. And this guarantee, no doubt, authorizes Congress to
intervene in the internal constitution of a State so far as to force it
to adopt a republican form of government, but not so far as to organize
a government for a State, or to compel a territorial people to accept
or adopt a State constitution for themselves. If a State attempts to
organize a form of government not republican, it can prevent it; and if
a Territory adopts an unrepublican form, it can force it to change its
constitution to one that is republican, or compel it to remain a
Territory under a provisional government. But this gives the General
government no authority in the organization or re-organization of
States beyond seeing that the form of government adopted by the
territorial people is republican. To press it further, to make the
constitutional clause a pretext for assuming the entire control of the
organization or re-organization of a State, is a manifest abuse--a
palpable violation of the constitution and of the whole American
system. The authority given by the clause is specific, and is no
authority for intervention in the general reconstruction of the lapsed
State. It gives authority in no question raised by secession or its
consequences, and can give none, except, from within or from without,
there is an overt attempt to organize a State in the Union with an
unrepublican form of government.

The General government gives permission to the territorial people of
the defunct State to re-organize, or it contents itself with suffering
them, without special recognition, to reorganize in their own way, and
apply to Congress for admission, leaving it to Congress to admit them
as a State, or not, according to its own discretion