ame from an Executive
to Congress. It was thought at the time that Mr. Seward wrote it,
but it has since been asserted that it was the product of that
foremost of American historians, J. C. Bancroft, one of Mr. Johnson's
close personal friends.

There existed three theories of dealing with the Southern States:
one was the President's theory of recognizing the State Governments,
allowing the States to deal with the suffrage question as they
might see fit; the Stevens policy of wiping out all State lines
and dealing with the regions as conquered military provinces; and
the Sumner theory of treating them as organized territories,
recognizing the State lines.

Johnson dealt in a masterful manner with the subject in his message.
He said:

"States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the
existence of the Constitution of the United States.

"The perpetuity of the Constitution bring with it the perpetuity
of the States; their mutual relations makes us what we are, and in
our political system this connection is indissoluble. The whole
cannot exist without the parts nor the parts without the whole.
So long as the Constitution of the United States endures, the States
will endure; the destruction of the one is the destruction of the
other; the preservation of the one is the preservation of the other.

"The true theory is that all pretended acts of secession were, from
the beginning, null and void. The States cannot commit treason,
nor screen the individual citizens who may have committed treason,
any more than they can make valid treaties or engage in lawful
commerce with any foreign power. The States attempting to secede
placed themselves in a condition where their vitality was impaired
but not extinguished, their functions suspended but not destroyed."

It was but the Johnson theory which we presented to the world,
denying the right of any State to secede; asserting the perpetuity,
the indissolubility of the Union.

But the question was, whether the members from the seceding States
should be admitted to the Senate and House; and he dealt with this
most difficult problem in a statesmanlike way. He said:

"The amendment to the Constitution being adopted, it would remain
for the States whose powers have been so long in abeyance, to resume
their places in the two branches of the National Legislature, and
thereby complete the work of restoration. Here it is for you,
fellow citizens of the Senate, and fo