Republic without having given reasonable
guaranties for the maintenance of the "legitimate results of the war,"
he was in point of principle not far apart from Mr. Stevens.

_The President's Logic_

It must be admitted that, if we accept his premises, Mr. Johnson made in
point of logic a pretty plausible case. His proposition was that a
State, in the view of the Federal Constitution, is indestructible; that
an ordinance of secession adopted by its inhabitants, or its political
organs, did not take it out of the Union; that by declaring and treating
those ordinances of secession as "null and void," of no force, virtually
non-existent, the Federal government itself had accepted and sanctioned
that theory; that during the rebellion the constitutional rights and
functions of those States were merely suspended, and that when the
rebellion ceased they were _ipso facto_ restored; that, therefore, the
rebellion having actually ceased, those States were at once entitled to
their former rights and privileges--that is, to the recognition of their
self-elected State governments and to their representation in Congress.
Admitting the premises, this was logically correct in the abstract.

But this was one of the cases to which a saying, many years later set
afloat by President Cleveland, might properly have been applied: we were
confronting a condition, not a theory. The condition was this: Certain
States had through their regular political organs declared themselves
independent of the Union. They had, for all practical purposes, actually
separated themselves from the Union. They had made war upon the Union.
That war put those States in a position not foreseen by the
Constitution. It imposed upon the government of the Union duties not
foreseen by the Constitution; by "military necessity," war necessity,
the Union was compelled to emancipate the negroes from slavery and to
accept their military services. The war had compelled the government of
the Union to levy large loans of money and thus to contract a huge
public debt. The government had also, in the course of the war, the aid
of the Union men of the South. It had thus assumed solemn obligations
for value received or services rendered. It had assumed the duty to
protect the emancipated negroes in their freedom, the Southern Union men
in their security, and the public creditor from loss. This duty was a
duty of honor as well as of policy. The Union could, therefore, not
consent,