act easier, to
do this without deciding or even considering whether those States have
ever been out of the Union, than with it. Finding themselves safely at
home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had been abroad. Let
us all join in doing the acts necessary to restore the proper practical
relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after
innocently indulge his own opinion whether, in doing the acts he
brought the States from without into the Union, or only gave them proper
assistance, they never having been out of it. The amount of constituency,
so to speak, on which the Louisiana government rests, would be more
satisfactory to all if it contained fifty thousand, or thirty thousand, or
even twenty thousand, instead of twelve thousand, as it does. It is also
unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the
colored man. I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very
intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers. Still, the
question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite
all that is desirable. The question is, Will it be wiser to take it as
it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse? Can Louisiana be
brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining
or by discarding her new State government? Some twelve thousand voters
in the heretofore Slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the
Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State,
held elections, organized a State government, adopted a Free State
constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and
white, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise
upon the colored man. This Legislature has already voted to ratify the
Constitutional Amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery
throughout the nation. These twelve thousand persons are thus fully
committed to the Union and to perpetuate freedom in the State--committed
to the very things, and nearly all things, the nation wants--and they ask
the nation's recognition and its assistance to make good this committal.
Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and
disperse them. We, in fact, say to the white man: You are worthless or
worse; we will neither help you nor be helped by you. To the blacks we
say: This cup of liberty which these, your old masters, held to your
lips, we will dash from you, a