nt to his unerring sense of justice.

The scheme of reconstruction in Louisiana was completed by the
assembling of a convention to form a constitution for the State. The
convention was organized early in April, and its most important act
was the prompt incorporation of an anti-slavery clause in the organic
law. By a vote of seventy to sixteen the convention declared slavery
to be forever abolished in the State. The constitution was adopted
by the people on the fifth day of the ensuing September by a vote of
6,836 in its favor to 1,566 against it. As the total vote of Louisiana
at the Presidential election of 1860 was 50,510, the new State
government had obviously fulfilled the requirement of the President's
proclamation in demonstrating that it was sustained by more than
one-tenth of that number. The President's scheme had therefore so far
succeeded that Louisiana was at least in form under a loyal government.
It was, however, a government that could not sustain itself for a day
if the military support of the Nation should be withdrawn, and therein
lay the weakness of the President's plan.

The action of Louisiana was accompanied, indeed in some parts preceded,
by a similar action in Arkansas. A loyal governor (Isaac Murphy) was
elected, an anti-slavery constitution adopted, a government duly
installed over the State, and senators and representatives in Congress
were elected in due form. These successive steps were taken in the
early spring of 1864. But when the senators, Messrs. Fishback and
Baxter, presented themselves for admission to the body to which they
were thus chosen, it was found that Congress was not in sympathy with
what was derisively termed the "short-hand" method of reconstruction
proposed in Mr. Lincoln's proclamation. Mr. Sumner, when the
credentials were presented, offered a resolution declaring that "a
State pretending to secede from the Union, and battling against the
General Government to maintain that position, must be regarded as a
rebel State subject to military occupation and without representation
on this floor until it has been re-admitted by a vote of both Houses of
Congress; and the Senate will decline to entertain any such application
from any such rebel State until after such a vote of both Houses."

Mr. Sumner's resolution embodied a radical and absolute dissent from
the President's scheme of reconstruction. The Senate, however, was
not quite ready for so emphatic a declarati