al 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 coloured man.
Their 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 perpetual freedom in the State,--committed to the very
things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants,--and they ask the
nation's recognition and its assistance to make good their committal.

If we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and
disperse them. We, in effect, 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, hold to your
lips, we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering
the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when,
where, and how. If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white
and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper, practical
relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it. If,
on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of
Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true. We encourage the
hearts and nerve the arms of twelve thousand to adhere to their work,
and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it,
and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success. The coloured man, too,
in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy,
and daring to the same end. Grant that he desires the elective
franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced
steps towards it, than by running backward over them?

... I repeat the question, Can Louisiana be brought into proper
practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding
her new State government?

... What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other
States. And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such
important and sud