tablishing a nation, ordained by the people of the
whole country. Therefore, only such persons under it as voluntarily wage
war upon it, can be strictly called enemies: only such persons, on the
defeat of the rebellion, will be liable to be treated as enemies. As to
all men who have not participated in the rebellion, it is not easy to
see how war, rebellion, usurpation, or any power on earth can destroy
their rights under the Constitution.

III. THEORY OF THE CONSTITUTION AND COMMON SENSE.

Reconstruction, then, must come, as the Union came, by the action of the
people within the territorial limits of each recreant State. That it
will so come is, in a manner, assured and made certain by the action of
Kentucky, Missouri, Virginia, and Tennessee. Surely, we cannot expect
the political action of an oppressed minority, in any one of the rebel
States, to anticipate the National forces sent for their deliverance.
The armed combinations in those States have overborne all opposition,
and, during the past two years, have wielded the complete powers of a
military despotism. The Southern confederacy is a monstrous usurpation
in each and every rebel State. The United States is intent on dethroning
that usurpation, for the purpose of restoring, to every man who asks it,
the rights guaranteed to him by the Constitution of his fathers; and for
the equal purpose of asserting its rightful powers as the National
Government under the Constitution. The present Administration, then, has
taken the only course possible to be taken without open and flagrant
violation of the Constitution, which is the sole and sufficient warrant
for the war. For this course Abraham Lincoln is entitled to the
gratitude of the people. His conscientious policy has been the salvation
of the Republic, maintaining its integrity against armed rebellion, on
the one hand, and, on the other hand, saving it from destructives whose
zeal in a noble cause has often blinded their minds to the higher claims
of the Nation: in whose existence, nevertheless, that cause alone has
promise of success.

But, it is asked, does not rebellion affect the institution of slavery?
Not as a State institution, so far as the municipal law of any State is
concerned. That the slaves of rebels may properly be confiscated, as
other property, seems not only reasonable and right, but also in
accordance with well-settled decisions of the Supreme Court. Moreover,
the Constitution gives to Congress