octrine of State sovereignty, and on that doctrine they
had a right to secede, and have committed no treason, been guilty of no
rebellion. That was, indeed, no reason why the government should not
use all its force, if necessary, to preserve the national unity and the
integrity of the national domain; but it is a reason, and a sufficient
reason, why no penalty of treason should be inflicted on secessionists
or their leaders, after their submission, and recognition of the
sovereignty of the United States as that to which they owe allegiance.
None of the secessionists have been rebels or traitors, except in
outward act, and there can, after the act has ceased, be no just
punishment where there has been no criminal intent. Treason is the
highest crime, and deserves exemplary punishment; but not where there
has been no treasonable intent, where they who committed it did not
believe it was treason, and on principles held by the majority of their
countrymen, and by the party that had generally held the government,
there really was no treason. Concede State sovereignty, and Jefferson
Davis was no traitor in the war he made on the United States, for he
made none till his State had seceded. He could not then be arraigned
for his acts after secession, and at most, only for conspiracy, if at
all, before secession.

But, if you permit all to vote in the re-organization of the State who,
under the old electoral law, have the elective franchise, you throw the
State into the hands of those who have been disloyal to the Union. If
so, and you cannot trust them, the remedy is not in disfranchising the
majority, but in prohibiting re-organization, and in holding the
territorial people still longer under the provisional government, civil
or military. The old electoral law disqualifies all who have been
convicted of treason either to the State or the United States, and
neither Congress nor the Executive can declare any others disqualified
on account of disloyalty. But you must throw the State into the hands
of those who took part, directly or indirectly, in the rebellion, if
you reconstruct the States at all, for they are undeniably the great
body of the territorial people in all the States that seceded. These
people having submitted, and declared their intention to reconstruct
the State as a State in the Union, you must amend the constitution of
the United States, unless they are convicted of a disqualifying crime
by due process of