e is a
State government, republican or unrepublican, in the State of Tennessee,
where there is no government of any kind, no civil authority, no
organized form of administration except that represented by the flag of
the United States, obeying the will and under the orders of the military
officer in command. * * *

Those that are here represented are the only governments existing within
the limits of the United States. Those that are not here represented are
not governments of the States, republican under the Constitution. And
if they be not, then they are military usurpations, inaugurated as the
permanent governments of the States, contrary to the supreme law of the
land, arrayed in arms against the Government of the United States;
and it is the duty, the first and highest duty, of the government to
suppress and expel them. Congress must either expel or recognize and
support them. If it do not guarantee them, it is bound to expel them;
and they who are not ready to suppress are bound to recognize them.

We are now engaged in suppressing a military usurpation of the authority
of the State governments. When that shall have been accomplished, there
will be no form of State authority in existence which Congress can
recognize. Our success will be the overthrow of all sent balance of
government in the rebel States. The Government of the United States is
then in fact the only government existing in those States, and it is
there charged to guarantee them republican governments.

What jurisdiction does the duty of guaranteeing a republican government
confer under such circumstances upon Congress? What right does it give?
What laws may it pass? What objects may it accomplish? What conditions
may it insist upon, and what judgment may it exercise in determining
what it will do? The duty of guaranteeing carries with it the right
to pass all laws necessary and proper to guarantee. The duty of
guaranteeing means the duty to accomplish the result. It means that the
republican government shall exist. It means that every opposition to
republican government shall be put down. It means that every thing
inconsistent with the permanent continuance of republican government
shall be weeded out. It places in the hands of Congress to say what is
and what is not, with all the light of experience and all the lessons of
the past, inconsistent, in its judgment, with the permanent continuance
of republican government; and if, in its judgment, any