The present organization in Arkansas, seeking representation on this floor, is without that legality of origin required by the American system of government.

Congress has jurisdiction over all those States in which loyal governments have been overturned; and this jurisdiction furnishes a natural, obvious, and constitutional origin for the new government.

This is not the first time in our national history that Congress has stood between the old and the new.

At the separation of the Colonies from the mother country, it interfered by formal resolution to indicate the process by which the new governments should be constituted, although the Tories of that day doubted the power.

According to this example, sustained by congenial principles, Congress must now set the new government in motion, and infuse into it the vital force found in liberty regulated by law.

Thus far in history trade has preceded political power; now political power is to precede trade.

Evidently, Arkansas may have preserved her place in the Union, and yet not be entitled at this moment to representation.

She may be a State, but in a condition of political syncope or suspended animation.

Or she may be under such abnormal influences as to render her, for the time being, incompetent to perform the functions of a State.

The power to admit States into this Union, and, by consequence, the power to readmit them, are vested in Congress, to be exerted by joint resolution or act, with the concurrence of both Chambers and the approval of the President.

I choose to present the case of Arkansas on facts which nobody can question.

True it is that the President put forward a plan for reorganizing loyal State governments in the Rebel territory, and he proffered a guaranty to these communities against domestic violence and Rebel invasion; but he neither proposed nor…

It is plain, therefore, that the reorganization contemplated by the President was in nature provisional.

It was not complete or permanent, but evidently looked to the action of the legislative power to determine representation, whether in Congress or in the Electoral College.

Considered from this point of view, and in the absence of Congressional action, the President’s plan of reconstruction was, to a certain extent, proper, if not necessary, and very little obnoxious to objections sometimes brought against it.

But what proceeds out of this power is, from the nature of the case, provisional or temporary, until it has received the sanction of Congress.

Such a power would be open to infinite abuse, and in the hands of an ambitious President might be employed for selfish purposes.

The national safety, in harmony with republican principles, requires that it should be exercised by Congress, which must take the lead in calling the new government into being.

Such a State is, beyond all question, a Rebel State, with no title to a place in Congress or in the Electoral College, until readmitted to its ancient rights by a vote in both Houses of Congress.

The readmission of a Rebel State to representation is not less important than its original admission into the Union.

Much more must be done, and all this must be placed under fixed and irreversible guaranties.

Vain is victory on the battle-field, if these guaranties are not obtained.

That the future at least may be secure, the present is given over to blood and slaughter, to graves and epitaphs.

The soldier meets the enemy face to face; the statesman, by wise precautions, provides that the enemy, once conquered, shall never rise again.

Vain is the work of the soldier, if not consummated and crowned by the wisdom of the statesman.