He can determine who shall vote: Congress cannot.

His jurisdiction is not only complete, but exclusive.

If all this be so, then has our President a most extraordinary power, never before dreamed of.

He may exclaim, with Louis the Fourteenth, “The State, it is I,” while, like this magnificent king, he sacrifices the innocent, and repeats that fatal crime, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.

His whole “policy” is “revocation” of all that has been promised and all we have a right to expect.

Nobody doubts that the President may, during war, govern any conquered territory as commander-in-chief, and for this purpose detail any military officer as military governor.

But it is one thing to govern a State temporarily by military power, and quite another thing to create a constitution for a State which shall continue when the military power has expired.

The former is a military act, and belongs to the President; the latter is a civil act, and belongs to Congress.

Of course, governments set up in this illegitimate way are necessarily illegitimate, except so far as they acquire validity from time or subsequent recognition.

But this illegitimacy becomes still more manifest, when it is known that the constitutions which the President orders and tries to cram upon Congress have never been submitted to popular vote.

Each is the naked offspring of an illegitimate convention called into being by the President, in the exercise of illegitimate power.

There is another provision of the Constitution, by which, according to a judgment of the Supreme Court of the United States, this question is referred to Congress, and not to the President.

He is “the United States.” In him the Republic is manifest.

And now the whole country is summoned by the President to recognize State governments created by constitutions thus illegitimate in origin and character.

Thus setting up the One Man Power as a source of jurisdiction, the President has committed a blunder of Constitutional Law, proceeding from an immense egotism, in which the little pronoun “I” plays a gigantic part.

It is giving present power to ex-Rebels, at the expense of constant Unionists, white or black, and employing them in the work of Reconstruction, so that the new governments continue to represent the Rebellion.

Of course such proceeding was an instant encouragement and license to all ex-Rebels, no matter how much blood was on their hands.

It was easy to see, that, if these men were good enough to be governors of States, in defiance of Congress, all others in the same political predicament would be good enough for inferior offices.

Ex-Rebels became judges, justices of the peace, sheriffs, and everything else,--while the faithful Unionist, white or black, was rejected.

How often during the war have I pleaded for such patriots, and urged to every effort for their redemption!--and now, when our arms have prevailed, it is they who are cast down, while the enemies of the Republic are exalted.

In New Orleans the Rebel mayor at the surrender to the national flag is once more mayor, and employs his regained power in the terrible massacre which rises in judgment against the Presidential policy.

Persons are returned to Congress whose service in the Rebellion makes it impossible for them to take the oath of office,--as in the case of Georgia, which selects as Senators Herschel V.

The power of pardon and amnesty, like the power of appointment, has been used for them, wholesale and retail.

It would have been easy to affix a condition to every pardon, requiring, that, before it took effect, the recipient should carve out of his estate a homestead for every one of his freedmen, and thus secure to each what they all covet so…

But the President did no such thing, although, in the words of the old writ, “often requested so to do.” Such a condition would have helped the loyal freedmen, rather than the rebel master.