The amount of constituency, so to speak, on which the new Louisiana government rests, would be more satisfactory to all if it contained 50,000, or 30,000, or even 20,000, instead of only about 12,000, as it really does.  It is also unsatisfactory to some that the elective franchise is not given to the colored man.  I would myself prefer that it were now conferred on the very intelligent, and on those who serve our cause as soldiers.  Still, the question is not whether the Louisiana government, as it stands, is quite all that is desirable.  The question is, will it be wiser to take it as it is and help to improve it, or to reject and disperse it?  Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government?

Some twelve thousand voters in the heretofore slave State of Louisiana have sworn allegiance to the Union, assumed to be the rightful political power of the State, held elections, organized a State government, adopted a free-State constitution, giving the benefit of public schools equally to black and white, and empowering the Legislature to confer the elective franchise upon the colored man.  Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress, abolishing slavery throughout the nation.  These twelve thousand persons are thus fully committed to the Union and to perpetual freedom in the State—­committed to the very things, and nearly all the things, the nation wants—­and they ask the nation’s recognition and its assistance to make good their committal.

Now, if we reject and spurn them, we do our utmost to disorganize and disperse them.  We, in effect, say to the white man:  You are worthless or worse; we will neither help you, nor be helped by you.  To the blacks we say:  This cup of Liberty which these, your old masters, hold to your lips we will dash from you, and leave you to the chances of gathering the spilled and scattered contents in some vague and undefined when, where, and how.  If this course, discouraging and paralyzing both white and black, has any tendency to bring Louisiana into proper practical relations with the Union, I have so far been unable to perceive it.  If, on the contrary, we recognize and sustain the new government of Louisiana, the converse of all this is made true.  We encourage the hearts and nerve the arms of the twelve thousand to adhere to their work, and argue for it, and proselyte for it, and fight for it, and feed it, and grow it, and ripen it to a complete success.  The colored man too, in seeing all united for him, is inspired with vigilance, and energy, and daring, to the same end.  Grant that he desires the elective franchise, will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward it than by running backward over them?  Concede that the new government of Louisiana is only to what it should be as the egg is to the fowl, we shall sooner have the fowl by hatching the egg than by smashing it.