not recognize, and, therefore, not republican governments of the States in rebellion.  The latter is the view which all parties take of it.  I do not understand that any gentleman on the other side of the House says that any rebel government which does not recognize the Constitution of the United States, and which is not recognized by Congress, is a State government within the meaning of the Constitution.  Still less can it be said that there 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 form of policy is radically and inherently inconsistent with the permanent