“All that is necessary here is, that the will of the people should be ascertained by some regular rule of proceeding, prescribed by previous law....

“But the law and the Constitution, the whole system of American institutions, do not contemplate a case in which a resort will be necessary to proceedings aliunde, or outside of the law and the Constitution, for the purpose of amending the frame of government."[25]

CONGRESS THE TRUE AGENT.

But, happily, we are not constrained to any such revolutionary proceeding.  The new governments can all be organized by Congress, which is the natural guardian of people without any immediate government, and within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States.  Indeed, with the State governments already vacated by rebellion, the Constitution becomes, for the time, the supreme and only law, binding alike on President and Congress, so that neither can establish any law or institution incompatible with it.  And the whole Rebel region, deprived of all local government, lapses under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress, precisely as any other territory; or, in other words, the lifting of the local governments leaves the whole vast region without any other government than Congress, unless the President should undertake to govern it by military power.  Startling as this proposition may seem, especially to all who believe that “there is a divinity that doth hedge” a State, hardly less than a king, it will appear, on careful consideration, to be as well founded in the Constitution as it is simple and natural, while it affords an easy and constitutional solution to our present embarrassments.

I have no theory to maintain, but only the truth; and in presenting this argument for Congressional government, I simply follow teachings which I cannot control.  The wisdom of Socrates, in the words of Plato, has aptly described these teachings, when he says:—­

“These things are secured and bound, even if the expression be somewhat too rude, with iron and adamant; and unless you or some one more vigorous than you can break them, it is impossible for any one speaking otherwise than I now speak to speak well; since, for my part, I have always the same thing to say, that I know not how these things are, but that out of all with whom I have ever discoursed, as now, not one is able to say otherwise and to maintain himself."[26]

Show me that I am wrong,—­that this conclusion is not founded in the Constitution, and is not sustained by reason,—­and I shall at once renounce it; for, in the present condition of affairs, there can be no pride of opinion which must not fall at once before the sacred demands of country.  Not as a partisan, not as an advocate, do I make this appeal; but simply as a citizen, who seeks, in all sincerity, to offer his contribution to the establishment of that policy by which Union and Peace may be restored.