He reviewed in full the history of the Louisiana experiment From that he passed to the theories put forth by some of his enemies with regard to the constitutional status of the Seceded States.  His own theory that the States never had been out of the Union because constitutionally they could not go out, that their governmental functions had merely been temporarily interrupted; this theory had always been roundly derided by the Vindictives and even by a few who were not Vindictives.  Sumner had preached the idea that the Southern States by attempting to secede had committed “State suicide” and should now be treated as Territories.  Stevens and the Vindictives generally, while avoiding Sumner’s subtlety, called them “conquered provinces.”  And all these wanted to take them from under the protection of the President and place them helpless at the feet of Congress.  To prevent this is the purpose that shines between the lines in the latter part of Lincoln’s valedictory: 

“We all agree that the Seceded States, so called, are out of their proper practical relation with the Union, and that the sole object of the government, civil and military, in regard to those States, is to again get them into that proper practical relation.  I believe that it is not only possible, but in fact easier, to do this without deciding or even considering whether these States have ever been out of the Union, than with it Finding themselves safely at home, it would be utterly immaterial whether they had ever been abroad.  Let us all join in doing the acts necessary to restoring the proper practical relations between these States and the Union, and each forever after innocently indulge his own opinion whether in doing the acts he brought the States from without into the Union, or only gave them proper assistance, they never having been out of it.  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 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 served 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.