Their Legislature has already voted to ratify the constitutional amendment recently passed by Congress abolishing slavery throughout the nation.  These 12,000 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 12,000 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.

“Again, if we reject Louisiana, we also reject one vote in favor of the proposed amendment to the national Constitution.  To meet this proposition it has been argued that no more than three-fourths of those States which have not attempted secession are necessary to validly ratify the amendment I do not commit myself against this further than to say that such a ratification would be questionable, and sure to be persistently questioned, while a ratification by three-fourths of all the States would be unquestioned and unquestionable.  I repeat the question:  Can Louisiana be brought into proper practical relation with the Union sooner by sustaining or by discarding her new State government?  What has been said of Louisiana will apply generally to other States.  And yet so great peculiarities pertain to each State, and such important and sudden changes occur in the same State, and with also new and unprecedented is the whole case that no exclusive and inflexible plan can safely be prescribed as to details and collaterals.  Such exclusive and inflexible plan would surely become a new entanglement.  Important principles may and must be inflexible.  In the present situation, as the phrase goes, it may be my duty to make some new announcement to the people of the South.  I am considering and shall not fail to act when satisfied that action will be proper.”