One of the unavoidable consequences of the present insurrection is the
entire suppression in many places of all the ordinary means of
administering civil justice by the officers and in the forms of existing
law. This is the case, in whole or in part, in all the insurgent States;
and as our armies advance upon and take possession of parts of those
States the practical evil becomes more apparent. There are no courts nor
officers to whom the citizens of other States may apply for the
enforcement of their lawful claims against citizens of the insurgent
States, and there is a vast amount of debt constituting such claims.
Some have estimated it as high as $200,000,000, due in large part from
insurgents in open rebellion to loyal citizens who are even now making
great sacrifices in the discharge of their patriotic duty to support the
Government.

Under these circumstances I have been urgently solicited to establish by
military power courts to administer summary justice in such cases. I
have thus far declined to do it, not because I had any doubt that the
end proposed--the collection of the debts--was just and right in itself,
but because I have been unwilling to go beyond the pressure of necessity
in the unusual exercise of power. But the powers of Congress, I suppose,
are equal to the anomalous occasion, and therefore I refer the whole
matter to Congress, with the hope that a plan may be devised for the
administration of justice in all such parts of the insurgent States and
Territories as may be under the control of this Government, whether by a
voluntary return to allegiance and order or by the power of our arms;
this, however, not to be a permanent institution, but a temporary
substitute, and to cease as soon as the ordinary courts can be
reestablished in peace.