territorial Legislatures, they will necessarily mingle with those
to whom Congress shall extend the right of suffrage. In Territories,
Congress fixes the qualifications of electors; and I know of no better
place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to
practise justice to all men, and accustom themselves to make and to obey
equal laws.

And these fallen rebels cannot at their option reenter the heaven which
they have disturbed, the garden of Eden which they have deserted;
as flaming swords are set at the gates to secure their exclusion, it
becomes important to the welfare of the nation to inquire when the doors
shall be reopened for their admission.

According to my judgment they ought never to be recognized as capable
of acting in the Union, or of being counted as valid States, until the
Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what its framers
intended, and so as to secure perpetual ascendency to the party of the
Union; and so as to render our republican Government firm and stable
forever. The first of those amendments is to change the basis of
representation among the States from Federal members to actual voters.

Now all the colored freemen in the slave States, and three fifths of the
slaves, are represented, though none of them have votes. The States have
nineteen representatives of colored slaves. If the slaves are now free
then they can add, for the other two fifths, thirteen more, making the
slaves represented thirty-two. I suppose the free blacks in those States
will give at least five more, making the representation of non-voting
people of color about thirty-seven. The whole number of representatives
now from the slave States is seventy. Add the other two fifths and it
will be eighty-three.