allow them, to secure these fruits by adequate legislation. * * * It is
entitled to the support of all gentlemen upon this side of the House,
whatever their views may be of the nature of the rebellion, and the
relation in which it has placed the people and States in rebellion
toward the United States; not less of those who think that the rebellion
has placed the citizens of the rebel States beyond the protection of the
Constitution, and that Congress, therefore, has supreme power over them
as conquered enemies, than of that other class who think that they
have not ceased to be citizens and States of the United States, though
incapable of exercising political privileges under the Constitution, but
that Congress is charged with a high political power by the Constitution
to guarantee republican governments in the States, and that this is the
proper time and the proper mode of exercising it. It is also entitled
to the favorable consideration of gentlemen upon the other side of the
House who honestly and deliberately express their judgment that slavery
is dead. To them it puts the question whether it is not advisable to
bury it out of sight, that its ghost may no longer stalk abroad to
frighten us from our propriety. * * *

What is the nature of this case with which we have to deal, the evil
we must remedy, the danger we must avert? In other words, what is that
monster of political wrong which is called secession? It is not, Mr.
Speaker, domestic violence, within the meaning of that clause of the
Constitution, for the violence was the act of the people of those States
through their governments, and was the offspring of their free and
unforced will. It is not invasion, in the meaning of the Constitution,
for no State has been invaded against the will of the government of the
State by any power except the United States marching to overthrow the
usurpers of its territory. It is, therefore, the act of the people of
the States, carrying with it all the consequences of such an act.