our ranks." "They would," said he, "probably help in some trying
time in the future TO KEEP THE JEWEL OF LIBERTY IN THE FAMILY OF
FREEDOM."

This action in regard to Louisiana was accompanied, indeed in
some particulars preceded, by similar action in Arkansas. A
Governor was elected, an anti-slavery Constitution adopted, a
State Government duly installed, and Senators and Representatives
in Congress elected, but were refused admission by Congress. Mr.
Sumner, when the credentials of the Senators-elect were
presented, foreshadowing the position to be taken by the
Republican leaders, offered a resolution declaring that "a State
pretending to secede from the Union, and battling against the
General Government to maintain that position, must be regarded as
a rebel State subject to military occupation and without
representation on this floor until it has been readmitted by a
vote of both Houses of Congress; and the Senate will decline to
receive any such application from any such rebel State until
after such a vote by both Houses."

A few weeks later, on the 27th of June, 1864, this resolution was
in effect reported back to the Senate by the Judiciary Committee,
to which it had been referred, and adopted by a vote of 27 to 6.
The same action was had in the House of Representatives on the
application of the Representatives-elect from Arkansas for
admission to that body.

This was practically the declaration of a rupture between the
President and Congress on the question of Reconstruction. It was
a rebuke to Mr. Lincoln for having presumed to treat the seceded