surrender of fugitives from justice, to arm and command the militia, to require the United States to repress all opposition to its authority, and to protect it against invasion--against our own armies; whose Senators and Representatives are entitled to seats in Congress, and whose electoral votes must be counted in the election of the President of a government which they disown and defy. To accept the alternative of anarchy as the constitutional condition of a State is to assert the failure of the Constitution and the end of republican government. Until, therefore, Congress recognize a State government, organized under its auspices, there is no government in the rebel States except the authority of Congress. * * * When military opposition shall have been suppressed, not merely paralyzed, driven into a corner, pushed back, but gone, the horrid vision of civil war vanished from the South, then call upon the people to reorganize in their own way, subject to the conditions that we think essential to our permanent peace, and to prevent the revival hereafter of the rebellion--a republican government in the form that the people of the United States can agree to. Now, for that purpose there are three modes indicated. One is to remove the cause of the war by an alteration of the Constitution of the United States, prohibiting slavery everywhere within its limits. That, sir, goes to the root of the matter, and should consecrate the nation's triumph. But there are thirty-four States; three fourths of them would be twenty-six. I believe there are twenty-five States represented in this Congress; so that we on that basis can-not change the Constitution. It is, therefore,a condition precedent in that view of the case that more States shall have governments organized within them. If it be assumed that the basis of calculation shall be three fourths of the States now represented in Congress, I agree to that construction of the Constitution. * * * But, under any circumstances, even upon that basis it will be difficult to find three fourths of the States, with New Jersey, or Kentucky, or Maryland, or Delaware, or other States that might be mentioned, opposed to it, under existing auspices, to adopt such a clause of the Constitution after we shall have agreed to it. If adopted it still leaves all laws necessary to the ascertainment of the will of the people, and all restrictions on the return to power of the leaders of the rebellion, wholly unprovided for. The amendment of the Constitution meets my hearty approval, but it is not a remedy for the evils we must deal with.