“The Rebellion, in a word, kills the whole State and everything dependent on it. Whether the State be revived and permitted to return to the Union depends entirely on the good pleasure of the Federal authority. It cannot be claimed as a right by the population on the territory of the defunct State. As they could not take the territory out of the Union, and as they, so long as they remain on it, are within the jurisdiction of the United States, the Federal Government has authority to govern them, and may govern them either as a Territory or as a conquered province.”[163] “The two most important measures ever introduced into the American Congress are, first, the resolutions of Mr. Sumner in the Senate, declaring that a State by rebellion commits suicide, and, second, General Ashley’s bill in the House, from the Territorial Committee, providing for the government of the rebellious States as Territories.… Their adoption would save constitutional government, and give new guaranties of man’s capacity for freedom. But whether these measures be adopted or not, Mr. Sumner’s resolutions will serve as a platform on which will take their stand all in the country worthy of consideration for their political sagacity, their wise statesmanship, their disinterestedness, and their nobility of sentiment.”[164] The newspapers were not behind the quarterlies in earnestness of difference; but citations from them will not add to the case already stated. An article in the _Temps_, an Imperialist organ at Paris, is interesting, as showing that the debate had crossed the ocean to France. “The confidence of the nation possesses the Washington Cabinet, too often accessible to incertitude and discouragements, and its members seem about to rally to the system presented by Mr. Sumner. It is known that the Constitution gives to Congress the absolute power over what is called the Territories,--that is to say, the territorial portions not yet incorporated politically into the Union.… The practical consequence which Mr. Sumner draws from that can be divined. He proposes to consider the Rebel States as simple Territories, which necessarily after victory will return one after another to their vitality. Then, according to the manner in which the Washington Government and Congress shall pronounce definitively on this supreme question, can admittance into the Union be refused to States which do not abolish Slavery or regulate it in a sense favorable to Abolition.”[165] CORRESPONDENCE.