4. That, in seeking restoration of the States to their proper places as members of the Republic, so that every State shall enjoy again its constitutional functions, and every star on the national flag shall represent a State in reality as well as in name, care must be taken that the Rebellion is not allowed, through any negligence or mistaken concession, to retain the least foothold for future activity, or the least germ of future life; that, whether proceeding by the exercise of sovereign rights or of belligerent rights, the same precautions must be exacted against future peril; that, therefore, any system of “Reconstruction” must be rejected which does not provide by irreversible guaranties against the continued existence or possible revival of Slavery, and that such guaranties can be primarily obtained only through the agency of the National Government, which to this end must assert a temporary supremacy, military or civil, throughout the Rebel and belligerent region, of sufficient duration to stamp upon this region the character of Freedom. 5. That, in the exercise of this essential supremacy of the nation, a solemn duty is cast upon Congress to see that no Rebel State is prematurely restored to its constitutional functions until within its borders all proper safeguards are established, so that loyal citizens, including the new-made freedmen, cannot at any time be molested by evil-disposed persons, and especially that no man there may be made a slave; that this solemn duty belongs to Congress under the Constitution, whether in the exercise of Rights of Sovereignty or Rights of War, and that in its performance that system of “Reconstruction” will be best, howsoever named, which promises most surely to accomplish the desired end, so that Slavery, which is the synonym of the Rebellion, shall absolutely cease throughout the whole Rebel and belligerent region, and the land it has maddened, impoverished, and degraded shall become safe, fertile, and glorious from assured Emancipation.