The time has passed for phrases, which have been the chief resource in opposition to a just reconstruction. It is not enough to say “a State cannot secede,” “a State cannot get out of the Union,” “Louisiana is a State in the Union.” These are mere words, having no positive meaning, and improper for this debate. So far as they have meaning, they confound law and fact. It is very obvious that a State may, in point of _law_, be still in the list of States, and yet, in point of _fact_, its relations to the Union may have ceased through violence, foreign or domestic. In point of law, no man can commit suicide; but in point of fact, men do. The absurdity of denying that a man has committed suicide, because it is unlawful, is equalled by the kindred absurdity of saying that a State cannot do a certain thing, because it is unlawful. Unhappily, in this world, the fact is not always in conformity with the law.
Therefore I put aside all fine-spun theories running into the metaphysics of Constitutional Law. All such subtilties are absolutely futile. They must end in nothing. I found myself on existing facts, which are undeniable. Of these I select two.
Whatever may have been the effect of the acts of Secession in point of law, it is plain that _de facto_ the Rebel States have ceased to take any part in the National Government. All loyal government in those States has been _de facto_ subverted. They are all without magistrates or officers bound by oath to support the National Constitution according to its requirement, so that _de facto_ there are no magistrates or officers of the Union in these States; nor are there any _de facto_ Senators or Representatives in Congress from those States. Such are unquestionable facts, all of which concentre in the great unquestionable _fact_, that for the time being there are no State Governments in these States which the National Government can recognize as such.
There is another fact equally unquestionable. It is that the Rebel States have been _de facto_ in war against the National Government. Armies have been mustered, battles have been fought, and the whole country has been convulsed by this war. An immense national debt, mourning families, widows and orphans, attest this terrible fact.