In other words, what can be done or cannot be done under the law, or
without violence to the law, is not now the question under
consideration. What _must_ be done, whether under the law or above the
law,[12] to secure certain great ends of human progression, and to avoid
positions of utter disaster to the life of the American people of the
future, _is so_.
Whether the theory of Mr. Sumner, that the revolted States are, by the
operation of the revolt, or should be by the action of the Government,
remanded to the territorial condition, holds good; whether the theory of
Mr. Owen, that the machinery of the State Governments at the South
remains unaffected by the insurrection, but that the inhabitants, being
traitors, are incapable of administering it, until they are purged of
their treason by the action of the United States Government, is held to
be the better opinion; or, whether, in fine, the easy and simple theory
of the _Herald_ is the law of the subject--none of these points is _the_
point of the present investigation. We seek to fix attention on the
consequences of the act of an early readmission of the revolted States,
and, what would be the same thing, of the old and governing set of
slaveholding politicians, from those States, into the administration of
our national affairs, no matter what should be the method of its
accomplishment. In that event, the war will not be ended, but smothered
merely, and left smouldering.
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