It only remains that we should see things as they are, and not seek to
substitute theory for fact. On this important question I discard all
theory, whether it be of State suicide or State forfeiture or State
abdication, on the one side, or of State rights, immortal and
unimpeachable, on the other side. Such discussions are only endless
mazes in which a whole senate may be lost. And in discarding all theory,
I discard also the question of _de jure_,--whether, for instance, the
Rebel States, while the Rebellion is flagrant, are _de jure_ States of
the Union, with all the rights of States. It is enough, that, for the
time being, and _in the absence of a loyal government_, they can take no
part and perform no function in the Union, _so that they cannot be
recognized by the National Government_. The reason is plain. There are
in these States no local functionaries bound by constitutional oaths, so
that, in fact, there are no constitutional functionaries; and since the
State government is necessarily composed of such functionaries, there
can be no State government. Thus, for instance, in South Carolina,
Pickens and his associates may call themselves the governor and
legislature, and in Virginia, Letcher and his associates may call
themselves governor and legislature; but we cannot recognize them as
such. Therefore to all pretensions in behalf of State governments in the
Rebel States I oppose the simple FACT, that for the time being no such
governments exist. The broad spaces once occupied by those governments
are now abandoned and vacated.
That patriot Senator, Andrew Johnson,--faithful among the faithless, the
Abdiel of the South,--began his attempt to reorganize Tennessee by an
Address, as early as the 18th of March, 1862, in which he made use of
these words:--
"I find most, if not all, of the offices, both State and Federal,
_vacated, either by actual abandonment, or by the action of the
incumbents in attempting to subordinate their functions_ to a power in
hostility to the fundamental law of the State and subversive of her
national allegiance."
In employing the word "vacated," Mr. Johnson hit upon the very term
which, in the famous resolution of 1688, was held to be most effective
in dethroning King James. After declaring that he had abdicated the
government, it was added, "that the throne had thereby become _vacant_"
on which Macaulay happily remarks:--
"The word _abdication_ conciliated politicians of a more timid school.
To the real statesman the simple important clause was that _which
declared the throne vacant_; and if that clause could be carried, he
cared little by what preamble it might be introduced."[22]
And the same simple principle is now in issue. It is enough that the
Rebel States be declared _vacated_, as _in fact_ they are, by all local
government which we are bound to recognize, so that the way is open to
the exercise of a rightful jurisdiction.