67 You say, on the second point, “We should permit each state to regulate the question of suffrage by its own laws.” You add, it is true, “ And we have the power to reform them if they are bad.” But it is certainly permissible to doubt whether this power will subsist when the South shall have returned to Congress, and when each state shall have regained its full independence. Will it be easier then to reform the particular laws of each state than it would be to establish to-day the principle from which they should never deviate ? “ The elective franchise,” you add again, il is not a natural but a political right.” If the absolute exclusion, without exception, of the negro race through the whole South, in the country where it has been enslaved, is not a negation of natural right, I know not where you will find a negation of this right. When, lastly, you express the idea that, by interfering in the electoral affairs of the rebel states, the Union would arrogate to itself the right of doing the same thing in Pennsylvania, I venture to object that Pennsylvania has neither to be reconstructed nor readmitted, and that moreover she does not belong to the region in which it is important to destroy without delay even to the last vestige of slavery, that is, of the enemy. Pardon me, Mr. President, the frankness of my language. I should be less warm if I entertained less a respectful .esteem for your character and services. I am not, as you know, among those who cast stones at you ; and who pretend that you are quitting the Republican ranks to ally yourself to the Democrats, and that you hesitate henceforth to bear on high the banner under which the Union has just fought. No, this is not so. But I venture to entreat'you to take care ; the determination which you are about to adopt at this moment is among those which lead one much farther than he designs to go. To admit the South to Congress,
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