1 into a rupture ; lastly, you have taken care in no manner to favor the absurd Fenian movement. With respect to France, you have not given way to the passions which the Mexican enterprise was calculated to excite. You have prudently postponed and reserved the decision of this delicate affair. You leave the Emperor Maximilian time to transform, if he can, into an American state, free and living its own life, a state ruled at this moment by European occupation. You see, Mr. President, that it is in a spirit of cordial and respectful approbation that I submit to you the observations suggested to me by the two solemn questions which will be discussed in a few days at Washington : Shall the Southern states be immediately admitted to Congress ? Shall the right of suffrage be granted to negroes. CONGRESS. I. I shall not stop to establish the competence of Congress ; this would be insulting to you. Your authority as President is very great; you can do much more in America than Queen Victoria in England ; but your power does not go so far as to decide all questions authoritatively and finally. If it depended on you alone to fix the definitive bases of the reconstruction of the states, the conditions of their return to Congress, and the guarantees to be exacted from those who have passed the last four years in assailing the national flag, and attempting to overthrow the Constitution, the United States would not be a free country. Once more, this leaves no room for demonstration ; we do not demonstrate that which is self evident. Even your authority as commander-in-chief docs not exceed the limits where that of Congress assembled begins. The American Union has never forgotten the political maxim proclaimed of old by Jefferson—the superiority of the civil power ; this it is that always has the final decision.
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