Now, sir, in devising those ways and means to accomplish that great result, the first thing we have to do is to know the point from which we start, to understand the nature of the material with which we have to work—­the condition of the territory and the States with which we are concerned.  I had supposed at the outset of this session that it was the purpose of this House to proceed to that work without discussion, and to commit it almost exclusively, if not entirely, to the joint committee raised by the two Houses for the consideration of that subject.  But, sir, I must say that I was glad when I perceived the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens), himself the chairman on the part of this House of that great committee on reconstruction, lead off in a discussion of this general subject, and thus invite all the rest of us who choose to follow him in the debate.  In the remarks which he made in this body a few days since, he laid down, with the clearness and the force which characterize everything he says and does, his point of departure in commencing this great work.  I had hoped that the ground he would lay down would be such that we could all of us stand upon it and co-operate with him in our common object.  I feel constrained to say, sir—­and do it without the slightest disposition to create or to exaggerate differences—­that there were features in his exposition of the condition of the country with which I cannot concur.  I cannot for myself start from precisely the point which he assumes.

In his remarks on that occasion he assumed that the States lately in rebellion were and are out of the Union.  Throughout his speech—­I will not trouble you with reading passages from it—­I find him speaking of those States as “outside of the Union,” as “dead States,” as having forfeited all their rights and terminated their State existence.  I find expressions still more definite and distinct; I find him stating that they “are and for four years have been out of the Union for all legal purposes”; as having been for four years a “separate power,” and “a separate nation.”

His position therefore is that these States, having been in rebellion, are now out of the Union, and are simply within the jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States as so much territory to be dealt with precisely as the will of the conqueror, to use his own language, may dictate.  Now, sir, if that position is correct, it prescribes for us one line of policy to be pursued very different from the one that will be proper if it is not correct.  His belief is that what we have to do is to create new States out of this territory at the proper time—­many years distant—­retaining them meantime in a territorial condition, and subjecting them to precisely such a state of discipline and tutelage as Congress or the Government of the United States may see fit to prescribe.  If I believed in the premises which he assumes, possibly, though I do not think probably, I might agree with the conclusion he has reached.