For the present he
certainly was no despot, but in the future he might have usefulness. He
preserved continuity; by virtue of him, so to speak, there still was a
State of Virginia.
Somewhat early in the war large portions of Tennessee, Louisiana, and
Arkansas were recovered and kept by Union forces, and beneath such
protection a considerable Union sentiment found expression. The
President, loath to hold for a long time the rescued parts of these
States under the sole domination of army officers, appointed "military
governors."[55] The anomalous office found an obscure basis among those
"war powers" which, as a legal resting-place, resembled a quicksand, and
as a practical foundation were undeniably a rock; the functions and
authority of the officials were as uncertain as anything, even in law,
possibly could be. Legal fiction never reached a droller point than when
these military governorships were defended as being the fulfillment by
the national government "of its high constitutional obligation to
guarantee to every State in this Union _a republican form of
government_!"[56] Yet the same distinguished gentleman, who dared
gravely to announce this ingenious argument, drew a picture of facts
which was in itself a full justification of almost any scheme of
rehabilitation; he said: "The state government has disappeared. The
Executive has abdicated; the Legislature has dissolved; the Judiciary is
in abeyance.
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