This day (March 4, 1865) she elects her Governor and her Legislature, which will be convened on the first Monday of April, and her senators and representatives will soon mingle with those of her sister States; and who shall gainsay it, for the Constitution provides that to every State shall be guaranteed a Republican form of government." The very positive declaration by Mr.Johnson that "Tennessee has never been out of the Union" indicated the side he would take in a pending controversy which was waxing warm between the disputants.

Whether the act of Secession was void _ab initio_ and really left the State still a member of the Union, or whether it did, however wrongfully, carry the State out of the Union as claimed by those engaged in the Rebellion, was one of the purely abstract political questions concerning which men will argue without ceasing,--reaching no conclusion because there is no conclusion to be reached.

Both propositions were at the time affirmed and denied with all the earnestness, indeed with all the temper, which distinguished the mediaeval theologians upon points of doctrine once regarded as essential to salvation, but the very meaning of which is scarcely comprehended by modern ecclesiastics.

With his mental acumen and with his never-failing common sense, Mr.Lincoln declined to take part in the discussion.

In his last public speech he treated this question with admirable perspicuity, and with his wonted felicity of homely illustration: "I have been shown what is supposed to be an able letter," said he, "in which the writer expresses regret that my mind has not seemed to be definitely fixed upon the question whether the seceded States, so called, are in the Union or out of it.
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