A Just and Lasting Peace : Johnson on the state of the union

In his message to congress of December 4, 1865 (two days before ratification of the 13^th Amendment), President Johnson left no doubt that his theory was the same as Lincoln’s, still, and the Southern states had never in fact left the union.

The states were in rebellion, their people guilty of treason, and his authority and that of congress for the war and reconstruction were as stated in the just previous post.

He continues to insist upon ratification of the 13th as a condition of a return of a given state to normal constitutional participation in the union, though it would be up to the senate and the house to seat members from them.

[Aside:

During the war, it looks like no members from the seceded states were seated and so were not counted in determining a quorum.

But if they were still in the union, all along, they would count in calculating the number of supporting states needed to ratify an amendment.

/Aside]

He says the federal government has no authority to insist the freedmen have the vote and proposes they wait patiently and display their worthiness for it, and eventually the states may give it.

He is against schemes of forcible removal and colonization - shipping them to Liberia, for instance.

He views it as up to the states to provide for the rights of freedmen on the labor market or as otherwise participating in the economy, on a footing of equality with others.

He continues in the pre-Civil War habit of referring to the United States in the plural.