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Suppose those now in rebellion should say: ``We cease fighting: re-establish the national authority amongst us---customs, courts, mails, land-offices,---all as before the rebellion---we claiming to send members to both branches of Congress, as of yore, and to hold our slaves according to our State laws, notwithstanding anything or all things which has occurred during the rebellion.'' I probably should answer: ``It will be difficult to justify in reason, or to maintain in fact, a war on one side, which shall have ceased on the other. You began the war, and you can end it. If questions remain, let them be solved by peaceful means---by courts, and votes. This war is an appeal, by you, from the ballot to the sword; and a great object with me has been to teach the futility of such appeal---to teach that what is decided by the ballot, can not be reversed by the sword---to teach that there can be no successful appeal from a fair election, but to the next election. Whether persons sent to congress, will be admitted to seats is, by the constitution, left to each House to decide, the President having nothing to do with it. Yet the question can not