human
State government, local self-government. That also was undoubtedly true political theory as has been already explained. In the third place, Congress asserted the power to abolish slavery within the limits of those
gpt
States whose legislatures or conventions had passed the ordinances of secession. That is, Congress dealt with these districts not as
human
States of the Union, but as territories or districts subject to the exclusive authority of the central Government. Congress was here beginning, at least, to act upon the idea that the districts in rebellion did not perdure, as
gpt
States, {18} throughout the rebellion, but had lost thereby the forms, powers and functions of
human
State governments, and were neither out of the Union nor in the Union as
gpt
States,