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[Walt] As long as it ultimately provided for general freedom.
It did not provide any right for Blacks to vote, then or ever.

I dunno about that.

Regarding the 4/11/65 speech:

"With Sumner and other Republican critics in mind, Lincoln observed that he was much censored for the state government he'd created in Louisiana.

A few Republicans were especially displeased because black men there could not vote (in fact, that very day Salmon Chase had complained to Lincoln about this, insisting that it was criminal to deny Southern Negroes the suffrage and thus leave them in the political control of their former masters).

Well, Lincoln too was unhappy that blacks couldn't vote in Louisiana. He himself preferred that "very intelligent blacks" and those who'd served in Union forces should have the suffrage: But he wasn't going to throw out Louisiana's government because it failed to enfranchise Negroes. No, it was wiser to accept Louisiana with all its current imperfections and "help to improve it." After all, he said, Louisiana already had a fine constitution which outlawed slavery all over the state, granted black people economic independence, provided public school benefits equally for both races, and even empowered the legislature to enfranchise Negroes if it wanted to. Wasn't it better to work from this nucleus than to dismantle the state government and start all over again? How would the latter course more effectively restore Louisiana to the Union? Help "the colored man" there?

"Grant that he deserves the elective franchise," Lincoln said, "will he not attain it sooner by saving the already advanced steps toward it, than by running backward "ower them?" Moreover, if Republicans rejected Louisiana, they rejected one more vote for the Thirteenth Amendment."

-- "With Malice Towards None", p. 424, by Stephen B. Oates.

The Louisiana Legislature certainly had the -power- to grant blacks the franchise. I mean, blacks do now in fact vote in Louisiana.

Walt