ESTABLISH, the constitution, as provided by Article VII. [See supra, 153.]

Unquestionably, then, the treason clause comes from the wills of states; and a state makes or unmakes the offence at will, as to her own members, citizens, and subjects.

Naturally States can Undo what they Do. No change having been wrought in the state and the citizen by the federal constitution, Hence the former, of course, remained free, and the union voluntary. she could disunite herself withdraw her delegations and recall her federal agents. If the ordinance of ratification is a functional act of mind, an exercise of will, can she not change her mind, and the act? If she made up her mind that her "defence," "welfare," and "the blessings of liberty," would be "promoted" and preserved by a given say a federal-arrangement; and her experience afterwards showed that her purpose failed, that injury resulted, and that danger impended; were it not absurd to say that she could not change alike her mind and her means? Surely, if by her functional action this being express her will through her voters, and the delegates they "treason against the elect, to disunite herself from the federal union, united states," and federal jurisdiction to punish it, are alike, and at the same moment, brought to an end. This may be called secession, or some other odious name, to excite popular prejudice, but the politiWithdrawal is the natural cal philosophy of it will endure forever. action of an unchained state; there is no constitutional impediment; and the recent amendments have not even hinted at prohibition! Why has not some St. George slain the dragon? Why has secession not been constitutionally prohibited? I will conjecture on this. subject hereafter.

With

- It involves, indeed, the But the Matter is on a still Higher Plane. highest moral considerations, as well as obedience to Heaven. drawal is, as to a state, the natural and functional act of a free being; a society, endowed by and it is a moral duty, by a "moral person" Deity with existence, and with the instinct and right, as well as the duty, of self-preservation. As we have seen, God ordained society And He made and gave mind for nothing, if when He made man. not for the use and end of providing for the "welfare" and "defence of the body that contains it. And naturally society or societies can whatever their "defence" and "weldo or undo as we have seen fare" demand. And their free moral agency necessitates their option; for it would be absurd if a sentient being which Deity had made or caused, and intended to hold, in a manner, finally accountable, had not the right, and was not in duty bound, to use every power and faculty in self-preservation; or if such being had not the right to

provide for its defence and welfare, by undoing an act it had mistakenly done for that purpose, and which threatened its harm and destruction.

And, viewing this society, not merely as the government (which, as a republic, it is), but as the heaven-commissioned custodian and defender the citadel, so to speak, of the members of the society, their families, and their "blessings of liberty;" duty and honor would compel it to destroy, not only the federal government, but the whole world besides, if necessary to fulfil its sacred trust.

It is right here that we find the highest application in all the moral and physical world, of the great truth that "self-defence is the first law of nature."

The Tie that binds the Citizen to Obey. Plainly, then, the tie of allegiance the social compact - binds the citizen to obey the state's federal will or mandate, and makes it treason for him to fight her and her united sisters; and plainly, in order that the treason-clause should apply to him, her act or ordinance of ratification must be in force, and the state in the union.

It was the same voice the same law-making power that laid the treason-clause on the member, citizen, and subject of Virginia, in 1788, and that annulled it in 1861. On the former occasion it said: "Be it ordained;" on the latter, "Be it repealed." The citizen that

obeys the one has the same reason for obeying the other viz. that each member of the commonwealth is bound, by the all-comprehending obligation of the social compact, to obey the said body. There is no shade of original and ultimate authority over citizens outside of this body. It is a republic or self-governing people; and "No authority, on any pretence whatever," can "be exercised over the people or members of this state, but such as shall be derived from or granted by them." [Supra, p. 62.] This standing declaration of New York is vital to each and every state in the union. It is self-government!

The federal constitution ends the subject by considering, and providing for, all the people as "citizens of different states," i. e. as members, integers, and subjects. And the federal convention of 1787 unanimously declared the "states" to be "the government" — as, being republics, they must have been the so-called government being their agency. [See II. Curtis's Hist. Const. 608.]

In conclusion of these two chapters, then, I affirm that not only do history and philosophy show, but that the federal constitution proves (and is strictly consistent with the idea), that the state is the sole object of treason. Q. E. D.

WE

CHAPTER XII.

CONCLUSION.

E are forced, then, to stand upon the law of our political being and nature, and admit that our whole system is states, and nothing else; that "levying war against" a state's enemies, under her command, and adhering to her, giving her "aid and comfort," is always duty and not treason; and that the fathers thought that every citizen should and would, upon call of his commonwealth, rally to her flag, as against any other.

And this is what Hamilton meant by the following, which was the general sentiment of that day: "The state governments will, in all possible contingencies, afford complete security against invasions of the public liberty by national authority. In a confederacy, the people, without exaggeration, may be said to be entirely masters of their own fate." [Federalist, 28; see also the views of Ames and Parsons, II. Ell. Deb. 46, 94; see also Part V. Ch. V.]

Why fight Facts? We may not like such facts and philosophy. But why"wreck ourselves against necessity?" [De Stael.] Why to borrow one of Carlyle's singular expressions a pancake against the adamant of things" solid, and enduring as island rocks in the ocean. And we should cherish and defend them as the sacred treasuries of all our blessings

"mash our face to States are as separate,

as the last refuge and citadel of freedom. Seward, after the war, spoke truly, wisely, and well, in saying: "This absolute existence of the states which constitute the republic, is the most palpable of all the facts which the American statesman has to deal with. . . . Our federal republic exists, and henceforth and forever must exist, through . . . the combination of these several, free, self-existing, stubborn states. . . . They are living, growing, majestic trees, whose roots are widely spread and interlaced within the soil, and whose shade covers the earth." [Speech at Auburn, October 20, 1865.]

"Indestructible states" is the phrase applied, since the war, to our commonwealths by Chief Justice Chase [State of Texas vs. White]; and it is a truth. Atoms of water do not more naturally glomerate into a distinct drop, than men tend to form society. All gather

naturally around a centre of collective existence, possess a corporate soul; and in that form become conscious of the instinct, the right, and the duty of self-preservation.

And free states gravitate, like free men, to some common centre. Of course, it is where the ties of amity, neighborly good-will, sympathy of common origin, common design, and common expectations; mutual interest and confidence; and a well-founded hope of interstate justice in the future; are all knotted or formulated into a conventional arrangement like the federal (or league-al?) constitution.

Who Saved the States? In our four years' war among the states, the parties were compelled to recognize, and deal with one another, as belligerents; and necessarily their voluntary ties of union were dissolved. Some judges have wished otherwise, and so decided; but assertions do not make facts.

The elements of the states, which returned to the union, might have been melted and poured into unity by the victors; but Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois only desired a union of states; and they saw that the constraint of one by the rest, in peace, would be to themselves a most dangerous precedent; and they had Henry Wilson, John A. Andrew, William H. Seward, Gerrit Smith, Thaddeus Stevens, Salmon P. Chase, Benjamin Wade, and Lyman Trumbull - to say nothing of others watching to see that the respective republics, and the republic of republics, should receive no detriment.

The aforesaid states and statesmen probably influenced the shaping of amendments XIII., XIV. and XV., so that, while the results of the war should be secured, absolute statehood should be preserved. They might have revolutionized the states into a nation, but they preferred the system to remain "united states."

These amend

And Civil Rule and Legal Coercion yet Stand. ments were made by the states, according to Article V. of the compact, as all the previous ones had been. The original instrument was left unchanged and unmodified; no sentence or word of it was repealed, even by implication; and the civil jurisdiction of the federal government was simply extended, the means of enforcement remaining the same. Even the right of secession was not prohibited-probably because it involved a vital principle of freedom; and because prohibiting it would have been precisely equivalent to chaining states.

And the aforesaid commonwealths and their statesmen did not, in their measures of reconstruction, profess to act inside of the constitution. Thaddeus Stevens said there were only two men in all congress who argued that those measures were constitutional. "In all this business," said he, we act outside of the constitution."

66

Evasion of Jefferson Davis's Trial.

- It was the facts and principles herein set forth, and the vital importance of them to these "stubborn," "indestructible states," that caused Seward, Chase, and President Johnson to evade the trial of Davis, Lee, and the other confederate chiefs, while pretending to desire it. Reason, silent in war, longed to implead "the government" in time of peace. Justice would have vindicated the defendants and their "lost cause"- this being the cause of institutional liberty- the cause of the American commonwealths.

The True Sanction of the Union. The coercive use, on the states, of their own men and means, by their own citizens and subjects, whom they elect as agents, cannot be the cohesive force of a voluntary union of states. Such an idea would be, as Madison said, "visionary and fallacious;" as Hamilton said, "the maddest project ever devised;" and as Randolph and others said, "war." The "attraction of repulsion," and not of cohesion, would be illustrated by such a plan. No, the people collectively, as well as individually, must be "attracted". to use the expression of John Quincy Adams in 1839 "by the magnetism of conciliated interests and kindly sympathies." If they be, the union must endure. The people, collectively, being sovereign bodies, their personal fealty is to, and their sympathy with, themselves. Nothing more august, dignified, potent, or heavenapproved, can exist as the basis and sanction of a union-government of republics.

The real bond and conserving force of the association is, as it always has been, the plighted faith of sovereigns, resting on their satisfaction and sense of safety, their amity and neighborly kindness and their mutual interest.

When, and by what act, did this union become involuntary—a chained union? When did these undeniable original feelings and motives change?

99.66

Sacred Inter-State Faith is the Only Basis. Webster could but say in 1819: "The only parties" to it, "originally," were the thirteen confederated states;' " and it rests solely "on compact and plighted faith." And this could but be, as it really was, Webster's dying view. [See App. F.; also supra, pp. 207 — 211.]

Hold Sacred the Muniments of Liberty. The highest use of constitutions and laws is to protect "the blessings of liberty" against rulers. The world's history is mainly devoted to recounting the efforts of the few, by fraud and force, to control and tax the many; and our fathers aimed to forefend the danger, by giving to the said rulers only written authority, specially empowering, directing, and controlling them, and precluding discretion, particularly in the federal