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secession is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and that this void act, sustained by force, is a practical abdication of the rights of the State under the Constitution, is to blow hot and blow cold, to deny and affirm, in the same breath; to state a proposition which is felo de se.

It is also the plain and necessary conclusion, from the principles before stated, that a State cannot commit. treason. Under the Constitution of the United States, persons only can commit treason. How treason may be committed, and how tried and punished, the Constitution points out (Constitution, art. 3, sect. 3; Amendments, arts. 5 and 6). The persons who for the time being hold the offices under a State Government may individually commit treason; but the acts of the State officers, transcending their authority and in conflict with the Constitution of the United States, involve in their guilt no man who has not himself levied war against the United States, or adhered to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. It is only we, the subjects, that can commit treason, or expiate its guilt. No man, or set of men, can, without our consent, involve us in the awful crime, or subject us to the awful penalties, of treason.

As a State cannot commit the crime of treason, it cannot incur a forfeiture of its powers and functions as the penalty of treason. The punishment provided for traitors is the result of judicial trial, conviction, and judgment. How to indict a State, the constitution of the court, the mode of trial, the form of judgment, and process of execution, yet exist in gremio legis. Nor is it material that the acts of the State officers have the

sanction and support of the majority of the people of the State. Within the proper sphere of the State Government, the rule of the majority will prevail, except so far as it is restrained by the organic law; but the majority of the voters of the State cannot deprive the minority of the rights secured to them by the Constitution of the United States. Some of these rights may be kept in abeyance. Their exercise may be overborne by superior physical force. They may sleep; but it is not the sleep of death. They are integral parts of the Constitution, and can only perish when the Constitution perishes.

The State of Tennessee, for example, has passed an ordinance of "secession." She has allied herself with the other seceding States. Her vote of secession is sustained by force. Upon this new and startling theory of the Constitution, she has already incurred a forfeiture of all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic. The voice of her eloquent senator is heard in the Capitol; her venerable judge sits in the highest judicial tribunal, and exercises the highest functions of Government; her representatives mingle in our councils; her loyal citizens greet with tears of joy the banner of our advancing hosts, ―their hope and our hope, their pride and our pride. Yet, upon this theory, there is no Ten"the Commonwealth itself is past and gone." Its citizens can no longer be represented in this House or the Senate. The courts of the United States are closed against them (Corporation of New Orleans vs. Winter, 1 Wheaton Rep., 91). The requisition upon

nessee: "

the State for troops was a mistake. The direct tax was a mistake. Its citizens, under the shield of the Constitution, are outlaws, and in their own homes exiles. If such be the effects of a void act of secession, we should be grateful we are not called upon to witness the results. of a valid one. There is nothing in the doctrines of nullification or secession more disloyal to the Constitution, more fatal to the Union,' than this doctrine of State suicide. It is the gospel of anarchy, the philosophy of dissolution. Nor by carrying out this doctrine of the destruction or forfeiture of the State organization would any thing be gained for the cause of freedom. Slavery exists by the local, municipal law; and would not be abolished, unless you go one step further, and hold, that, with the loss of the State organization, the institutions, laws, and civil relations of the States perish. Now, in case of conquest even, though the people of the conquered territory change their allegiance, their relations to each other and their rights of property remain undisturbed. The modern usage of nations, which has become law, would be violated if private property should be generally confiscated and private rights annulled (United States vs. Percheman, 7 Peters, 51; 3 Phillimore, p. 743). When, therefore, States were reduced to Territories, the National Government could not abolish slavery therein, except under the right of eminent domain and by giving just compensation.

If we are right as to the nullity of the acts of secession, we may proceed to inquire whether the fact, that the seceding States have attempted to form a new alli

ance or confederation, will effect the result. Upon the plainest letter of the Constitution, as well as by its entire spirit, these acts of confederation are void. Continuing as States in spite of their ordinances, they were expressly forbidden to enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation, or into any agreement or compact, with another State or with a foreign power (Constitution, art. 1, sect. 10). Neither by secession nor confederation have they changed their legal relation to the Union and the Constitution of the United States. They are still members of the Union, foregoing for a time its privileges, but subject to its duties, bound to it by a cord which the sword of successful revolution can alone sever.

What, then, it may be asked, is the legal character of this great insurrection? The answer is, It is a rebellion of citizens of the United States against the Government of the United States; an organized effort to subvert and overthrow its authority, and to establish another Government in its stead. Nothing can be more explicit than the proclamation of April 15, 1861:

"The laws of the United States have been for some time past and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the marshals by law.

"Now, therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution and the laws, have thought fit to call forth, and hereby do call forth, the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seventy-five thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed.

"I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate, and aid this

effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union and the perpetuity of popular Government, and to redress wrongs already long enough endured."

The State organizations have been found convenient, and have been used for the purposes of the Rebellion. Those of counties and cities have been used for the same ends. In either case, it was an entire perversion of their functions; and the action is none the less illegal and revolutionary on that account. A State, as such, having no power to engage in war with any other State or with the United States, cannot interpose its shield between the Government of the United States and its subjects committing treason by levying war against it; nor is such levying war any the less treason because the traitors held places of trust in the State Governments, and perverted the functions of those Governments to their base ends. Morally, it is an aggravation of the offence. It does not change its essential legal character.

In the Convention for forming the Constitution of the United States, Luther Martin, of Maryland, was anxious to insert a provision to save the citizens of the States from being punishable as traitors to the United States when acting expressly in obedience to the authority of their own States. The provision offered by him

was,

"That no act or acts done by one or more of the States against the United States, or by any citizen of any one of the United States, under the authority of one or more of the said States, shall be deemed treason, or punished as such; but, in case of war being levied by one or more of the States against the United States, the conduct of each party towards the other, and their adherents respectively, shall be regulated by the laws of war and of nations."

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