speech that I stated, more at large than I can now do, what seem to me to be the true doctrines on that subject.

Mr. THOMAS. I cannot yield the floor and my time for this discussion.

Mr. ELIOT.

point.

It takes some little time to explain my

Mr. THOMAS. I do not desire to give up my time for discussion upon this question, and I must decline further to yield the floor.

Mr. ELIOT. Very well: then I will just say

The Speaker pro tempore.

The gentleman from

Massachusetts is not in order. His colleague declines

to yield the floor.

Mr. ELIOT.

My colleague yields to me, as I under

stand, to finish this statement.

The Speaker pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Massachusetts yield the floor?

Mr. THOMAS. For my colleague to finish what he was saying at the moment.

Mr. ELIOT. When a State has done what, under the language of the Constitution, amounts to treason; when it has given aid and comfort to the enemy; when it has levied war against the Government; when its Governor has abdicated, its Legislature gone over to the enemy; when it has, by all the forms of law, arrayed itself against the Government; I say, that State has committed treason, and that, as such, it has forfeited all its rights as a State, leaving the loyal men of the State to be cared for and protected by the Government. But I repeat, that, as a corporation, it has committed treason, and has

forfeited all its rights under the Government as a traitor State.

Mr. THOMAS. Is this all my colleague has to say?

Mr. ELIOT. Just to finish the sentence. And may be declared by the Government as having forfeited all its rights and privileges as a State.

Mr. THOMAS. The doctrine, then, is, that a State cannot hang itself, but may put itself in a state of preparation to be hanged.

Mr. ELIOT. It deserves to be hanged.

Mr. THOMAS. It can, of course, be arraigned for treason; it can be indicted for treason, brought to trial before a jury of its peers for treason, and hung for treason [laughter]. The statement well illustrates what I have before stated, that there is no form of words into which you can put this doctrine that its absurdity will not be transparent. The proposition commits suicide, not the State. It is felo de se. A State cannot commit treason; nor can the void act of a State change the relation which loyal citizens sustain to the United States; nor are the relations which loyal and obedient citizens sustain to the Government of the United States broken or severed because the ordinances of secession are backed up by traitors in arms. These citizens of Louisiana, therefore, hold the same legal relation to the United States that they did before the acts of secession and treason, by men wearing the garb of State authority, were committed.

The State of Louisiana exists; its functions may be in abeyance. All the powers of the State exist; and all that is necessary is simply that the machinery of the

State shall be put in motion. The State itself is like Milton's angels, which,

"Vital in every part,

Cannot but by annihilating die.”

This, then, Mr. Speaker, is the state of things before us: The loyal men of these two districts of Louisiana, holding unbroken their legal relations to the Government of the United States, have elected representatives to this Congress of the United States; and the question is, Shall they be admitted? If not, why not? An objection has been made, though not much pressed, that there were no vacancies to fill. Vacancies existed by reason of the failure to elect at the general election, and those vacancies have never been filled. There is no one occupying a seat in this House from either of these two districts, because there have been no persons entitled by law to fill either of them. A case arose in which vacancies should be filled in pursuance of writs issued by executive authority of the State of Louisiana. Were they so issued?

I do not mean to say that this question is free from difficulty: it certainly is not. But it has been, I think, quite too summarily disposed of by gentlemen, opposed to the resolutions of the Committee. It seems to me, Mr. Speaker, that much, very much, of the difficulty we have in the discussion of this and similar questions, results from the attempt to apply to the condition of things in which we are placed, principles and rules from writers upon international law that really throw no light upon, and have no just application to, that condition, in many respects sui generis; and for our guide in which,

history and public law furnish no precedents or even strong analogies. No just or reasonable conclusion can be drawn from the powers of a military governor, in a territory conquered from a foreign enemy, as to the nature and extent of the powers to be exercised in States, or parts of States, rescued from the possession of rebels in arms against us. This is a military occupation of our own territory; an occupation which has become necessary by reason of the fact, that the Constitution and laws of the United States cannot otherwise be enforced ; and that it is our duty to enforce them, and the right of the loyal citizens of Louisiana to have them enforced, not merely for our benefit, but for their protection.

If these

Now, Mr. Speaker, what is the object of this vast movement of ours? For what are we carrying on this war? For the purpose of enforcing the laws of the United States. Your war has no other just or legitimate object but the enforcement of your laws. laws are obstructed by armed force in the Louisiana, you have the right to take and to maintain military occupation of that State to remove such obstruction. You have the right to see that the laws of the United States are executed in the State of Louisiana.

State of

Do gentlemen say, that, because of the existence of armed rebellion in the State of Louisiana, we have no right to enforce the laws of the United States there? Have not we the right to collect taxes? Have we not the right to enforce the revenue-laws, and the right to conscript soldiers from the citizens of that State? Have you not the right, by military power, to protect the courts of the United States in the district of Louisiana

in the exercise of their jurisdiction? I take this position, and I fail to see how it can be controverted, that if you are in the military occupation of this, your own territory, you hold it for the purpose for which the war is waged; for the purpose of upholding the jurisdiction, and enforcing obedience to the laws, of the United States.

The analogies sought to be drawn from Vattel, or other writers on public law, as to the military occupation of a conquered territory from a foreign State, have very imperfect application to the case before us. The Constitution and the laws of the United States are the supreme law of Louisiana, and you are to enforce the execution of those laws; and I see no valid distinction between enforcing those laws which impose duties and burdens upon the people, and the enforcement of those laws which guarantee and protect the rights of the loyal people of the State; rights springing from us, and to be protected by us.

Mr. CONWAY. Was the law under which these men were elected a law of the United States?

Mr. THOMAS. The law from which the right to elect was derived, and to be elected, was a law of the United States, and the supreme law of Louisiana. Mr. Speaker, I wish to make matters clear as I go. I want gentlemen, who believe that we should enforce the laws of the United States for the collection of taxes and the collection of the revenue in Louisiana, to point out the distinction between enforcing the laws of the United States which impose these burdens and duties upon the people, and the enforcing of the laws which secure to them the