in this argument, if it was necessary to assail the sovereignty of the States in order to reinstate the Federal Government in the exercise of its rightful jurisdiction over rebel territory. But no such necessity exists; we have only to follow out the principles which I have laid down to their legitimate conclusion. A State having, as we hold, no power to withdraw from the Union, its attempt to do so is simply an excess of jurisdiction, and therefore absolutely void, and to be treated in all respects as a nullity. The case is precisely the same as if it had undertaken to do any other act which the Constitution prevents it from doing. I need not resort to my imagination to suppose such a case, for it is well known that South Carolina undertook at one period of our history to nullify the laws of the United States providing for the collection of the duties upon imports. The United States authorities treated the act as entirely void, and proceeded to collect the revenue under the protection of the navy, at the same time menacing those who should resist such collection with criminal proceedings, and, if necessary, with the employment of the land' forces. But these menaces were directed against individuals wrongfully resisting the Federal authority, the question whether they were or were not State officials being entirely ignored; and no suggestion was made that the State authorities should be deposed, or that the armed power of the nation

should be employed to coerce them, even to reverse the wrongful action of the State. This course was perfectly consistent with the sovereignty of the nation and the sovereignty of the State, and so long as we pursue the same course in dealing with individuals who are now in rebellion, we are not justly chargeable with coercing States; we are, on the contrary, "letting the seceded States alone," and merely refusing to allow individuals to commit treason, and justify themselves under an enactment which is entirely void for want of jurisdiction.

It seems to me that these conclusions involve no metaphysical subtlety or too finely drawn distinctions but if any portion of the argument is justly chargeable with those faults, it is that which maintains the right of the Government to carry on the war, notwithstanding the mandates of the States. The proposition that the only legitimate object of the war is to restore the "status quo ante bellum," by reëstablishing the Federal authority in its original integrity over those individuals who have rebelled against it, is but the natural conclusion to be drawn from the principles upon which we defend the authority of the national Government to carry on the war at all. Whether we deduce that authority from the implied right of every government to cause its legitimate authority to be respected by force, or whether we find it in the clause authorizing the militia to be called

out "to suppress insurrections," it is manifest that the power is exhausted whenever the unlawful resistance is at an end, and the civil power of the Government has become adequate to the due administration of the Federal laws.

But some of our statesmen now contend that although such may be primarily the only legitimate object of the war, yet that as a necessary consequence of the attempt on the part of the States to secede, and their subsequently wrongfully making war upon the United States, they have forfeited their constitutional rights, and the restoration of their territory to the jurisdiction of the general Government will be unaccompanied with any constitutional restriction whatever upon the latter in the exercise of power within that territory. Several reasons are given for that conclusion. In the first place it is said that the States have committed treason by making war upon the nation. I have already shown that it is a constitutional impossibility that a State should make war upon the nation, and that if the forms of State authority are used by usurpers to carry on such a war, the national Government cannot recognize it as a war carried on by the State, and make even a defensive war upon the State in return, without committing an equally flagrant usurpation. But other principles, equally fundamental, forbid the conclusion that such a war can result in the loss of the constitutional rights of a

State. In the strict legal sense of the term it is impossible for a sovereignty to commit treason; still, it is not to be denied that in a federative form of government, one of the members of the confederation may commit an offence against the federative compact, which will have practically the same. consequences as the commission of the crime of treason by an individual subject against his sovereign. Such were the offences which, under the Germanic confederation, were punished by the offending sovereign being placed under the "ban of the empire," the consequences of which were the loss of the sovereign rights and possessions of the offender, to be enforced by the armed power of the confederation, or of particular states to which the execution of the decree might be committed.

But can an offence involving such consequences, be committed against the federative compact by a state possessing a REPUBLICAN form of government? In a monarchy the crown is the individual inheritance of the monarch, just as the dukedoms, marquisates, &c., are the individual inheritances of the nobles respectively, and the case may well occur when it will be no offence against common right to punish him for a crime by depriving him of the dignity which he has abused. But those who administer the government in a republic have no personal interest in the government itself; they are mere temporary occupants of public station; and

to deprive the State of its powers and jurisdiction for their misconduct is to punish the innocent commonalty, who have already been aggrieved by the unjustifiable acts of men who may have owed their positions to corruption, fraud, or perhaps violence, and who have certainly exceeded, in committing unconstitutional acts, the authority which was confided to them by the people. Nor would the case be altered by the submission of the ordinance of secession to the people themselves. The rights of majorities, as well as of public officials, are defined by the terms of the State and national constitutions, and for a majority to commit an unconstitutional act, in defiance of the wishes of a minority, is a usurpation of the same character as the commission of a similar act by a public official. But in point of fact, the ordinances of secession were adopted by the vote of the people in only two of the States.

I think, then, that the idea that a State can commit treason, in consequence of the unconstitutional acts of those who are administering its government, is utterly at war with the theory upon which our whole political system is constructed. But a consideration of the provisions of the Constitution, and of the principles to which I have already adverted, will make it manifest that no treason against the general Government can possibly be committed by a State. For the latter owes no allegiance to the general Government in any respect. As I have