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previously stated, the Constitution has provided for such a perfect division of the functions of government between the two sovereignties, that neither occupies a position of constitutional subordination to the other. They are planets with entirely different orbits, which cannot by any possibility collide with each other, until the whole system is wrecked. The struggle on the part of the South is to wreck the system, but we profess to be fighting to save it from destruction. By recognizing the war, as made by the States upon the general Government, we are actually aiding the rebels in their unlawful purpose to usurp in the name of the States a jurisdiction which the Constitution has withheld from them. To aid in that usurpation and to make it a pretext to deprive the States of powers which they hold by a tenure even stronger than that under which the general Government holds all its powers, is first to become parties to the conspiracy against the Constitution, and then to make the existence of the conspiracy an excuse for a crime even more stupendous than that which the original conspirators contemplated. Such a course of conduct cannot be justified by those who are equally unwilling to allow the southern revolution to triumph, and to become revolutionists themselves, unless it can be shown that the States hold their reserved sovereignty under the Constitution during good behavior-"quamdiu se bene gesserint "—or until it has

become an established maxim in political science and public morality that two wrongs make a right.

The same argument answers two other theories by which it has been attempted to establish the doctrine that the States have lost their rights in consequence of the rebellion carried on in their name, to wit, that they have committed political suicide, and that they have abdicated their places in the Union. These may, in fact, be regarded as two different methods of stating the proposition that they have forfeited their rights by their treason.

There are, however, other reasons assigned for the alleged disappearance of State rights, which call for a cursory examination. They will be considered in the next chapter

CHAPTER III.

Answer to Senator Sumner's Theory of a "Tabula rasa " in conse quence of the vacancy of the State Offices-The unconstitutionality of the project to disfranchise Individuals or Classes by Act of Congress-The recognition of the Insurgents as Belligerents will not give us the rights of Conquerors over Territory wrested from them-State Rights, not being derived from the Constitution, cannot be forfeited to the General Government-That Government has no power to disturb the balance of our Political System by accepting such a Forfeiture.

THE author of "Our Domestic Relations" brushes aside the theories of State forfeiture, State treason, and State abdication, as " endless mazes in which a whole Senate may be lost," and prefers to rest his argument on the fact that the rebel States have now no State officers who have taken the constitutional oaths of office; therefore, he says, their governments are vacated, and there are no officers who are capable of superintending new elections, or of administering oaths of office to such persons as might be selected to fill the vacancies; and from these premises he deduces the conclusion, that "the whole broad rebel region is tabula rasa, or a clean slate, whereon Congress, under the Constitution of the United States, may write the laws."

I will not stop to consider the question whether, inasmuch as the requirement that an oath of office - to support the Constitution shall be taken by State officers, is mandatory merely, and not made a condition precedent to the discharge of their official functions, an omission to comply with it authorizes the Federal authorities to treat the offices as vacant, while their functions are discharged by officers de facto, at least until the latter shall be ousted by legal proceedings; nor whether, if the Federal authorities would have such a right, the State officials may not at any future time qualify themselves by taking the oath required. No lawyer will hesitate to say that these are grave questions for the judicial department of the Government, and which it would be rash for executive or legislative authority to dispose of summarily; but it seems to me that there is an obvious answer to the conclusion, drawn from such questionable premises, which cannot fail at once to impress the general reader with its force. For the argument, resting as it does upon the mere fact of the State offices being vacant, and not depending (as indeed it could not depend without judicial convictions) upon the misconduct of the individuals who are de facto filling them, would be equally applicable to any other case where, by accident or from necessity, the terms of all the officers of a State had expired, and no constitutional elections had been held to fill the vacancies

Therefore if it should happen, in the course of a war between our country and a foreign power, that one of the States should be invaded by an enemy, who should hold possession of the invaded territory for a period extending beyond the official terms of legislative and executive officers, superceding the local laws meanwhile by martial power, it would follow, if the argument which I am considering is sound, that upon the restoration of peace the State would present a tabula rasa upon which Congress might write the laws. And by a parity of reasoning, if the invasion should extend so far, and continue so long, that it should be impossible to obtain a quorum in the national Senate, House of Representatives, and the Electoral College, of members duly elected from the different States, the whole Government would be dissolved, the whole nation would become a tabula rasa, and the people of the United States, having ceased to possess any government whatever, further resistance to the invader would become the irregular act of an unorganized community, and therefore no lawful warfare. I am unable to see why the argument of a "tabula rasa," in consequence of vacancies in the public offices, does not lead to both of these conclusions, and many others of equal absurdity, with which I will not take up the time of the reader. The result is instructive, as showing into what quagmires of political doctrine men fall when they are no longer

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