merely regains the possession of which it had been temporarily deprived. The nation acquires no new sovereignty, but merely maintains its previous rights. Under our Government, the right of sovereignty over any portion of a State is given and limited by the Constitution, and will be the same after the war as it was before. When the United States take possession of any rebel district, they acquire no new title, but merely vindicate that which previously existed, and are only to do what is necessary for that purpose. Confiscations of property are prunitive, and punishments should be inflicted only upon proof of personal guilt. What offences should be created and what penalties affixed, must be left to the justice and wisdom of Congress within the limits prescribed by the Constitution. Such penal enactments have no connection whatever with the decisions of prize courts enforcing belligerent rights upon property captured at sea during the war."

I have thus adverted, I believe, to all the theories by which it has been attempted to show that the southern States have surrendered, abdicated, or forfeited, their political rights, in consequence of the war which has been carried on in their name. That they are so numerous, so dependent upon metaphysical subtleties, so conducive to political disorganization, and in many instances so discordant with each other, is, to say the least, strong

prima facie evidence that they have their origin in a lust of power, or in the real or fancied necessities of a faction, rather than in a calm and disinterested search after the truth.

The importance of the subject will, I hope, be a sufficient excuse for my adding to this discussion, already too much prolonged, a few observations which are applicable to each of the theories which I have thus separately considered. They relate to the origin and structure of the Federal Government itself, and their general design is to show that even if it was a constitutional possibility for a State to forfeit or abdicate its reserved rights, in consequence of the misconduct of the persons temporarily administering its government, the Federal Government is not the authority to which such forfeiture would enure.

In constitutional monarchies, even in liberally governed Great Britain, the constitutional rights of the subject are so many encroachments upon the prerogative of the crown, which is theoretically the source from which the liberties of the people are derived, and the ultimate depository of all power not delegated to the representatives of the nation. If, therefore, any portion of the people of such a country should rise in rebellion against the rightful powers of the sovereign, there might be some foundation for an argument that by their rebellion they had forfeited their own constitutional rights. After

it was subdued, the sovereign power might perhaps legally declare the occurrence of such a forfeiture, and in that case, as the forfeited rights would at once revert to the source from which they were derived, the sovereign would to that extent be liberated from constitutional restraints in the exercise of power over the offenders and over their territory. But the same reason does not apply to a similar case arising in this country, because the process by which the existing relations between the States and the people on the one hand, and the Federal Government on the other, were created, was exactly the reverse of that by which the relations between the sovereign and the people have peen created in constitutional monarchies. Instead of the rights of the States and of the people originating in grants from the general Government, they were derived from a successful rebellion against the British crown, and the general Government was created by them, for their own convenience, safety, and prosperity, and all its powers depend upon affirmative grants made by them. And instead of the general Government being the ultimate depository of all power not delegated to the States and the people, its powers are specifically enumerated, and the States and the people are expressly made the ultimate depositories of all other powers. There is, therefore, a complete failure of all analogy between the relations which the general Government will

Dear to the southern States after the suppression of the rebellion and those which would exist between a victorious sovereign and discomfited rebels. There are, indeed, certain privileges and rights which are the creatures of the Constitution, and dependent exclusively upon it, and which a State or a people may therefore forfeit by its own misconduct. But these are merely the benefits of the Union; and the only method of enforcing their forfeiture, is to allow the State which seeks to secede to "depart in peace."

It is also evident that the constitutional limitations and expansions of Federal and State powers are graduated in accordance with the general interest, as well as the interest of the particular State. They therefore exist for the benefit of all as well as of each particular member of the Union. For instance, one State cannot constitutionally establish a monarchy, even if Congress, her authorities, and a majority of her inhabitants should agree to waive the constitutional requirement that her form of government should be republican, because the existence of the monarchical form of government within any part of the territory of the Union is prohibited, not for the benefit of a particular State, but as being prejudicial to the inter ests of all.* For the same reason, a State cannot

*“The more intimate the nature of such an Union may be, the greater interest have the members in the political

even with the consent of Congress and a majority of her citizens, voluntarily surrender to the Federal Government any one of her constitutional rights. How, then, can she be deprived for any misconduct of her authorities, or even of her citizens, of rights which she cannot voluntarily cede? It is the right and interest of all the States that their common Government shall not, anywhere in the Union, exercise any other jurisdiction than such as the Constitution has confided to it. Citizens of New York, Ohio or Pennsylvania would be injured by an expansion of Federal jurisdiction in South Carolina, Georgia or Alabama, for many reasons, which may be briefly comprehended in the general expression that the whole balance of our political system would be disturbed thereby. We have, therefore, a right, for our own sakes, to insist that the constitutional balance of power shall remain in all respects intact throughout the whole territory of the nation, and that it shall not be disturbed by the central Government drawing to itself powers and functions which our forefathers for wise reasons denied to it. This is a right of which we cannot be

institutions of each other, and the greater right to insist that the forms of government under which the compact was entered into, should be substantially maintained. 'Greece was undone,' says Montesquieu, 'as soon as the king of Macedon obtained a seat among the Amphyctions."" -The Federalist, No. 43.