ing existence of the States. The General Government is infinitely more dependent upon the States than the States are upon the General Government. Why do I say so? Honorable members who have been engaged in this debate seem to suppose that all the political questions which can possibly arise, all the measures which t may be necessary to adopt in order to secure he prosperity and freedom of the people, are with Congress. That is not so. Not only is there large mass of power necessary to be exerted n order to secure prosperity and peace and protection to the individual citizen, secured to he States, but the far larger mass of power elongs to the States. The whole subject of contracts as between man and man, the mode of disposing of personal property, the mode of lisposing of real estate, the mode of devising eal and personal estate, the law of marriage, he judicial jurisdiction over these several subjects of intimate concern to the interest of inlividuals, is with the States.

"Not only is the power of the Government imited as far as regards its legislative departnent, but it is equally limited in relation to its judicial department; and we should in vain earch in that department of the Government or any authority to adjudicate upon the infiite variety of transactions which take place as etween man and man in the States. The Govrnment deals with external affairs, with maters involving the interests of the States inter e, with contracts entered into by the individals of the several States, and it confers all aeasures of that description, and all judicial ower over controversies arising out of measres of that description, upon this Government, ut there it stops. Jurisdiction of all cases in w and equity-I cite the language literally, ertainly substantially-arising under the Contitution and laws of the United States and reaties made in pursuance of their authority, conferred upon the judicial department of the overnment; but nothing else. Then what to become of the interest of the people of he several States if they have no government f their own? Anarchy, unless (a proposition hich I propose to examine) as far as the parular crisis in which we now are is concerned, hose States are reduced to the condition of Territories; but assuming that they are now tates as contradistinguished from Territories, hen it follows that to the extent of the powers maining in the States, if they have no lot in eir execution, and you have no authority provide for them, they are in a condition of archy. To use a favorite comparison of my iend from Massachusetts, that is as plain as e multiplication table.

"If that be plain, what would seem to be the Unsequence? That the Constitution never ontemplated that the States should cease to xist, and it above all never could have conemplated that the Government of the United tates, under any or all the powers conferred pon it by the Constitution, was intended to

possess under any state of circumstances the power to put an end to a State; and yet if they are now ended, if they have ceased to exist, and are to be treated as Territories, they did provide that the Congress of the United States, or the Government of the United States, should have the authority to assume over the people of those States the right to legislate, and the right to adjudicate upon matters expressly reserved to the States and the people of the States, although such was not the apparent purpose, and although so far from being the apparent purpose it was expressly disavowed, and assume to themselves the authority to convert this Government into a national, as contradistinguished from a Federal Government.

"I do not understand my friend from Maine to go to the extent of denying that they are to be considered as States now, but simply that their relations as States to the Government have terminated. The honorable member from Massachusetts goes a step further, and he maintains, and did as far back as 1862, that the effect of the rebellion as it then existed was to reduce the States where it prevailed to a territorial condition. I think when the honorable member from Massachusetts announced that proposition, it was said on the floor of the Senate that perhaps he was the only member of the body who would be found to support it; and yet, as the Senate will see in a moment, it is, if I understand the position taken by most of the Senators who have spoken on the other side of the Chamber, the very ground now assumed. It is said that war existed and the consequences of war followed; and as one of the consequences of war was to put the enemy in the hands of the conqueror, it necessarily follows that the people of the South and the States of the South are now at the footstool of the conqueror, bound to take whatever condition he may think proper to impose, bound by any legislation he may think proper to adopt. What was the doctrine of the honorable member from Massachusetts not only announced once, but over and over again repeated and maintained with all the learning for which he is remarkable? On the 11th of February, 1862, that honorable member submitted to the Senate resolutions declaratory of the relations between the United States and the territory once occupied by certain States, and now usurped by pretended governments without constitutional or legal right.' (See ANNUAL CYCLOPÆDIA, 1862—p. 345.)

"Am I right or am I wrong in saying that when that first resolution was submitted to the judgment of this body it was said in debate that it was exceedingly doubtful whether it could receive the vote of any member of the body except the mover? I am not sure that he was not himself so well satisfied of it that he did nothing more than have it referred, and there it slept. Then, at that time, whatever may be the judgment of Senators now, it could not be asserted of these States that either by abdication or forfeiture they had reduced the

territory belonging to them to the condition of a territory subject to be legislated over by force of the territorial clause of the Constitution. If not, why not? If the honorable member from Massachusetts was not right in proclaiming that the effect of the insurrection and the effect of the ordinances of secession which the States had before passed was to work abdication and forfeiture, and as it was not pretended at that time that there was any other mode by which the States could cease to exist except in consequence of the insurrection, then they were still existing. If flagrante bello the Senate considered them as States, in the name of reason why are they not to consider them as States now that the war is ended? If although enemies in fact, they were friends in law; foes in fact, but brothers in legal intendment; if they were continuing in existence politically while the war was being waged, by what, I was about to say, sophistry can the human mind be brought to the conclusion that what the war itself while it was being waged could not accomplish, is the result of a successful prosecution of the war?

"Now, Mr. President, what is the result if I am right so far? That they are States. States of what character? States standing in what relation? If the honorable member from Massachusetts was wrong in saying that they had abdicated or forfeited the character they possessed and the relation in which they stood, and they are States still, they are as much States as they were when the insurrection was inaugurated, and their relation to their sister States, and their consequent relation to the Government of the United States, is the same relation in which they stood to both when the insurrection was inaugurated. That would seem to follow logically as a necessary result, and if that is a necessary result, does it not also follow that they are entitled to representation in this Chamber? Whether they can present persons who can take their seats, because they have individually committed crimes against the United States, is another question; but I speak now of the right itself.

"What provision is there in the Constitution which puts it in the authority of this body to deny to any State of the United States an equal representation with those States that are represented here? Not only is there nothing; but so sedulous were the framers of that great instrument to guard against the possibility that any State should not be equally represented upon the floor of the Senate with every other State, that they placed that right beyond the power of amendment. The language of the Constitution, as we all know, is, that under the amendment clause of the Constitution, no State shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate of the United States except by its own consent.

"There are only two rights in the Constitution which were excepted out of the power of amendment; one of them, the one of which I

have just spoken, was placed beyond such power absolutely; the other, in my judgment, was a blot upon the Constitution itself, but it was a blot which the wise men and patriotic men of that day thought it was necessary should exist, because without it it was evident that a Government such as they desired could not be constituted-I mean the power of importing slaves for a period of twenty years.

"It was, therefore, in the view of the fram ers of the Constitution, a cardinal principle necessary to the success of the Government, and necessary to the protection of the States, that each State under every possible condition of circumstances should be entitled at all times thereafter, unless she consented to abandon it, to an equal suffrage in the Senate.

"If, therefore, they are still States and not Territories, if they are as they were when the insurrection commenced, then it would seem to be obvious that they have as much right to be represented in this Chamber as any one of the States that are here represented; and yet, what are we doing? I did not understand the honorable member from Maine as denying the right, but only as denying that the time had come when the right should be enjoyed; as only asserting that because of some external circumstances there might be danger to the Government, and that is the only danger that we can recognize. Party danger is not a danger that we can notice. It is the peril to the nation, if there is any peril, which will justify the exclusion of any State from the enjoyment of that right of suffrage upon which the Senate can rely. And what is there to show that there will be any danger to the public weal? Have they not thrown down their arms? We know they have. Have not all their armies been surrendered? We know they have. Are they not daily supplicants for the clemency of that department of the Government vested with the power to be clement? We know they are. Do they wish to be represented? Your table is loaded with their credentials. Do you ob ject to the individual men? No. Perry, of South Carolina, whose credentials I had the honor to present yesterday; Hunt, of Louisiana, whose credentials I presented some three or four weeks ago; Sharkey, of Mississippi, and others of the same description of men, are now at your door, invoking you as brothers and statesmen, by the memories of the past, to permit them to come among you as equals, and claiming it upon the ground that every department of the Government, except ourselves, and that at this session, has admitted to be true in point of fact that they are still States of the Union.

"My friend from Maine maintains that I am in error in supposing that the insurrection which prevailed for four years was put down only by virtue of that clause of the Constitution which gives to Congress the right to use mili tary force for the purpose of suppressing insur rection."

Mr. Fessenden: "Using the militia.” Mr. Johnson: "Well, the act of 1807, passed under that authority, gives the same power to use the army and navy of the United States that previous acts gave to use the militia, and we have legislated still more extensively by aising troops for the purpose of putting it lown. I maintained in good faith, as I am ure every Senator who knows me will believe, hat the authority is to be found exclusively inder that clause. I stated that under the war ower (that is, the power conferred upon Conress to declare war), there was no authority to var against a State of the Union, and I suported that opinion by referring to a part of he opinion given by Mr. Justice Grier, speakng in behalf of the majority of the Supreme Court, in the prize cases as reported in 2 Black, nd in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice Velson, in each of which it is stated that there 3 no clause in the Constitution which, either y direct terms or by implication, can be contrued to confer upon Congress the authority o declare war against a State; and they go on, ach of them, to maintain that the power conerred upon Congress in regard to the Southern ebellion is the power conferred by that clause f the Constitution which gives them authority suppress insurrection, and is carried out by he passage of the acts of 1792 and 1795; and et they say, and say properly, as I think (alough in relation to that there was a difference f opinion, but only as to the time when that ondition of things existed), that an insurrecun may be of such an extent as entirely to put stop practically to the authority of the Govament, that it may become a war according > the extent to which it may be carried on by e insurgents. What did they say it for? That was the question before the court?

"The President had blockaded the Southern orts; prizes had been made for a violation of e blockade, and the question in each of those rize cases was whether the vessels captured ere subject to forfeiture. The majority of the urt held that, independent of your act of July 3, 1861, a state of war existed, out of which ew belligerent rights, and one of the belligerit rights is the right of capture for violation fa blockade instituted by one belligerent as gainst the other belligerent. That is all. The dinority of the court came to the same result relation to captures made after the passage the act of July 13, 1861. They denied that ere was a war within the meaning of the onstitution existing antecedent to that period, cause the whole war power was conferred on Congress and the President had no right initiate war; but when the war existed under e sanction of Congress it carried with it all e rights which belonged to belligerents, and refore carried with it the right of the United ates to blockade the enemy's ports, that being belligerent right, and to capture for violation the blockade.

My friend from Maine says virtually (he did

not refer to the decision in terms) that there is no distinction between a civil war and an international war, and with the clearness which belongs to all his speeches he got on pretty well until he came to consider what effect upon that condition of war would be the operation of our peculiar Government, and he seemed to be a little puzzled to reconcile his own mind to the conclusion that the Government of the United States could by war of any kind put an end to a State government.

"But, now, is there not a distinction? Is there not some difficulty arising from the fact that the Government of the United States is not a Government over the State at all? The Government of the United States and the government of the State are equally, as far as the people of that State are concerned, the government of the people of that State. They owe allegiance to a certain extent to the Government of the United States; they owe allegiance to a much greater extent to the government of the State. The General Government cannot get on without the States. The States are not only a component but an essential part of the General Government. Blot them out, and the Governinent is at an end; blot them out, and these seats must be vacated, and the other hall be left desolate. Nobody can deny that. We could not vote ourselves in permanent session, I suppose. If not, our time expires; and how are our places to be filled? If any one State is left, or any two or three States are left, there will be some three or four or five or six Senators. Is that the Government our fathers designed? How is the judicial department of the Government to exercise its functions? It has no courts in these States if they have ceased to be States; if they are Territories, there is an end to the judicial system, so far as those Territories and the people who are to be found within their limits are concerned. In the case of Canter vs. The American Insurance Company (1 Peters), which has been very often before this body, and brought to the attention of the public as demonstrating the authority of Congress to regulate, even by abolishing, slavery in the Territories, this question was decided. The case is pregnant with instruction upon various points in this debate. It arose in this way: a vessel was wrecked upon the coast of Florida, then a Territory, and the cargo and the vessel, in part,' were rescued, and the salvors filed a petition in the admiralty court of Florida, a court constituted by the Territorial Legislature of Florida, for the sale of the property to pay them the amount of their salvage, and it was sold. The property came into the hands of the purchaser, and he carried it to South Carolina. Upon the wreck of the vessel the insured abandoned to the underwriter, and the underwriter, when the property came into the port at Charleston, sued the person in whose possession it was to recover it, and he defended himself upon the ground that the decree under which it was sold was a legitimate

decree. The Supreme Court came to that conclusion. Among other objections to the validity of that decree was this: the court in Florida consisted of judges appointed for a limited time, whereas the courts known to the United States under the Constitution of the United States were composed of judges holding office during good behavior; and it was clear that if what had been done was done under the judiciary clause of the Constitution of the United States the sale was void, because the court was unconstitutional. Chief-Justice Marshall said:

It has been contended that, by the Constitution, the judicial power of the United States extends to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction, and that the whole of this judicial power must be vested "in one Supreme Court and in such inferior courts as Congress shall from time to time ordain and establish." Hence it has been argued that Congress cannot vest admiralty jurisdiction in courts created by the Territorial Legislature.

We have only to pursue this subject one step further to perceive that this provision of the Constitution does not apply to it. The next sentence declares that "the judges, both of the supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior." The judges of the superior courts of Florida hold their offices for four years. These courts, then, are not constitutional courts, in which the judicial power conferred by the Constitution on the General Government can be deposited. They are incapable of receiving it.

"Now, let me apply this to what I have just stated. If it be so, why are your courts now in those States vested with the judicial authority conferred by the Constitution of the United States, exercising all their functions, administering justice as between man and man in those cases in which jurisdiction is conferred upon them by the Constitution? Why are they there? Only because they are still States. The moment you strike them down from the elevated character of States to the subordinate character of Territories, at once the judicial authority of the United States ceases within their limits; and yet what is the Supreme Court doing? What did they do the other day unanimously with the exception of the Chief Justice? They are receiving now records from the decisions of the courts in those States and they are hearing them. By a special order, passed a few days since, they directed that parties whose cases were here from the States lately in rebellion should have a right, if they applied for its enjoyment, to have their cases heard in advance, they having lost their priority only because of the war, and the court held that, the war ended, the judicial authority of the United States at once attached; and if the doctrine of Canter vs. The American Insurance Company be sound (and nobody can dispute it; nobody, certainly, in the past has disputed it), if the judicial authority contained in the Constitution is an authority conferred only upon the courts with reference to the United States as contradistinguished from the Territories, the Supreme Court could only have come to the conclusion that those cases were to be

heard now and decided now, because they were of opinion that those States are now States of the Union.

"Now, as to this right of war. War, says my friend from Maine, though it be a civil war, carries with it all belligerent rights. It does carry all belligerent rights that are not inconsistent with the character of the parties engaged in the war. What sort of a war is it that we are supposed to have been waging against these insurgents, this civil war, as he imagines it to have been? Was it a war of conquest? Could it be a war of conquest? If it was, it would have been the most extraordinary conquest that ever was made; it would have been a Government conquering itself. The States are a part of itself. Its existence depends upon the existence of the States. You cannot elect a President without the States; you cannot elect members of the House of Representatives without the States; you cannot elect members of the Senate without the States. Then to suprose that, under the authority to suppress insurrections, however those insurrections may be carried on, into whatever magnitude they may culminate, is to enable the Government to destroy the States under the doctrine of conquest, is to hold the doctrine that the Govern ment can conquer itself. Who ever heard of that? What! the Government of the United States conquer States, and, by virtue of that conquest, extinguish the States? You might as well attempt to conquer the President; perhaps that may be done one of these days, sooner or later; or the President might as well attempt to conquer Congress; that may be done; and some people think, perhaps, that it ought to be done; but what is the result of either? The Government is either fatally destroyed or se riously wounded. A power, then, conferred on Congress to preserve is a power which Congress has a right to exert for the purpose of destroying. A power to be exerted merely for the purpose of vindicating the authority of the Constitution and the laws, seeing that they are faithfully observed by those who are bound to observe them, is an authority which, with reference to the people upon whom it is exer cised, may be so carried on as to destroy the authority and the laws.

"Can that be so? What is the meaning of the book? [Holding up Vattel.] My friend did not read it. You can acquire-that is the chapter of Vattel to which he called my atten tion-you can acquire property by conquest but I speak, as I think, understandingly, not only standing upon the authority of Vattel, but upon the authority of every writer upon the law of nations with which I am at all familiar when I say that nowhere do any of them main tain the proposition that a Government can conquer itself. One nation carrying on wa against another may obtain its territory, it people, by one of two modes, either by con quest effected by absolute subjugation, or b treaty independent of actual conquest; bu

when a Government wages war as against its own citizens, no matter what may be the form of government, be it monarchical, be it imperial, be it democratic, the result is the same. If it carries on war against its own citizens, it may, if the war is carried on to a successful termination, punish the men who have been engaged in it; but the country remains; no title to the country is obtained by conquest. Whatever right it has in such a contingency is the right with which it started. That original right was suspended by force of arms; the arms subdued, the suspension ceases, and the Government stands as it stood when the war originated, having but the one country under the one Government; and whatever may be the form of government, if it carries on the war to a successful result, all that it has a right to do is to punish the individual parties who have been concerned in the opposition to its authority. "Now, I suppose, and my friend from Maine supposes, and we all, perhaps, suppose that the rebellion had no just foundation; but a great many people in the United States, even in the loyal States, thought that it had. There was no injustice, in my opinion, perpetrated by the North upon the South that could not have been corrected, if it was unjust, by the fair administration of the Constitution of the United States; but a great many thought that the time had come when safety to themselves demanded a Separation. They have paid the penalty of the error, and now they are before us asking us, through the proper constituted authority of the country, to pardon the error; they are before us now pledged, if we can take the testimony of their leading men holding high official station, to abide by the result of the trial to which their doctrine of secession and of slavery has been submitted. They stand before you now admitting that their hopes are centred in the Union, that their safety is there to be found, and there only, and they ardently implore you to suffer them to come again into your midst, share your duties, participate in your trials, join their counsels to your own for the purpose of aking the country even greater than it was in any time of the past.

"Now, what do you say by this resolution? You must be kept out until Congress shall by law declare that you ought to be admitted.' When is that to be? I am no prophet; but if the signs of the times are to be relied upon, that is to be just when Congress shall think proper; and when they will think proper, and why they will think proper, and what conditions they will annex, is all now in the womb of time. Are they to be kept out until that matter is settled by Congress? They will be if you pass this resolution and it is observed. Is it right? I heard it on this floor when I had formerly the honor of a seat in this body, and I heard it in conversation from time to time, sometimes angrily, sometimes socially, 'The Southern men cannot be driven to separation,'

and I heard it from others that the Northern men could not be driven into hostility as against them. The error of both has been signal. What sort of rebellion have we had? One greater than the world has ever before witnessed. You have crushed it. Now, what do you propose to do? Vattel tells you, treat them kindly and then you will have peace; treat them unkindly, deal with them as unequal, treat them oppressively, and the time for a renewed struggle depends only upon their becoming convinced that they have a reasonable chance to make a renewed struggle successful; and if what you propose to do shall lead to delay, which I suppose may be the consequence of it, you will find that the people in the loyal States will be divided. They are now asking why is it, when not an arm is raised against the authority of the Government, that we have not peace? Why is it that on the contrary we have every day increased agitation? They see, a great many of them, that one means of having peace and quiet is to take the States back, to give them all the rights which the Constitution secures to them, to set the citizens of the States at work. Do this, let them be satisfied that they have the protection of the Government of the Union, as well as the protection of their own States, and the South soon will again blossom like the rose; her wealth in the past, great as it has been, will prove to be as nothing compared with what it will be in the future; and my life for it-I think I am warranted in so saying from my knowledge of the character of the men-my life for it, let them participate in all the rights which the Government was intended to secure to all, and so far from the country being imperilled, its increased strength, its enhanced power, will date from that happy day."

Mr. Hendricks, of Indiana, said: "Two purposes, it seems to me, are intended by this resolution; or at least two results are likely to be secured by its adoption in its present shape. The first is to have a congressional declaration that the States themselves, as States, have been in rebellion.

The second is to make the impression upon the country that these States are only to be brought back into the Union again by an act of Congress. I do not believe in either of these propositions. The States have not been regarded as in rebellion. That has not been the language of the Executive proclamations; it has not been the language of Congress in its legislation in regard to the insurrection. The phraseology has heretofore been, 'States, the inhabitants of which have been declared to be in rebellion.' Certainly, the State of Virginia was one of the most prominent States in this rebellion. The weight that she brought to the cause when she seceded, and the power which she brought to the army during the war, made her a very conspicuous member of the Southern Confederacy that was attempted to be established. Yet all of Virginia was not regarded as in rebellion. Some of the counties