

CONGKESS, U. 8. 



309 



have recognized as a belligerent power. We 

 ourselvea, by what I consider a most unfor- 

 tunate act, not well considered declaring a 

 blockade of their ports have acknowledged 

 them as a power. "We cannot blockade our 

 own ports. It is an absurdity. "We blockade 

 an enemy's ports. The very fact of declaring 

 this blockade recognized them as a belligerent 

 power, entitled to all the privileges and subject 

 to all the rules of war, according to the law 

 of nations. 



" Now, then, sir, these rebellious States being 

 a power, by the acknowledgment of European 

 nations and of our own nation, subject and en- 

 titled to belligerent rights, they become subject 

 to all the rules of war. I hold that the Con- 

 stitution has no longer the least effect upon 

 them. It is idle to tell me that the obligations 

 of an instrument are binding on one party 

 while they are repudiated by the other. It is 

 one of the principles of law universal, and of 

 justice as universal, that obligations, personal 

 or national, must, in order to be binding, be 

 mutual, and be equally acknowledged and ad- 

 mitted by all parties. Whenever that mutu- 

 ality ceases to exist, it binds neither party. 

 There is another principle just as universal ; it 

 is this : when parties become belligerent, in the 

 technical sense of the word, the war between 

 them abrogates all compacts, treaties, and con- 

 stitutions which may have existed between 

 them before the war commenced. If we go to 

 war with England to-day, all our treaty stipu- 

 lations are at an end, and none of them bind 

 either of the parties. If peace is restored, it 

 does not restore any of the obligations of either. 

 There must be new treaties, new obligations 

 entered into, before either of the parties is 

 bound. 



" Hence I hold that none of the States now 

 in rebellion are entitled to the protection of 

 the Constitution, and I am grieved when I 

 hear those high in authority sometimes talk- 

 ing of the constitutional difficulties about enfor- 

 cing measures against this belligerent power, 

 and the next moment disregarding every ves- 

 tige and semblance of the Constitution by acts 

 which alone are arbitrary. I hope I do not 

 differ with the executive in the views which I 

 advocate. But I see the executive one day 

 saying, " You shall not take the property of 

 rebels to pay the debts which the rebels have 

 brought upon the Northern States." Why? 

 Because the Constitution is in the way. And 

 the next day I see him appointing a military 

 governor of Virginia, a military governor of 

 Tennessee, and some other places. Where does 

 he find anything in the Constitution to warrant 

 that? 



If he must look there alone for authority, 

 then all these acts are flagrant usurpations, 

 deserving the condemnation of the community. 

 He must agree with me or else his acts are as 

 absurd as they are unlawful : for I see him 

 here and there ordering elections for members 

 of Congress wherever he finds a little collection 



of three or four consecutive plantations in the 

 rebel States, in order that men may be sent in 

 here to control the proceedings of this Con- 

 gress, just as we sanctioned the election held 

 by a few people at a little watering place at 

 Fortress Monroe, by which we have here the 

 very respectable and estimable member from 

 that locality with us." 



Mr. Ashley : " As I understand it, when the 

 new State is admitted, Governor Pierpont is 

 to move over into Alexandria and remain the 

 Governor of the old State of Virginia ; while 

 the two senators who are now in the other 

 end of the capitol, from Virginia, will, by the 

 same proceeding, still remain the senators from 

 that State." 



Mr. Stevens: "Certainly. We shall have 

 four senators, instead of two. I wish they 

 would bring Mason back instead of one of 

 them. But, sir, I understand that these pro- 

 ceedings all take place, not under any pretence 

 of legal or constitutional right, but in virtue of 

 the laws of war ; and by the laws of nations 

 these laws are just what we choose to make 

 them, so that they are not inconsistent with 

 humanity. I say, then, that we- may admit 

 West Virginia as a new State, not by virtue 

 of any provision of the Constitution, but under 

 our absolute power, which the laws of war give 

 us in the circumstances in which we are placed. 

 I shall vote for this bill upon that -theory, and 

 upon that alone ; for I will not stultify myself 

 by supposing that we have any warrant in the 

 Constitution for this proceeding." 



Mr. Segar, of Virginia, followed in opposition 

 to the bill. He said : " I believe it is a funda- 

 mental maxim in our political system, dating 

 as far back as the Declaration of Independence, 

 that all government derives its authority from 

 the consent of the governed ; in other words, 

 from that source of all legitimate power, the 

 sovereign people. Now, sir, this bill is in the 

 very teeth, in direct subversion of this cardi- 

 nal principle of republican, popular govern- 

 ment. This new State proposition has not re- 

 ceived- the sanction of the people upon whom 

 the new government is to operate. Casting 

 out of the calculation the whole rebel portion 

 of the State, I propose to show that the con- 

 sent of the northwestern people themselves 

 has not been had. It is not founded on the 

 consent even of the people whose government 

 it is claimed to be, and who are to come with- 

 in its rule. There has not been that general, 

 close representation of the people included 

 within the limits of the proposed new State, 

 which is absolutely necessary to impart legality 

 to all governments among us. A very large 

 portion of the people that were never repre- 

 sented at all, neither in the Legislature which 

 called the convention that ordered a vote to be 

 taken on the new State question, nor in the 

 Wheeling Legislature, nor in the convention 

 that framed the constitution of the proposed 

 new State. 



"Let us look to the facts. I find that of 



