.553 



.less by 



implication), 



rv.'d ti> h'T-'lf ill- 1 riiihi to iccede. IT 



lii-r d''l>arl! 

 1 IM-I-. 



secede ? Georgia 



nijiitoM il tli.i! \\lit-n lie' (ii'iiiTal <!<ivrrn lit o-a-i-d 



of ita creation, she had the 



. .1 , iiinl did in tact endeavor to withdraw 



:i iii i-oniiini-tii'ii itli ten of 



her litter St. ten. The remaining, or non-seceding 

 !n> I'liion to l>i- perpetual and indi- 

 M lini: tinder (In- Constitution to find nnv 

 Siate, Congress resorted to the 8th 

 n, in which tin- kgtlUim powers are defined, 

 wherein the power is given to the Congress to " sup- 

 press n ; " and on the 29th of July, 1861, 

 passed an net entitled "An act to provide for the sup- 

 pression of rebellion Against ana resistance to the 

 laws i : : States, and to amend an act passed 

 ruary 28, 17'.' 



< and similar acts the nylitary power of the 

 's was called forth designedly not against 

 the Si'it.'s, but to suppress insurrection by the peo- 

 :hin the States. The United States Govern- 

 ment uniformly refused to recognize the acts of 

 secession as State nets, but treated them as the acts 

 urgent s rebelling against the authority of the 

 States and of the United States. Under this goliti- 

 cal aspect of the case, no war was ever declared by 

 Congress (which is the only power that could declare 

 war), because a declaration of war would have recog- 



'. the practical right of secession. 

 The war would have necessarily been declared 

 against the Confederate Government as a foreign 

 power, and. the relations in which the States com- 

 posing the Confederate Government would have been 

 to the I'liiicd States or remaining States, when con- 

 1, would have been entirely dependent upon 

 such terms as should be embodied in the Treaty of 

 Peace, which might be made between the two con- 

 tending powers. 



fostoM of recognizing secession and declaring war, 

 the Congress of tiie United States passed the act re- 

 ferred to for suppressing insurrection whenever, in 

 the judgment of the President, the laws of the United 

 States could not be enforced by the ordinary course 

 of judicial proceedings. 



How long did the power of the President continue 

 to employ the militia of the several States and the 

 land and naval forces of the United States? So long 

 u.s the cause which called it into existence continued! 

 and no longer. .What was that cause ? This act, and 

 all acts passed by Congress on the subject, declare 

 that it was to suppress an insurrection when it should 

 be BO formidable that the laws of the United States 

 could not be enforced by ordinary judicial course, 

 and this fact was left to the judgment of the Presi- 

 dent, whose duty it is to see that the laws of the 

 United States arc executed. 



The President, by proclamation, has declared the 

 rebellion suppressed, that peace reigns throughout 

 the United States, and that the laws be enforced by 

 ordinary judicial course. In other words, that in- 

 surrection did exist on the part of a portion of the 

 people of several States of the Union, that the insur- 

 rection has been suppressed, and the whole people of 

 those States ore now (as a portion of them always 

 have been) ready to render obedience to the laws of 

 the United States. 



No treaty followed the suppression of the insurrec- 

 tion, because a government does not treat with indi- 

 viduals, and the Government of the United States 

 throughout the whole of this contest has refused to 

 treat it as a contest with the States, and again, because 

 the people hitherto charged with being in insurrection 

 were citizens of States already bound together by 

 a compact known as the Constitution of the United 

 States, which has never been abrogated or overthrown, 

 and has lost none of its vitality by an unsuccessful 

 VOL. TI. 23 A 



attempt to overthrow it, and which is, therefore, pow 

 tin Mipremc luw of Georgia. By virtue of it* power, 

 tin- Congress of the United States, acting upon the 

 tli'urv of tin- indivisibility of the Union, treated the 



us a State in the Union. The Hvcond 

 of the article of the Constitution which duclures "rep- 



.iiivc.s and direct taxes shall be apportioned 

 among the several States which may be included 

 within the Union," and on the 6th of August, 1881, 

 an act was passed "that a direct tax of twenty mil- 

 lions of dollars be and is hereby annually laid upon 

 the United States, and the same shall be apportioned 

 io (In- States respectively in manner following: the 

 State of Georgia for $ 654, 367, and a proportionate 

 amount to each State and territory of the United 

 States/' distinguishing by the act States from ter- 

 ritories; and on July 13, 1862, by an act to amend the 

 judicial system of the United States, the districts of 

 South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and 

 Florida, were constituted the Fifth Circuit of the 

 United States. There are several other acts passed 

 during the rebellion deriving all their force from the 

 Constitution, wherein it defines the legislative power 

 of Congress over the States in the Union, and which, 

 but for the fact that these States were regarded as in 

 the Union, would have been wholly inapplicable to 

 them. The whole theory adopted by Congress and the 

 Executive, and maintained throughout the entire war, 

 was this : The Union is indissoluble, the practical 

 relation of the States to the Federal Government is 

 interrupted by a rebellion. The whole power of the 

 Government must be used to suppress the rebellion, 

 that the States may be restored to their practical rela- 

 tions with the Federal Government. Had the people 

 in the disaffected States returned peaceably to their 

 abodes under the first proclamation, the State would 

 have been immediately restored to their practical rela- 

 tions, and the result followed whenever the President 

 declared the rebellion suppressed. Whenever the 

 laws could be enforced in the ordinary judicial course, 

 the Union was restored, and the Constitution pro- 

 claimed the relation of the States to the Federal Gov- 

 ernment, rendering legislation on the subject by Con- 

 gress not only unnecessary, but unwarranted. We 

 nave thus endeavored to show that the right to se- 

 cede is denied by the General Government, and its 

 construction has been maintained by the sword, and 

 is submitted to by all the States. Has Congress the 

 right to erect a State ? The powers of legislation "are 

 defined in the eighth section, and no power is given 

 to Congress to legislate a State out of the Union. 

 And, while by the third section of the fourth article, 

 the Congress may admit a new State formed out of 

 the territory of the United States or foreign terri- 

 tory, there is no clause of that instrument by which 

 Congress, or any other power, can transform a State 

 into a territory. Then as Georgia was one of the 

 original thirteen States which formed the Union, and 

 could neither withdraw trom it, nor be legislated out 

 of it, her Federal relations were only suspended 

 during the rebellion. She must necessarily continue 

 to be one of the United States, and as such her rela- 

 tion to the Federal Government and to her sister 

 States is defined by the Constitution of the United 

 States. And this relation cannot be changed, nor 

 the terms of the Constitution altered in any way, ex- 

 cept in one of the modes provided in that instrument 

 by the States themselves. 



The report concluded with the following 

 resolution : 



Hesohed, That the Legislature of Georgia declines 

 to ratify the proposed amendment adding a four- 

 teenth article to the Constitution of the United 

 States. 



In the Senate the resolution was unanimously 

 adopted. In the House the vote in ita favor 

 was 132 to 2. 



