PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



Nfi 



<1 and extensive inquiries, necessarily required 



inU'-h irten tin' time a-^ iniicli 



U possible (In- w.'i-U w.is divided unii |ihu-cd in tlio 



bands of four sub-committee- win. h..\e In-m dili- 



,-<.nmpli>liinent. Tlic results 



!i heretofore submitted, and 



nitry will judg- lni\v tar they sustuin tlic Pres- 



i how fur they justify the cf nelu- 



.. \\liiih your committee have finally an 



r t"be immediate udinis>ion of Senators 

 \esfrom the so-culled Confederate 

 U.i- been urged, which seems to your commit- 

 1'i.iindrd either in reason or iu law, and 

 t be passed without comment. Stated in 

 -. it amounts to this that, inasmuch as 

 ly iiiMiruent State* had no legal right to sepa- 

 :\ es from the Union, they Mill retain their 

 States, and, consequently, the people 

 Jit to immediate representation in 

 1 ---s, without the imposition of any conditions 



..ud further, that, until such admission. 

 ; .'as Las no right to tax them for the Mipport of 

 vernmcnt. It has even been contended that, 

 until such admission, all legislation affecting their 

 -ts is, if not unconstitutional, at least unjusti- 

 fiable and oppressive. 



It is believed by your committee that all these 

 propositions are no*t only wholly untenable, but if ad- 

 mitted, would tend to the destruction of the Gov- 

 ernment. 



It must not be forgotten that the people of those 

 without justification or excuse, rose in insur- 

 n against the United States. They deliberately 

 abolished their State governments, so far as the 

 same connected them politically with the Union, as 

 members thereof under the Constitution. They de- 

 liberately renounced their allegiance to the Federal 

 Government, and proceeded to establish an inde- 

 pendent government for themselves. In the prose- 

 cution or this enterprise, they seized the national 

 arsenals, dockyards, and other public property 

 within their borders, drove out from among thw 

 those who remained true to the Union, and heaped 

 imaginable insult and injury upon the United 

 States ana its citizens. Finally they opened hostili- 

 nd levied war against the Government. They 

 continued this war for four years with the most de- 

 termined and malignant spirit, killing in battle and 

 otherwise large numbers of loyal people, destroying 

 the property of loyal citizens on the sea and on the 

 land, and entailing on the Government an enor- 

 lebt, incurred to sustain its rightful authority. 

 Whether legally and constitutionally or not, they 

 did, in fact, withdraw from the Union, and made 

 -elves subjects of another government of their 

 own creation, and they only yielded when, after a 

 long and bloody and wasting war. they were com- 

 pelled by utter exhaustion to lay down their arms ; 

 mid tlii> they did, not willingly, but declaring that 

 ielded beeause they could no longer resist, af- 

 fording no evidence whatever of repentance for their 

 crime, and expressing no regret except that they 

 Lad no longer the power to continue the desperate 

 struggle. It cannot, we think, be denied, by any 

 one having a tolerable acquaintance with public law, 

 that the war thus waged was a civil war of the great- 

 est magnitude. The people waging it were neces- 

 sarily subject to all the rules which, by the law of 

 nations, control a contest of that character, and to 

 all the legitimate consequences following it. One of 

 those consequences was that, within the limits pre- 

 scribed by humanity, the conquered rebels \\ 

 the mercy of the conquerors; that a Government thus 

 outraged hud a most perfect right to exact indemnity 

 for the injuries done and secunty against the recur- 

 rence of such outrages in the future, would seem too 

 clear for dispute. What proof should be required of 

 a n'timi to allegiance, what time should clap 

 fore u people thus demoralized should be restored in 

 full to the enjoyment of political rights and privi- 



leges, arc questions for toe aw-making power to de- 

 iid that decision involves grave considerations 

 of tlie public safety and the general welfare. It is 

 limp-over contended, and with apparent gravity, that 

 from the peculiar nature and character ofour Govern- 

 ment no such right on the part of the conqueror can 

 that from the moment when rebellion lays 

 down its arms and actual hostilities cease, all politi- 

 cal rights of rebellious communities are at once re- 

 sinie.l; that because the people of a State of (ho 

 were once an organized community within tin; 

 Union they necessarily so remain, and their rights 

 to be represented in Congress at any and all times, 

 and to participate in the government of the country 

 under all circumstances, admit of neither question 

 nor dispute. If this is indeed true, then is the Gov- 

 ernment of the United States powerless for its own 

 protection, and flagrant rebellion, carried to the ex- 

 treme of civil war, is a pastime which any State may 

 play at, not only certain that it can lose nothing in 

 any event, but may even be the gainer by defeat. If 

 it tails, the war has been barren of results, and the 

 buttle may be still fought out in the legislative halls 

 of the country. Treason, defeated in the field, has 

 only to take possession of Congress and the Cabinet. 

 Your committee does not deem it either necessary or 



E roper to discuss the question whether the late Con- 

 jderate States are still States of this Union, or can 

 ever be otherwise. Granting this profitless abstrnc 

 tion, about which so many words have been wasted, 

 it by no means follows that the people of those States 

 may not place themselves in a condition to abrogate 

 the powers and privileges incident to a State oftho 

 Union, and deprive themselves of all pretence of 

 right to exercise those powers and enjoy those privi- 

 leges. A State within the Union has obligations to 

 discharge as a member of the Union. It must sub- 

 mit to Federal laws and uphold Federal authority. It 

 must have a government republican in form, under 

 and by which it is connected with the General Gov- 

 ernment, and through which it can discharge its obli- 

 gations. It is more than idle, it is a mockery, to 

 contend that a people who have thrown off their 

 allegiance, destroyed the local government which 

 bound their States to the Union as members thereof, 

 defied its authority, refused to execute its laws, ana 

 abrogated laws that gave them political rights within 

 the Union, still retain, through all, the perfect and 

 entire right to resume, at their own will and pleasure, 

 all their privileges in the Union, and especially to 

 participate in its government and to control the con- 

 duct or its affairs ; to admit such a principle for one 

 moment would be to declare that treason is always 

 master, and loyalty a blunder. Such a principle is 

 void by its very nature and essence, because incon- 

 sistent with the theory of government, and fatal to 

 its very existence. On the contrary, we assert that 

 no portion of the people of this country, either in 

 State or Territory, have the right, while remaining 

 on its soil, to withdraw from or reject the authority 

 of the United States. They must acknowledge its 

 jurisdiction ; they have no right to secede : and 

 while they can destroy their State governments and 

 place themselves beyond the pale of the Union, so 

 far as the exorcise of State nnvileges is concerned, 

 they cannot escape the obligations imposed upon 

 thi-m by the Constitution and the laws, nor impair 

 the i-MTcise of national authority. The Constitution, 

 it will be observed, does not act upon States, as such, 

 but upon the people. While, therefore, the people 

 cease to exist in an organized form, they thus dis- 

 solve their political relations with the United . v 

 That taxation should be only with the consent of the 

 taxed, through their own representatives, is a cardi- 

 nal principle of all free governments ; but it is not 

 tine that taxation and representation must go to- 

 gether under all circumstances and at every moment 

 of time. The people of tho District of Columbia and 

 all of tlic Territories are taxed, although not rejire- 

 I in Congress. If it is tn*.of the people ti the 



