170 



CONGRESS, UNITED STATES. 



authority or any terras. Once establish such 

 a doctrine, and the control of the nation over 

 this subject vanishes. 



"But it may be assumed that the consti- 

 tutional provision just quoted applies to new 

 States only, and, therefore, not to the case in 

 hand. Let us briefly examine this. 



" What is it to admit a State into the Union ? 

 In this debate, so far, this has not been con- 

 sidered ; but it is, in my judgment, in an im- 

 portant degr.ee worthy of attention. It is not 

 to admit the people of a State into the nation, 

 for they are already a part of the nation. 

 "When, therefore, a State is admitted into the 

 Union, it is not into the Union of the people 

 as a nation, but into the Union formed under 

 the Constitution for purposes of government. 

 It is admitted to participate as a body-politio 

 in the Government formed by that Constitu- 

 tion, in which the people composing the State 

 had no previous participation, or whose par- 

 ticipation had been broken off. This, I take 

 it, is the meaning of the admission of a State 

 into the Union, except as in the case of Texas, 

 where a foreign people are, by the act of ad- 

 mission into the governmental Union, also ad- 

 mitted into the Union of the people as a nation, 

 which latter Union, let it be remembered, ante- 

 dates the former, for it has existed since the 

 assembling of the Continental Congress in Sep- 

 tember, 1774, outside and independent of, as 

 well as anterior to, any Constitution or written 

 form of government whatever. 



"If these views be correct, it follows that 

 the word ' new ' in this clause of the Constitu- 

 tion does not confine the action of Congress in 

 the premises to the original admission of States 

 into the Union. That word, if it have any 

 special significance there which I think it has 

 not applies to all States which are outside of 

 the governmental Union, and dependent on 

 the action of Congress for their admission into 

 that Union. If not, had the rebel States suc- 

 ceeded in establishing themselves as an inde- 

 pendent and separate nation, they might have 

 remained such for a hundred years, and then 

 come back, in defiance of Congress, into the 

 governmental Union upon their own terms, or 

 without any terms. 



" If, then, it be true that the admission of a 

 State into the Union is merely its admission to 

 a participation in the government of the Union, 

 it disposes of a common error which probably 

 is entertained by many, to wit : that no por- 

 tion of the people can become a State until 

 they are admitted as a State into the Union. 

 The history of the Government, in my opinion, 

 disproves this. The State of Vermont was the 

 first admitted into the Union after the adop- 

 tion of the Constitution. She came in in 1791, 

 without any previous authority from Congress 

 for her organization as a State, and the act for 

 her admission had this preamble : 



The State of Vermont having petitioned the Con- 

 gress to be admitted as a member of the United 

 States. 



" Here was an express recognition of the pre- 

 existence of that State outside of the govern- 

 mental Union, while her people were a part 

 of the nation, and as such subject to the au- 

 thority and power of that Union. Since that 

 time no less than ten States have been admit- 

 ted, which were formed without the previous 

 authority of Congress, and yet were recognized 

 as existing States by the acts passed for their 

 admission. They were, with the years of their 

 admission, Maine, 1820; Arkansas and Michi- 

 gan, 1836; Florida and Iowa, 1845; Califor- 

 nia, 1850; Oregon, 1859; Kansas, 1861 ; West 

 Virginia, 1862 ; and Nebraska, 1867. If these 

 facts show any thing, they show that it has not, 

 in all the history of the Government, been held 

 that a State is dependent upon its admission 

 into the Union for its existence as a State. It 

 cannot be admitted into the governmental 

 Union unless it be organized as a State ; but it 

 may be so organized and exist without being 

 so admitted. Hence result two important de- 

 ductions. The first is, that as long as a State 

 is outside of participation in the Government 

 of the Union, from whatever cause, it has, 

 when it seeks admission to that participation, 

 the status and character of a new State. That 

 is, it is just as much out, just as much to be 

 admitted, just as much dependent on the will 

 of Congress for its admission, when it has, by 

 its own act of rebellion, severed its practical 

 relations with the governmental Union, as 

 when it first seeks admission into it as a new- 

 born State, and therefore falls within the scope 

 of the power of Congress to admit 'new States 

 into this Union.' My second deduction is, 

 that being a State de facto, though not yet in 

 the governmental Union, or with its practical 

 relations thereto severed by its own act, it is 

 capable of acting as a State, and binding itself 

 as such, especially in all .matters pertaining to 

 its admission or readmission into the Union. 

 If this be not so, how could conditions be pro- 

 posed to it by Congress, to be assented to be- 

 fore its admission, as has been heretofore done ? 

 To ask the question is to answer it. If a State 

 at all, it may contract as a State ; if not a State, 

 with power to contract, to propose conditions 

 for its acceptance would be absurd. 



"Sir, I see all this clearly, whether I have 

 succeeded or not in showing it to others. I 

 see that the insurgent States, by their rebel- 

 lion, severed their practical relations to the 

 governmental Union, but did not sever them- 

 selves from the union of the people as a na- 

 tion. They were out of the Union, and at the 

 same time not out of it ; an apparent paradox 

 when you lose sight of the fact that the word 

 Union in the clause of the Constitution now 

 before us means the governmental Union 

 formed by the Constitution, and not the popu- 

 lar Union formed nearly fourteen years before 

 the Constitution took effect, and which the 

 Constitution was avowedly intended to make 

 'more perfect.' Those practical relations, for 

 all purposes of government under the Consti- 



