Belief 5 - Reading 8 of 9, The Reconstruction Convention

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Belief 5 - Reading 8 of 9

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WHAT IS A STATE?

Harper's Weekly, November 25, 1865, page 739 (Editorial)

Whatever the differences of philosophy in the various views entertained of the present relation of the late rebel States to the Union, there are practically but two radically different opinions: one that of the late rebels themselves and the Northern Copperheads, which is, that the rebels in certain States having laid down their arms the States are by that fact restored to all their former rights and privileges in the Union; and the other that of the President and loyal men in all the States, which is, that they can resume their ancient position only by the consent of the government and upon such terms as it may impose. The grounds upon which this latter view is held are very many and even conflicting. But it would be difficult to find a clearer or stronger statement of one view than the one which we subjoin:

"A people having a government is, so long as it continues to have it, that kind of body politic which we call a State. So long and no longer, one year or a thousand years. While Rome had such Rome was a State, and Poland, and Algiers, and Naples, and Mexico of the Montezumas, and Peru of the Incas; but losing their governments, Peru and Mexico became possessions of Spain, and Naples of Victor Emanuel, and Algiers of France, and Poland of the partitioning powers, and Rome of the hundred nations and tribes that broke through her barriers. If the land they stood on had been submerged in the sea, those States would not have been more effectually destroyed than they were when their governments were overwhelmed by conquest.

"On the other hand, the Old Thirteen were mere colonies until they acquired governments, then they became States, and finally ratifying the Constitution, States in the Union. So all the new accessions except Texas were first Territories, then States, then, on admission, States in the Union. Just as well call a clock-case which never had machinery in it, or from which the machinery has been removed, a clock, as a people which never had a government, or whose government has been destroyed, a State. To do so is simply to change definitions. Land rising ten thousand feet above all other lands around is a mountain. Who, if it were to sink, leaving a lake in its place, would call it a mountain still?

"States in the Union differ from States out of it only in certain relations they bear to each other. These relations ceasing in fact as to any one or more States, the difference in fact ceases also, and such States are out of the Union. No doubt we lawyers often say very pretty things, and poetical too, about matters which have ceased in reality to exist, as still existing in contemplation of law; and the uninitiated think we mean something, they not reflecting that law is not an intelligent being, but a mere mandate issued by supreme authority, and therefore can never contemplate at all, though those who administer or talk about it may. Say, then, that the law contemplates or not what we will, if there be no government in fact, there is in fact no State, or where there are in fact no relations of unity there is in fact no union.

"Five years ago, then, South Carolina was a State in the Union. By force, and not by any cunning arrangements of the alphabet, she broke up those relations, one and all, expelled every officer, overthrew every law, seized every fort, and excluded every vessel of the United States. The other ten did substantially the same. Contemplation of the law! The fact of a union between them and the United States was as untrue as between—nay, more untrue—than between Japan and the United States. Not only was there total separation, but that separation was guarded by three hundred thousand men under arms. To call that union is simply to defy dictionary and common sense.

"But the eleven remained still States, for they maintained their respective governments. For a time. At length that long line of armed exterior was, as field after field was lost, driven back, and State after State overrun, their governments destroyed, their laws annulled, courts closed, and functionaries displaced, and generals and soldiers dispensed martial law alone under authority of the United States. Not a State government was left any more than after the fall of Algiers there was an Algerine government, or after that of King Bomba a Neapolitan government. Those geographical spaces, once States, are now possessions of the United States, won by conquest and held by the sword.

"It is only to States in the Union that the United States are to guarantee a republican form of government. These are not in but only belong to the Union as Utah belongs to it. And when or whether they shall become States in the Union is just as much in discretion as when or whether Utah shall become such.

"Congress has never created nor attempted to create a State even on our own territory. That is the work of the people. Congress can only ‘admit’ States already existing. Tennessee I suppose to be such an inchoate State, just as California and Michigan and all the other new States were such, having formed governments in fact on national territory by national sufferance. When admitted, this sufferance hardens into a title good against the United States in all circumstances except disunion by force. In war, the grand assize of nations, municipal law furnishes no rule and the strongest take the verdict, and the vanquished are at mercy, with not a right on earth except rights to the wisdom and humanity of the victors.

"That is the condition of all the eleven now. And the whole subject of what is wise and what is humane is as much open in regard to them as is the question of what is wise and humane in regard to the District of Columbia, where Congress has power of exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, limited only by amendments to the Constitution.

"These things being so, then,

"1. The States that remained loyal are the whole United States.

"2. The Constitutional Amendment abolishing slavery has been adopted.

"3. Considering the extent of the Union majority in both Houses of Congress and the like majority inI nearly every State Legislature, there should be instant action toward other amendments whereby distinctions of race before the law, and before all laws, may be obliterated, the anomalies in the present system of representation corrected, and some order and some limits imposed on military courts.

"No more important subjects than these are likely soon to arise, nor a better tie to dispose of them well soon to occur."

Harper's Weekly, November 25, 1865, page 739 (Editorial)

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