can not confer
authority over a matter that has no existence. If, then, the
United States has no voters in the States, it can properly have
nothing to do with the subject of elections. If the citizen of
the United States has no right to vote except as a citizen of a
State, his Federal citizenship is, of course, subordinated to his
State citizenship. It logically follows that much of the recent
legislation on this subject by Congress is destitute of
authority. If members of the House of Representatives are elected
by State voters, as here declared, there is no reason why the
States may not, at their pleasure, recall their representatives,
or refuse to elect them, as in 1860 the Southern States claimed
it to be their right to do; and if a sufficient number can be
united in such a movement, the Federal Government will be
completely at their mercy. It may also well be doubted how far
the Southern States are bound by legislation in which they had no
part. Notwithstanding the provision of the XIV. Amendment, that
neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any
claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; it (as held by
the Supreme Court in two cases in 13th Wallace, Chief Justice
Chase dissenting), contracts for the sale or hire of slaves
effected before emancipation are valid, upon the ground that to
take away the remedy for their enforcement would be to impair
their obligation, how much less can the owner of a slave be
deprived of his property, which forms the subject-matter of that
contract, without compensation? If his contract can not be
impaired, surely the thing to which that contract relates can not
be taken from him, except upon compensation. Chief Justice Chase
was of the opinion that the above quoted provision of the XIV.
Amendment could be sustained only upon the ground that the XIII.
Amendment wiped out everything, contracts as well as slavery. Yet
the Court held all such contracts to be valid. And see, in this
connection, the case of Wilkinson _vs_. Leland, 2d Peters, 657.
It is idle to say that these suppositions are visionary. What has
happened once, may occur again. It can hardly be questioned that
if in 1860 the seceding States could have pointed to a decision
of the Supreme Court of the United States such as thi