hem. In order, therefore, to know what is before
us, let us first see where we stand.

The London "Times" informs the people of England, that "the resolution
of the North to crush Secession by force involves a denial of the right
of each one of the seceding States to determine the conditions of its
own national existence." Precisely so. It involves all that; but the
whole fact comprehends a great deal more. Not one of the States of the
American Union has any national existence, or ever had any, in the sense
in which the "Times" uses the phrase. Not one of them has any of the
functions or qualities of a nation. In the case of the greater part of
the States in which the rebellion exists, the United States bought and
paid for the territory which they occupy, made States of them under its
own Constitution and laws, upon certain conditions made irrevocable
by the act which created them, and reserved the forts, arsenals, and
custom-houses which their treasonable citizens have since undertaken
to steal. The fundamental idea of the American system is local
self-government for local purposes, and national unity for national
purposes. Our national union is synonymous with our national existence.
When we speak of sovereign and independent States, the phrase has no
other just meaning than that each State is independent of every other in
all matters exclusively appertaining to its own powers and duties, and
sovereign upon all subjects which have not been committed exclusively
to the jurisdiction of the Federal Government. Any encroachment by the
Government of the United States upon the lawful jurisdiction of the
several States would be resisted as a usurpation; but the "reserved
rights" of the States, _ex vi termini_, cannot include any of the
attributes of power which the people of the whole country have conferred
upon the Union. But further,--and this is a point of great practical
importance,--the Federal Government has no relation to the several
States as States, and they have no relations to it, or to each other,
except so far as these relations are expressly defined and specified in
the National Constitution. Beyond these, the authority and jurisdiction
of the nation address themselves and are applied to the individual
citizens of all the States alike. "The king can do no wrong," is the
maxim of English law. A State of the American Union cannot secede, or
commit treason, or make war upon the United States. So the United States