of repelling
and suppressing them were wisely provided for in the Constitution; but
it was not thought necessary to declare that the States in which they
might occur should be expelled from the Union. Rebellions, which were
invariably suppressed, occurred prior to that out of which these
questions grow; but the States continued to exist and the Union remained
unbroken. In Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, in Rhode Island, and in New
York, at different periods in our history, violent and armed opposition
to the United States was carried on; but the relations of those States
with the Federal Government were not supposed to be interrupted or
changed thereby after the rebellious portions of their population were
defeated and put down. It is true that in these earlier cases there was
no formal expression of a determination to withdraw from the Union, but
it is also true that in the Southern States the ordinances of secession
were treated by all the friends of the Union as mere nullities and are
now acknowledged to be so by the States themselves. If we admit that
they had any force or validity or that they did in fact take the States
in which they were passed out of the Union, we sweep from under our feet
all the grounds upon which we stand in justifying the use of Federal
force to maintain the integrity of the Government.

This is a bill passed by Congress in time of peace. There is not
in any one of the States brought under its operation either war or
insurrection. The laws of the States and of the Federal Government are
all in undisturbed and harmonious operation. The courts, State and
Federal, are open and in the full exercise of their proper authority.
Over every State comprised in these five military districts, life,
liberty, and property are secured by State laws and Federal laws, and
the National Constitution is everywhere in force and everywhere obeyed.
What, then, is the ground on which this bill proceeds? The title of the
bill announces that it is intended "for the more efficient government"
of these ten States. It is recited by way of preamble that no legal
State governments "nor adequate protection for life or property" exist
in those States, and that peace and good order should be thus enforced.
The first thing which arrests attention upon these recitals, which
prepare the way for martial law, is this, that the only foundation
upon which martial law can exist under our form of government is not
stated or so much