nt. The
local government is as much set aside in one case as in the other. If
the President, within State limits, can proceed to organize a military
government to exercise all the powers of the State, surely Congress can
proceed to organize a civil government within the same limits for the
same purpose; nor can any pretension of State Rights be effective
against Congress more than against the President. Indeed, the power
belongs to Congress by a higher title than it belongs to the President:
first, because a civil government is more in harmony with our
institutions, and, wherever possible, is required; and, secondly,
because there are provisions of the Constitution under which this power
is clearly derived.

Assuming, then, that the pretension of State Rights is as valid against
one form of government as against the other, and still further assuming,
that, in the case of military governments, this pretension is
practically overruled by the President at least, we are brought again to
consider the efficacy of this pretension when advanced against
Congressional governments.

It is argued that the Acts of Secession are all inoperative and void,
and that therefore the States continue precisely as before, with their
local constitutions, laws, and institutions in the hands of traitors,
but totally unchanged, and ready to be quickened into life by returning
loyalty. Such, I believe, is a candid statement of the pretension for
State Rights against Congressional governments, which, it is argued,
cannot be substituted for the State governments.

In order to prove that the Rebel States continue precisely as before, we
are reminded that Andrew Johnson continued to occupy his seat in the
Senate after Tennessee had adopted its Act of Secession, and embarked in
rebellion, and that his presence testified to the fact that Rebel
Tennessee was still a State of the Union. No such conclusion is
authorized by the incident in question. There are two principles of
Parliamentary law long ago fixed: first, that the power once conferred
by an election to Parliament is _irrevocable_, so that it is not
affected by any subsequent change in the constituency; and, secondly,
that a member, when once chosen, is _a member for the whole kingdom_,
becoming thereby, according to the words of an early author, not merely
knight or burgess of the county or borough which elected him, but knight
or burgess of England.[18] If these two principles are not entire