ause such is presumed by the courts to be the will
of the new sovereign. The principle applies in the case of the death
of a State in the Union. The laws of the State are territorial, till
abrogated by competent authority, remain the lex loci, and are in full
force. All that would be vacated would be the public rights of the
State, and in no case the private rights of citizens, corporations, or
laws affecting them.

But the same conclusion is reached in another way. In the lapse of a
State or its return to the condition of a Territory, there is really no
change of sovereignty. The sovereignty, both before and after, is the
United States. The sovereign authority that governs in the State
government, as we have seen, though independent of the General
government, is the United States. The United States govern certain
matters through a General government, and others through particular
State governments. The private rights and interests created,
regulated, or protected by the particular State, are created,
regulated, or protected by the United States, as much and as plenarily
as if done by the General government, and the State laws creating,
regulating, or protecting them can be abrogated by no power known to
the constitution, but either the State itself, or the United States in
convention legally assembled. If this were what is meant by the States
that have seceded, or professed to secede, remaining States in the
Union, they would, indeed, be States still in the Union,
notwithstanding secession and the government would be right in saying
that no State can secede. But this is not what is meant, at least not
all that is meant. It is meant not only that the private rights of
citizens and corporations remain, but the citizens retain all the
public rights of the State, that is, the right to representation in
Congress and in the electoral college, and the right to sit in the
convention, which is not true.

But the correction of the misapprehension that the private rights and
interests are lost by the lapse of the State may remove the graver
prejudices against the doctrine of State suicide, and dispose loyal and
honest Union men to bear the reasons by which it is supported, and
which nobody has refuted or can refute on constitutional grounds. A
Territory by coming into the Union becomes a State; a State by going
out of the Union becomes a Territory.

CHAPTER XIII.

RECONSTRUCTION.

The question of recons