ins and penalties of
treason, but they retained none of the political rights of the State in
the Union, and, in reorganizing the State after the suppression of the
rebellion, they have no more right to take part than the secessionists
themselves. They, as well as the secessionists, have followed the
territory. It was on this point that the government committed its
gravest mistake. As to the reorganization or reconstruction of the
State, the whole territorial people stood on the same footing.

Taking the decision of the Supreme Court as conclusive on the subject,
the rebellion was territorial, and, therefore, placed all the States as
States out of the Union, and retained them only as population and
territory, under or subject to the Union. The States ceased to exist,
that is, as integral elements of the national sovereignty. The
question then occurred, are they to be erected into new States, or are
they to be reconstructed and restored to the Union as the identical old
States that seceded? Shall their identity be revived and preserved, or
shall they be new States, regardless of that identity? There can be no
question that the work to be done was that of restoration, not of
creation; no tribe should perish from Israel, no star be struck from
the firmament of the Union. Every inhabitant of the fallen States, and
every citizen of the United States must desire them to be revived and
continued with their old names and boundaries, and all true Americans
wish to continue the constitution as it is, and the Union as it was.
Who would see old Virginia, the Virginia of revolutionary fame, of
Washington, Jefferson, Madison, of Monroe, the "Old Dominion," once the
leading State of the Union, dead without hope of resurrection? or South
Carolina, the land of Rutledge, Moultrie, Laurens, Hayne, Sumter, and
Marion? There is something grating to him who values State
associations, and would encourage State emulation and State pride, in
the mutilation of the Old Dominion and the erection within her borders
of the new State called West Virginia. States in the Union are not
mere prefectures, or mere dependencies on the General government,
created for the convenience of administration. They have an
individual, a real existence of their own, as much so as have the
individual members of society. They are free members, not of a
confederation indeed, but of a higher political community, and
reconstruction should restore the identity of t