ve
that these States have ever been out of the Union, or that they are now
out of the Union. I cannot believe that they ever have been, or are now,
in any sense a separate Power. If they were, sir, how and when did they
become so? They were once States of this Union--that every one concedes;
bound to the Union and made members of the Union by the Constitution
of the United States. If they ever went out of the Union it was at some
specific time and by some specific act. I regret that the gentleman from
Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) is not now in his seat. I should have been
glad to ask him by what specific act, and at what precise time, any one
of those States took itself out of the American Union. Was it by the
ordinance of secession? I think we all agree that an ordinance of
secession passed by any State of this Union is simply a nullity, because
it encounters in its practical operation the Constitution of the United
States, which is the supreme law of the land. It could have no legal,
actual force or validity. It could not operate to effect any actual
change in the relations of the State adopting it to the national
Government, still less to accomplish the removal of that State from the
sovereign jurisdiction of the Constitution of the United States.

Well, sir, did the resolutions of the States, the declarations of
their officials, the speeches of members of their Legislatures, or the
utterances of their press accomplish the result? Certainly not. They
could not possibly work any change whatever in the relations of these
States to the General Government. All their ordinances and all their
resolutions were simply declarations of a purpose to secede. Their
secession, if it ever took place, certainly could not date from the time
when their intention to secede was first announced. After declaring
that intention, they proceeded to carry it into effect. How? By war.
By sustaining their purpose by arms against the force which the United
States brought to bear against it. Did they sustain it? Were their arms
victorious? If they were, then their secession was an accomplished
fact. If not, it was nothing more than an abortive attempt--a purpose
unfulfilled. This, then, is simply a question of fact, and we all know
what the fact is. They did not succeed. They failed to maintain their
ground by force of arms--in other words, they failed to secede.

But the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Stevens) insists that they did
secede, and