power, which so
eminently requires one secret and independent will. How little a
military force so fettered by civil authorities could accomplish can
hardly be fully realized but by those who, like the author, have
summered and wintered upon the 'dark and bloody ground' of the
rebellion. But, it will be asked, how are the rebel States to be
governed when the military power of the rebellion is crushed, and the
authority of the executive ceases with the necessity of war? No express
power is given by the Constitution to Congress to govern any other
territory than the District of Columbia, the dockyards, lighthouses, and
lands ceded to the United States for similar purposes, and the territory
not included in the several States, but belonging to the United States.
Under these three heads is included all the territory over which
Congress can claim jurisdiction by direct grant; and, by the
Constitution (Amendments, art. x.), 'the powers not delegated to the
United States, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' Unless, therefore, the rebel
States have lapsed into Territories, Congress can have no authority over
them, except the general powers which it may exercise over all the
States of the Union. The question then arises, and it seems to be purely
a legal one--have the rebel States lapsed into Territories?

We have already seen that the doctrine maintained by our Government is,
that the rebel States have not, by their ordinances of secession,
separated themselves from the Union, but that they are still _in_ the
Union. The ordinances of secession are, like any other unconstitutional
law, even supposing them to have been the will of the people (of which
we will speak hereafter), to be set aside by a competent tribunal, if
brought to the test at all. Their paper treason, then (to commit a
solecism), amounting only to so much waste of paper and ink, did the
overt act of firing upon the flag of the United States operate more
effectually to destroy the State identity? If they are incapable of
separating themselves from the nation, and if, as is clearly the case,
there is no power vested in the General Government to expel them from
the Union, from what source does the power or act arise which destroys
their identity? The rebel States are either _in_ the Union or _out_ of
it. We cannot claim that they are in the Union for the purpose of
enforcing submission, and then, when that