of the rebellion
seek to crush, by whatever means, those who are

'Faithful among the faithless found.'

But, supposing for the moment that the majority of the citizens of the
rebel States are, of their own free will, participators in the
rebellion; where is the grant of power to Congress to establish a
government in any of the rebel States? No clause of the Constitution
gives it; and by the express terms of that instrument, 'all powers not
granted by it to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively or to THE PEOPLE.' But, while no
such power is granted by the Constitution to the Federal Government, it
is, we think, strictly forbidden by that clause of the instrument which
declares that 'the United States shall guarantee to every State in this
Union a republican form of government.' Would this injunction be
complied with if Congress were to establish, directly, a government of
its own over the rebel States? Would it not rather be a transgression of
the provision? The essential nature of a republican government is that
it is elective; but a Congressional government would be directly the
reverse; for it takes the power from the hands of the people and places
it in the hands of the national council. Mark the form of the
expression, too, that the republican form of government is to be
guaranteed, not merely by Congress or the executive, but by the _United
States_; as if to pledge the whole power of the nation, of whatever
kind, to protect this priceless blessing, through all coming time, to
the use and benediction of all ages. Notice, too, to whom the guarantee
runs--not to the territory now composing the State, but to the State its
very self--_ei ipsi_; as if the Constitution could not contemplate such
a thing as a State being struck out of existence, under whatever phrase,
whether of 'State forfeiture,' 'State suicide,' or 'State abdication,'
even if treason were attempted by those in power. The Constitution still
terms it _a State_. Is not the present precisely the event, or rather
one of the events, which it contemplates and provides for? The doctrine
of 'State Rights,' whether as contemplated and maintained by Calhoun in
the days of Nullification, or as declared by Jefferson Davis and his
compeers in treason, we abhor utterly, whenever and wherever it may lift
its serpent head, and whether supported by Southern men with Southern
principles, or by Northern men with no prin