uthority has the federal
government, under this decision, for coercing them into
subjection or refusing them a separation, if all these voters in
the States desired an independent existence? None whatever. Mr.
Garfield, in the House, in his speech last March, calls attention
to this subject, but does not allude to the fact that the Supreme
Court has already opened the door. He says:

There are several ways in which our government may be
annihilated without the firing of a gun. For example,
suppose the people of the United States should say, we will
elect no representatives to congress. Of course this is a
violent supposition; but suppose that they do not. Is there
any remedy? Does our constitution provide any remedy
whatever? In two years there would be no House of
Representatives; of course, no support of the government and
no government. Suppose, again, the States should say,
through their legislatures, we will elect no senators. Such
abstention alone would absolutely destroy this government;
and our system provides no process of compulsion to prevent
it. Again, suppose the two houses were to assemble in their
usual order, and a majority of one in this body or in the
Senate should firmly band themselves together and say, we
will vote to adjourn the moment the hour of meeting arrives,
and continue so to vote at every session during our two
years of existence--the government would perish, and there
is no provision of the constitution to prevent it.

The States may inform their representatives that they can do
this; and, under this position, they have the power and the right
so to do.

Gentlemen, we are now on the verge of one of the most important
presidential campaigns. The party in power holds its reins by a
very uncertain tenure. If the decision shall favor the one which
has been on the anxious bench for lo! these twenty years, and in
probation until hope has well-nigh departed, what may be its
action if invested again with the control of the destinies of
this nation? The next party in power may inquire, and answer, by
what right and how far the Southern States are bound by the
legislation in which they had no part or consent. And if the