s support to the doctrine of
secession; for it accepts the results of secession, and supposes that
accomplished by the rebellion which the war is meant to thwart and
prevent, to wit, the disruption of the ties that bind the States and the
Nation together in one harmonious whole.

What are we fighting for? To restore constitutional order; to vindicate
'the sacredness of nationality.' In other words, to combat the principle
of secession, by force and arms, in its last appeal, just as we have
always combated and opposed it hitherto on the platform and in the
senate. But what right have we to oppose secession by coercion? The
right of self-preservation. For secession loosens the very corner-stone
of our Government, so that the whole arch falls, breaking the Union into
an infinity of wretched States. Admitting secession, our Constitution
is, indeed, no stronger than 'a rope of sand.' We fight to maintain the
Constitution as an Ordinance of Sovereignty (as it has been forcibly
styled) over the whole Nation. We must so maintain it, or surrender our
national existence. This being so, we cannot admit any such right as
secession; for that would be to sanction the revolutionary doctrine
that a body of men, usurping a State Government, and calling themselves
the State, can absolve their fellow citizens from their allegiance to
the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The rebel States are,
then, still members of the Union. Otherwise, we are waging an unjust
war. Otherwise we falsify and contradict the record of our Revolution,
and are striving to reduce to dependence a people who are equally
striving to maintain their independence. There is no justification for
this war save in the plea for the National Union; no warrant for it save
in the preservation of the Constitution, which is the palladium and
safeguard of the Nation. The Southern rebellion has usurped the
functions and powers of various State Governments: when it is
overthrown, the victims of its usurpation will be restored to their
former rights. _Their_ allegiance is still perfect. Nothing but their
own act can absolve them from it.

II. THEORY OF THE STATES AS ALIEN ENEMIES.

The advocates of the theory that the rebel States are foreign enemies,
and may be treated according to all the laws of war with foreign
nations, seek support for their views in the decision of the Supreme
Court rendered last March in the Hiawatha and other prize cases. The
question was rais