The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-10-23

the constitution they recognize, or upon
the true constitution, upon the spirit and
forms of their government, upon its ar
chives or property On the contrary, the
whole system as part of the Union sub
sists and is respected by the nation, and
only remains in allegiance where the rebels
hold sway by force of arms. 1t is against
this rebel organization, against the persons
and property, the means and instrument
alities of the rebels, that the United
States make war in defence of the loyal
men and loyal government.
The assumption that the certain States
OF the South are extinct annihilated by
the rebellion.-and that a Congress COM
posed of representatives from the States
in which the rebellion does not exist, has
the right to consider the sister republics
where insurrection for the moment pre-
walls, as dead bodies, to be disposed of as
they please when they get possession, is
abhorent to every principle on which the
Union was founded. No member of the
Union, nor the government of the whole,
can act upon any of the States but in the
mode prescribed in the constitution. They
are all bound to guarantee to each re-
publican form of government, and that is
a government adopted by the people, for
it is the essence OF republican government
that it shall emanate from the people of
the State.
The federal government derives it's pow
er from the same source, and it is on the
people and through the people that it
must act as nationality, and not upon
the states, blotting them out of existence
by a superstition, while their constitution,
laws, archieves, property, all survive-and
| loyal people to give them activity the
moment that constraint is thrown off,
The abolition programme assumes, no the
contrary, that, because violence has troll
den down state governments and state
rights, they have ceased to exist; that a
loyal people in whom they still survive
and have being, and to whom the United
States stands pledged to guarantee them
forever, must also have persisted and
that a Congress of the other states may
step in and take absolute authority
over the whole region as vacated states
and territories and legislate for it, found
this new usurpation upon fctions as absurd
as those on which the rebellion POUNDS
itself
The abolition programme ascribes all
our calamities "to the pestilent protection
of state rights" The discomfort with the
treaty between the United States and
Great Britain, called jays treaty, origin
ated in "pestilent state rights" The
famous resolutions of Virginia and those
of Kentucky, usually known as the resolu-
tons of '98, sprung from "pestilent state
rights" The Missouri controversy about
the prohibition Of slavery-the first South
Carolina Outbreak-the contest in Con-
gress about abolition petitions, about the
recognition of Hayti, about Texas, about
the Wilmot PrOviso, about the admission
of California, the discussion of the COM
promise of 1850, the Kansas question
call this audacity was in the name of
state rights"
If we except from this extravaganza list
charged to "pestilent state rights " the in
cipient treason of the South Carolina or.!i-
nance, there was nothing beyond the
wholesome discussions incident to parties
in free governments, in which State rights
made no resistance to national authority.
This denunciation of the party influence
derived through appeals to State rights
during this eventful and prosperous period
OF our history, proves that it proceeds from
a party hostile at heart to free debate, the
canvasses, the active employment of the
checks and balances of our complicated
system of national and State governments,
which are essential to the vitality Of all It's
parts, and enables all to take Just share
| ,f no nh; ob Ill
chinery. In their view, our history is a
pestilence from Washington's time till this
hour, when its is proposed to annihilate
State rights as the remedy.
We are told that this is effected first by
estate suicide. "The States themselves
committed suicide, so that as States they
ceased to exist, leaving their whole juris-
diction open to the occupation of the Uni
ted States under the constitution" Burke
is quoted to make good this position.
"When men," says Burke, therefore
break up the original compact of agree
ment which gives its corporate form and
capacity to State, they are no longer
people. They have no longer corporate
form of existence" &c. The programme
adds: eff that great master of eloquence
could be heard, who can doubt he would
blast our rebel States as senseless commu-
mites, who have sacrificed that corporate
existence which makes them living COM
ponent members of our Union of States ?"
Burke might blast "the rebel States"
but would he blast Missouri, Arkansas,
Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, and all
the rest of that noble sisterhood of States
which, with their loyal people, have in
succession been trodden under foot by
military force? Have the people who re-
sisted at the polls, and who still resist in
arms united with their brethren under the
flag Of the Union wherever it appears,
sacrificed that corporate existence which
Identifies themselves and their States as
"being component members of the Union?
Is not the Union and its Constitution
identified as "that corporate existence
with the States which makes them all
those trodden down and those standing up 4
component members of our Union of
States9 How can the Union, which is the
guaranty of the government of every re-
public of which it consists, admit, whilst
it lives, that any part of it is dead? 1t
does not admit it. 1t is at war in every