Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1863-08-11
WORCESTER.

ligerents have become territorial enemies, in
stantly annuls all rights or claims of public en-
emes against the United States, under the
constitution or laws, whether that constitution
be called compact, treaty, or covenant,
and whether the parties to it were states, in
their sovereign capacity, or the people of the
United States as individuals.
Any other result would be as incomprehen-
sible as it would be mischievous. public
enemy cannot, lawfully, claim the right of
entering congress, and voting down the mea-
sures taken to subdue him! Why not? Be.
cause he is public enemy; because, by be-
coming public enemy, he has annulled and
lost his rights in the governments and can
never regain them, except by our consent.
If the inhabitants Of large part of the nnion
have, by becoming public enemies, surrend-
cred and annulled their former rights, the
question arises can they recover them2 Such
rights cannot be regained by reason of their
having ceased to fight The character of a
public enemy having once been stamped upon
them by the laws of war, remains fixed until
it shall have been, by our consent, removed.
To stop fighting does not make them cease
to be public enemies, because they may have
laid down their arms for want of powder, not
for want of will. Peace does not restore the
noble dead who have fallen Il sacrifice to trea-
son. Nor does it revive the rights once cx-
tinguished by civil, terrible war. The land
OF the anton belongs to the people of the
United States, subject to the rights of ind-
vidual ownership. Each person nhabiting
those sections of the country declared by
the presidents proclamation to be in rebellion,
has the right to what belongs to public enc
my, and no more. lie can have no right to
take any part in our government That right
does not belong to an enemy of the country,
while lie is wagng war or after he has been
subdued. public enemy has right to par
tlclpate In or to assume the government of
the United States only when he has conquered
the United States. We find in this well set
tied doctrine of beligerent Law the solution of
all questions in relation to state rights After
the inhabitants of district have become pub
lie enemies they have no rights. either state
or personal, against the United States. They
are bclligerents only, and have left to them
only beligerent rights.
Suppose all the inhabitants living in South
Carolina should be swept off, so that solitude
should reign throughout its borders unbrokcn
by any living thing, would the state rights of
South Carolina still exist as attached to the
land itself? Can there be "A sovereignty with
out people, or state without inhabltants2
State rights, so far as they concern the Union
are the rights of persons members of
state, in relation to the general government;
and when the person has become public en-
envy, then he loses all rights except the rights
of war. And when all the inhabitants have
(hy engaging in civil, territorial war; become
public enemies, ii is the same in legal effect,
Us though the inhabitants had been annihilated.
SO far as this government is concerned, civil
war obliterates all lines of states or coun.
tries; the only lines recognized by war are
the lines which separate us from public
enemy.
l do not place reliance upon the common
law doctrine of foTfetures of franchises as APP
piicable 10 this revolution, for forfeiture can
be founded only upon the admission OF the
validity of the act in which forfeiture is found
ed. Nor does the belligercnt law of civil,
territorial war, whereby public enemy loses
bis rights as a citizen, admit the right of Sc
cession. 1t is not any vote or law of seccs
sion which makes an individual public
enemy. person may commit hcinOuS Of
fences against municipal law, and commit acts
OF hostility against the government, without
being public enemy. To be personal enc
my is not to lie IA public enemy to the country
in the eye of 5clligerent or international law.
Whose engages in aninsurrcction is a personal
enemy, but it is not un il that inSurrection has
swelled into territorial war, lie becomes a
public enemy.
1t must also be remembered that the right
of secession is not conceded by enforcement
of beligerent law, since, in civil war, a nation
has the right to treat its citizens either as sub
jects or as belligcrents, Or as both. Hence,
while belllgerent law destroys all claims of
subjects engaged in civil war, against the
parent government, it does not release the
subject from his duties to that government.
BY war the subject loses his rights, but does
not escape his obligations. The inhabitants
of the conquered districts will thus lose their 1
right to gOre,n us, but will not escape their
obligations to obey us. Whatever rights are
left to them besides the rights of war, will be
such as we choose to allow them. 1t is for
lis to dictate to them, and not for them to
dictate to us, what privileges they shall ENJOY.
Among the war measures sanctioned by the
president, to which he has, more than once,
pledged his sacred honor, and which congress
has enforced by solemn laws, is the liberation
of slaves. The government has invited them
to share the dangers, the honor, and the adj
vantages of sustaining the Union, and has
pledged itself to the world for their freedom.
Whatever disasters may bctall our arms,
whatever foundations may be in store for us,
it is earnestly hoped that we may be saved
the unfathomabe infamy of breaking the ma
liens and slaves in the Union.
Now if the rebellious states shall attempt to
return to the Union with constitutions guar
anteeing the perpetuity of slavery; if the
laws of those states shall be again revived and
put in force against free blacks and slaves, we
shall at once have renstated in the Union, in
all its force and wickedness, that very curse
which has brought on the war and all its ter
rible train of sufferings. The war is fought
by Shareholders for the perpetuity of slavery.
Shall we hand over to them, at the end of the
war, just what they have been fighting for?
Shall all our blood and treasure be spilled
uselessly upon the ground? Shall the coun-
try not protect itself against the evil which
has caused all our woes? Will you breathe
new life into the strangled serpent, when,
without your aid, he will perish?
If you cOncede state rights to your enemies,
what security can you have that traitors will
not pass state laws which will render the posi-
ton of the blacks, intolerable; or reduce
then, all to SLaUery? Would it be honorable
on the part of the United States to Tree these
men and then hand them over to the tender
mercy of slave law? Will it be possible that
state slave laws should exist and be enforced
by slave states, without overriding the rights
guaranteed by the United States law to men,
irrespective of color, in the slave states? Will
you run the risk of these angry collisions of
state and national laws while you have the
remedies and antidote in your own hands?
One of two things should be done in order
to keep faith with the country and save us from
obvious peril. Allow the inhabitants of con-