The Portland daily press., 1866-01-09
The Position of the Rebel states.


The Concord, N. e., Independent Democrat,
has a sensible article on this "vexed question:
the substance of which will make up better
article than we can write, and so we have
condensed it for the readers ofthe Press.
In the press, in Congress and in the lecture
room, much is being said as to the present sta
tus of the States lately in insurrection against
the government of the United States. "They
seeded, says one. They tried to seeded, and
could not, says another. To allow that they
did secede, is to assert their right to secede,
says third. If they did not secede, says
fourth, then they are in the Union as much as
ever, and entitled to claim all the RIGHTS, in
cluding representation in both houses of Con-
| gress, which loyal States may claim. The
rebel States committed suicide and have no
more an existence as States, says number five. ?
No such thing, says number six; and 50 on to
the end of the chapter. re
o SNOW, If the question were one of mere
metaphysics, which words could settle, these
| various theories and statements as to the logi-
cal and theoretical effect of the rebellion
ON the rebel States, would possess all the i'm
portance which their several champions at
tach to them. Unfortunately, the rebellion
being great fact, its consequences were and
are facts also. And as words could not put down
the rebellion, so words cannot annihilate the
consequences of the rebellion. We may waste
our breath in weaving fine-spun theories as
much as we wish. They amuse, perhaps
perplex, somebody; but they settle moth
ing. Reconstruction is still fact, as really so
as the rebellion ITSELF As such it must be
met. %
| "Be it that the States seeded or not-com-
mitted suicide or motor that they remain in
condition which was neither life nor death;
the fact still stands out patent to all the world,
that the people of those States rebelled against
/ and made war upon the Federal Union and
Constitution. By those acts they forfeited all
their rights and privileges in the Union, and
under the Constitution Having repudiated
their relations to the Union, and appealed to
the law of the strongest, by that law they
must abide. In the entire eleven States COM
prising what was known as the Confederate
States OF America, there was no shadow or
fgment of a political organization which was
not arrayed in moral hostility to the United
States. And when the Confederacy went
down, all the political organizations within its
limits went down with it. The whole, con-
csrn, with all its effects and incidents, lay at
the mercy OF the conquerer.
| $50 much is indisputable. Be 1t or not that
there existed in some indefnable place the
metaphysical entity OF a State without a peo-
pie; it is very certain that such State suStain-
ed no practical relations to the Union or Fed
eral Constitution. Aud it was upon this self
evident fact that all the military and civil au-
thorities proceeded. As a conquered people
the rebels were required to receive tue law
from their conquerors. Without any specific
authority in the letter of the Constitution, the
President assumed to send them governors,
magistrates, sheiiffs, and all he, officials re-
mired to establish and maintain order in the
districts recently owning allegiance to the So
called Confeleracy. And these governors and
magistrates, the President, still acting without
any specific authority of law or Constitution,
has continued or relieved in his discretion.
@Now, do not all these proceedings rest upon
the assumption that the rebel States ceased
to exist as members of the Federal Unions
Upon any other theory was not the President
usurper, acting not merely without authori-
ty, but in violation of the Constitution? Is
he not still such in relation to the States still
under the rule of his extra judicial and extra
constitutional governors? Rejecting all hair
shifting theories, has not the President him
self given a solution OF all the vexed questions
at issue? 1t seems so to US. He has claimed
and exercised that right to say how, and how