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DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

OF THE

UNITED STATES.

BY JOEL PARKER.

CAMBRIDGE:

WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY,

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

MEMORANDUM. The substance of the first part of the following Tract was contained in a Lecture delivered to the students in the Law School of Harvard College, by the author, as Royall Professor of Law in that Institution, on the 25th of June, 1861. Subsequent events have led to an enlargement of it, and to its publication in the January number of the North American Review. It is now issued as a separate Article, a single paragraph being omitted because it was little more than a repetition of what was expressed elsewhere, and some Notes being added in an Appendix.

CAMBRIDGE, January 1,1862.

THE DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN RELATIONS

OF THE

UNITED STATES.

Ir may be stated as a result of our examination of the alleged Right of Secession, that the people of the several States composing the United States, under the Constitution, -whether that instrument be regarded as an organic law, or as a compact,—form an entire Nation, for the purposes for which they are thus united; while under their State organizations they exercise many powers of sovereignty, of a political and municipal character, some of which are subordinate to the powers of the General government, and others independent of that government because they do not fall within the scope of the purposes for which it was organized, and all "powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

This nation has, for the accomplishment of the objects of its existence, all the attributes of sovereignty. The Constitutionproviding that itself shall be the supreme law of the land, and binding upon all the judges of the several States, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwith standing; requiring all the legislators, and executive and judicial officers of the United States, and of the several States, to take an oath or affirmation to support it; and defining what

State or Confederate authority, under color of which they were committed. There were millions of people in India engaged in a war against the government of Great Britain, within a short period; and most of them acted under the orders of persons who stood to them in the relation of kings and princes, for certain purposes, having recognized authority for such purposes, but who had no authority for the objects and purposes of such a war; and they were all, kings, princes, and sepoys, held alike as rebels against the paramount government, their guilt differing only in degree, according to the circumstances of enormity attending it. We do not inquire into the causes of that revolt, when we consider the case in its political and legal aspects in regard to the United States. That is a matter between the persons engaged in it and Great Britain. The government of the United States has nothing to dread from such an inquiry, in the present instance; but other nations will not enter into that inquiry, and it is foreign to our immediate purpose.

We perceive, therefore, that the criticism upon the proclamation of the President requiring the rebels to disperse, that it addressed its command in fact to millions, and that it was preposterous to require such large numbers, like an ordinary mob, to retire to their places of abode; and that other criti'cism which assumed that the States were the actors in the warfare which was waged, and that the statute and the proclamation could not apply, because the States had no abodes to retire to, fail entirely of their intended force. Rebels may form political associations for themselves, and may assume to have a government for which they ask and claim recognition. They may, as between themselves, wield the powers of a State government, if they can usurp the State authority, and use it as if they were the rightful possessors of it. They may thus have a government de facto, and it may be, as among themselves, de jure also. But all this does not change their legal relations to the government against which they are in arms, until they

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