The analogy borrowed from the Roman constitution, as far as
applicable, proves the reverse of what is intended. The dominus
of the sacred territory was the city, or the Roman state, not the
sacred territory itself. The territory received the tenant, and
gave him as tenant the right to a seat in the senate; but the
right of the territory was derived not from the domain, but from
the dominus, that is, the city. But the city could revoke its
grant, as it practically did when it conferred the privileges of
Roman citizenship on the provincials, and gave to plebeians seats
in the senate. Moreover, nothing in Roman history indicates that
to the validity of a senatus consultum it was necessary to count
the vacant domains of the sacred territory. The particular
domain must, under the American system, be counted when it is
held by a State, but of itself alone, or even with its
population, it is not a State, and therefore as a State domain is
vacant and without any political rights or powers whatever.
To argue that the territory and population once a State in the
Union must needs always be so, would be well enough if a State in
the Union were individually a sovereign state; for territory,
with its population not subject to another, is always a sovereign
state, even though its government has been subverted. But this
is not the fact, for territory with its population does not
constitute a State in the Union; and, therefore, when of a State
nothing remains but territory and population, the State has
evidently disappeared.
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