The error of the government is not in maintaining that these laws
survive the secession ordinances, and remain the territorial law,
or lex loci, but in maintaining that they do so by will of the
State, that has, as a State, really lapsed. They do so by will
of the United States, which enacted them through the individual
State, and which has not in convention abrogated them, save the
law authorizing slavery, and its dependent laws.
This point has already been made, but as it is one of the
niceties of the American constitution, it may not be amiss to
elaborate it at greater length. The doctrine of Mr. Jefferson,
Mr. Madison, and the majority of our jurists, would see to be
that the States, under God, are severally sovereign in all
matters not expressly confided to the General government, and
therefore that the American sovereignty is divided, and the
citizen owes a double allegiance--allegiance to his State, and
allegiance to the United States--as if there was a United States
distinguishable from the States. Hence Mr. Seward, in an
official dispatch to our minister at the court of St. James,
says: "The citizen owes allegiance to the State and to the United
States." And nearly all who hold allegiance is due to the Union
at all, hold that it is also due to the States, only that which
is due to the United States is paramount, as that under feudalism
due to the overlord.
Pages:
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298