Mr. JOHNSON. I will not turn to the report, because it may not be correctly reported. but my memory is very distinct, as far as the report is concerned. But, now is there not a distinction? Is there not some difficulty arising from the fact that the Government of the U.S. is not a Government over the State at all? The Government of the U.S and the government of the State are equally, as far as the people of that State are concerned, the government of the people of that State. They owe allegiance to a certain extent to the Government of the U.S.; they owe allegiance to a much greater extent to the government of the State. The General Government cannot get on without the States. The States are not only a component but an essential part of the General Government. Blot them out, and the Government is at an end: blot them out, and these seats must be vacated, and the other Hall be left desolate. Nobody can deny that. We could not vote ourselves in permanent session, I suppose. If not, our time expires; and how are our places to be filled? If anyone State is left, or any 2 or 3 States are left, there will be some 3 or 4 or live or 6 Senators. Is that the Government our fathers designed? How is the judicial Dept of the Government to exercise its unctions? It has no courts in those States if they have ceased to be States; if they areter v ritories, there is an end to the judicial system, so far as those Territories and the people who are to be found within their limits are concerned. In the case of Canter vs. The American Insurance Company, (1 Peters) which has been very often before this body, and brought to the attention of the public as demonstrating the authority of Congress to regulate, even by abolishing, slaver in the Territories, this question was decide. The case is pregnant with instruction upon various points in this debate. It arose in this way: a vessel was wrecked upon the coast of Florida, then a territory, and the cargo and the vessel, in part, were rescued, and the salvors filed a petition in the admiralty court of Florida, a court constituted by the Territorial Legislature of Florida for the sale of the property to pay them the amount of their salvage, and it was sold. The property came into the hands of the purchaser and he carried it to SCarolina. Upon the wreck of the vessel the insured abandoned to the underwriter, and the underwriter, when the property came into the port of charleston, sued the person in whose possession it was to recover it, and he defended himself upon the round that the decree under which it was sol was a legitimate decree. The Supreme Court came to that conclusion. Among otherpbjections to the validity of that decree was this: the court in Florida consisted of judges appointed for a limited time, whereas the courts known to the U.S. under the Constitution of the U.S. were composed of judges holding office during good behavior; and it was clear that if what had been done was done under the judiciary clause of the Constitution of the U.S. the sale was void, because the court was unconstitutional. Chief Justice Marshall said: “ It has been contended that. by the Constitution. the judicial power of the U.S. extendsto all cues of ndinirnlty and maritimcjurisdiction, and that the whole of thisjudicial power must be vestedin one SupremeCourt and in such inferior courtsasCon ress shall from time to time ordain and establish. once it has beenargued that Congresscannot vest admiralty jurisdiction in courts createdby the Territo“rial Legislature. We have only to pursue this subject one step further to perceivethat thisprovision of the Constitution does not apply to it. The next sentence declaresthat the judges, both of the supremeand inferior courts shall hold their officesduring good hchavior. The judges of the superior courts of Florida hold their officesfor 4 years. these courts. then. are not constitutional courts, in which the udicial power conferredbythe Constitution on the general Government can be deposited. They areincapable of recciving it." Now, let we apply this to what I have just stated. If it be so, why are your courts now in those States vested with the judicial authority conferred by the Constitution of the U.S., exercising all their functions, administering justice as between man and man in those cases in which jurisdiction is conferred upon them by the Constitution? Why are they there? Only because they are still States. lhe moment you strike them down from the elevated character of States to the subordinate character of Territories, at once the jiidicial authority of the U.S. ceases Within their lim its; any yet what is the Supreme Court doing? Whatdid they do the other day unanimously With the exception of the Chief Jiistice? They are receiving new records from the decisions of the courts in those States and the are hearing them. By a special order, passed a few days since, they directed that parties whose cases were here from the States lately in rebellion should have a rirht, if they applied for its enjoyment, to havetieir cases heard in advance, they havmg1 lost their priority only because of the war, an the court ld that, e war ended, the judicial authority of the U.S. at once attached; and if by the doctrine of Canter vs. The American Insurance Company be sound, (and nobody can dispute it; nobody, certainly, in the past has dis. puted it) if the judicial authority contained in the Constitution is an authority conferred only upon the courts with reference to the U.S. as contradistinguished from the Territories, the Supreme Court could only have come to the conclusion that those cases were to be heard now and decided now, because they were of opinion that those States are now States of the nion. It is always agreeable to have the en.port of a friend on all political questions. but did the Senfrom Ohio, the same Senator to whom I have alluded before, [Mr. WADE] think was the condition of these States? He was very anxious to have passed the bill that was passed in the HoRep and came here for our approval in the summer of 1864 a bill so 010 nently defended by the late member from Bdltimore, Mr. Davis, and it was proposed here to amend it. It was obnoxious to objection on the part of some. It did not provide that there should be no distinction on account of color; and that scemed to touch the sensibility of my friendfrom Massachusetts. Among other things he said, true to his doctrine, that these States had blotted themselves out of existence, if we had not blotted them; and he was answered in this way by the honorable member from Ohio: “ It has beencontendedin the HoRep. it has been contended upon this floor, that the States may lose their organization. may lose their rights as States may lose their corporate capacity by rebellion. I utterly deny that doctrine. I old that once a State of this Union always a State; that you cannot by wrong and violence displace the rights of anybodyor disorganize theState. It would be amost hazardous principle to assert that." Counrcaaional Globe, 3Big 1h(lmgreaaJfi alsession, p.350. Now, as to this right of war. War, sa 5 my friendfrom Maine, though it be a civi war, carries with it all belligerent rights. It does carry all belligerent rights that are not incon sistentwith the character of the parties engaged in the war. What sort of a war is it that we are supposed to have been walging against these insur cuts, this civilWar, as e imagines it to have been? Was it a war of Conquest? Could it be a war of conquest? If it was, it would have been the most extraordinary conquest that ever was made: it would have been a Government conquering itself. The States are a part of itself. Its existence depends upon the existence of the States. You cannot elect a president without the States; you cannot elect members of the HoRep without the Statesyou cannot elect members of the Senate without the States. Then to suppose that, under the authority to suppress insurrections, however those insurrections may be car ried on, into whatever magnitude they may cul minate, is to enable the Government to destroy the States under the doctrine of conquest, is to hold the doctrine that the Government can conquer itself. Whoever heard of that? What! the Government of the U.S. conquer States, and, hyvirtue of that conquest, extinguish the States! You might as well attempt to conquer the President; perhaps that may be done one of these days, sooner or later; or the President might as well attempt to conquer congress; that may be done; and some people thing: perhaps, that it ought to be done; but what is the result of either? The Government is either fatally destroyed or seriously wounded. A power, then, conferred on Congress to reserve is a power which Congress has a rightto exert for t ie purpose of destroying. A power to be exerted merely for the purpose of vindicating the authority of the Constitution and the laws, seeing that they are faithfully observed by those who are bound to observe them, is an authority which, with reference to the people upon whom it is exercised, may be so carried on as to destroy the authority and the laws. Can that be so? What is the meaning of the book? [Holding up Vattel.] My friend did not read it. He only did me the credit to say that [was familiar with the whole doctrine, and he kindly intimated that the propositions for Which he contended were to be found in a book under his hand. That was all I heard of it. If my brother, professional and senatorial, had read the book he would have found, I think, that it contains no such doctrine. You can acquire that is the chapter of Vattel to which he called my attention you can acquire property hyconquest; butI speak, as I think, understandingly, not only staudingupon the authority of Vattel, but upon the authority of every writer upon the law of nations with whichI am at all familiar when I say that nowhere do any of them maintain the proposition that a Government can conquer itself. One nation carrying on war against another may obtain its territory, its people, byouc of 2 modes, either by conquest effected by absolute subjugation, or bv treat in dependent of actual conquest; but when a government wages war as against its own citizens. no matter what may he the form of government, be it monarchical, be it imperial, be it democratic, the result is the same. If it carries on war against its own citizens, it may, ifthe war is carried on to a successful termination, punish the men who have been engaged in it; but the country remains; no title to the country is obtained by conquest. Whatever riaht it lies in such a contingency is the right with which it started. That original right was suspended by force of arms; the arms subdued, the suspension ceases, and the Government stands as it stood when the war originated, having but the one country under the one Government; and whatever may be The form of government, if it carries on the war to a successful result, all that it has a right to do is to punish the individual parties who have been concerned in the opposition to its authority. I read from Vat tel, page 888, a sentence only: " In the conquestsof ancient times, even individuals lost their lands. Nor is it matterof surprise that in the 1st asof Rome such a custom should have prevailed. he wars of that era were carried on between popular republicsand communities. The State possesse very little, and the quarrel was in reality the commoncauseof all the citizens. But at present war islessdreadful in its consequencesto thesubject; matters areconductedwith more humanity; one sovereign makes war against another sovereign and not against the unarmed citizens. The conqueror seizes.on the possessionsof the State, the public property. whilo private individuals are crmitted to retain theirs. They sufferbut indirect y by the war: and the conquestonly subject: them to a new master." But when the war is over, what are the rights of a sovereign over his conquered subjects? Vattel answers the question on page 426: “When the sovereign has subdued the opposite party, and reducedthem to submit and sunfor peace, O may except from the amnestythe disturbances, authors of the the heads of the party: he may bring them to p. legal trial, and punish them, if they be found guilty.". That is all that he can do.