Mr. BROMWELL. I am coming to that. The case is complicated, and I must treat each point in its order. I say that legal vitality is such that it admits of no degrees. It either is or is not anything; you cannot im air it without annihilation; for it is essential that it shall exist as an entirety, as asimple, and not otherwise. Now, the rights of the State of Alabama in and of this Union exist by a legal vitality, and not by any othq. To impair that vitality is to annihilate it. Therefore, whenever it is admitted on this floor that that vitality is impaired, that is the end of such vitality. hink, sir, for a moment of a vitality not quite vital, of a legal existence not quite existing. Conceive, if on can, a will which could almost convey rea estate, but not quite — of a man that could be almost, but not quite, a legntee. Imagine a court taking cognizance of such a condition of things and adjudicatin upon it. Conceive, ifyou can, a writ that could a most arrest a man for murder, but not quite. Think of any power endeavoring to improve or better it but the power which created it. Sir the power by which Alabama lived and breathed sprang from the heart of the whole people— from the universal consent in which, as said in the beginning, all laws, constitutions, stat utes charters, and contracts, from the greatest to the least, are founded in this country, and from which they issue and not. Now, sir, I wish to go further. I say that the day they passed the ordinance of secession the struck a fatal blow at that constitution which made Alabama an individual State, and from which her existence flowed. and, mark me, the existence of Alabama does not flow from the Constitution of the U.S. Her being is from that, but her existence, which is continual being, flows out of her own organization, flows through the official power 10 god in her official bands, which thus preserve and carry out her functions. Sir, they cannot come and say that this act was an act transcending the authority of that convention; and is therefore void, and to be treated as the acts of an agent when he tran scends his authority: for the convention, the agent of the people, was chosen to do the very act, and consequently it is not to be treated as an act ofan agent who has transcended his authority in a lawful matter, but as the act of an agent who has been employed expressly to do an illegal act, which, wlhen done in pursuance of employment, not only binds the agent to the pains and penalties of his offense, but makes the one who sent him, particeps criminis, an accomplice, and in case of treason makes him a principal also. That is the law on the subject of agency. It cannot be said that the convention has done that which is totally without effect for the reason that it was a treasonable convention; because if the people of Alabama attempt to shelter themselves behind the fact that the convention did an unlawful act, they must bear in mind that they elected them to do the act. They elected them merely for the convenience of doing the act in that form; and lest an thing should be said by which they could sku from the responsibility, when that act had been consummated, as far as the onvention could, they referred it back to the people, and the people ratified the act at the polls in full view of the intention and of the effect designed, namely, to carry the State over to another nationality sought to be created. I ose who tell us that these States were never out of the Union involve in their idea several distinct fallacies, 1st, they tell us that to say that a State was ever out of the Union is to alustify secession or to acknowledge its validity. hat is what I understand the Gentfrom Kentucky [Mr. Sun u] now to say. I have never said that a State was out of the Union, and I am not going to say it, for the reason that to admit that a State has been out of the Union Is to admitthata State can be a State in the American sense out of the Union. That itself is a fallacy, for the State “Alabama never had any status except as a ) State of this Union, and if she has lost that she has lost all. She can be a State in no complete American sense —and by that term I mean the sense we entertain when we s eak of the State of NewYork, for instance—s e cannot be such a State out of the Union and to say that she can is simply to set at defiance all meaning of terms. Beyond that this idea which men advance when they say that to admit that a State is out of the Union is to admit the validity of secession, contains within it another fallacy, and that is, that a State in order to be out of the Union must get without the krritorial area and beyond the Jurisdiction and the power of the U.S., so that the Federal Government can no longer maintain or exercise control over its property or administer its laws within the territory. This is, I repeat, another of the fal lacies involved in the idea that a State cannot cease to be in the Union without acknowledging secession. A 3rd fallacy is that if a State he not aState out of the Union, it of necessity be a State in and of this Union, which last supposition does not follow—the point to be shown is that the rebellious States are not States in any complete sense in the Union or out of it. But, besides this, that idea involves another fallacy, which is that of an posing that a State defacto merely is a State jure, or a State by authority and warrant of law. Now, sir, all civilized nations agree in the law of nations, that a State isto be retained so far as the laws of war will permit, and out of this consideration grows the fact that you treat every State when conquered as still a State de facto. That is, for all such purposes as the laws ofwarwill allow, it exists, as aState, subject to the rights of the conqueror. Now, these States may be States is facto, and may lie within the territory of th Union, and may be subject to its jurisdiction as to their inhabitants and as to their property. But it does not follow from that that the are States clothed in lawful authority as memers of the Union, as controlling wers, as having the right to impose their wi lupon the counsels of the nation and give laws to other States of the Union. Let me ask gentlemen who say that Alabama is now a State in and of this Union, in full power and competency, by virtue of what is she so? Her State organization? What State organization has she? Is it the one which was or nized years ago by the consent of Congress an the act of her own people? No, sir, it is not that; it is some other and what other? Has the disposing power of the State been called into exercise by the will and action of the people of that State and consent of the U.S.? No, sir. The State organization that exists there is a thing gotten u under the direction of the President, prepare by his sub ordinates, and adopted uier the pressure of telegrams from Washington, against the will of the people; and representin solely the will of the executive power. Every ody knows that. I am not finding fault with it. I am not complainin of the Executive on that ound, for it was per aps his duty, which I wi not deny, to take any and every step experimentally which he thought proper toward preparing provisional governments O any kind, to be presented to the people, and to ask of Congress that they might he ratified and confirmed in the most ample manner. But can the State which exists there today, constituted in that manner, demand to stand in this Hall against the disposing power and will of the nation? If such States can come here and demand that, let me ask, under what claim can they do it? Is it because their territorv lies within the area of the U.S.? Then the Comanche Indians can make the same claim on the same ground. Can they do it because they once entered into the Federal compact? Every violator of a compact can claim all the benefits of the compact on the same ground. Can they do it because their agents in their conventions acted illegally? Every violator of a compact can do the same, by acting through an agent, and then coming forward and ratifying or repudiatin the act of that agent, as might best subserveffiis fraud. But what court of law or equitiwould permit that? Can they come in here and claim a right to be represented here equally with the others, because they have State governments? Then, I would ask what State government is it which is the foundation of their claim? Gentlemen on the other side claim that a State, governmentnt lives forever. Then what government is that in the hands of the President and his appointees, and the newly elected members of the Legislature, the Governor, and other oliicers of the socalled State of Alabama? were the hammer fell. McKEE obtained e floor, but yielded to.—