Mr. HOWE. Mr. President, the resolution which I submitted to the Senate simply declares for certain reasons recited in the preamble that Congress ought to establish provisional governments for those districts which were lately in rebellion against the authority of the U.S. The Senfrom Maryland concludes that the reasons assigned in the preamble were unsound. One of those reasons was that the functions of States in those districts had been suspended; another reason was that the time for restoring them had not yet come; and the 3rd reason was that military governments, the substitute for States which has hitherto prevailed there, were unfit for the government of any peoe. the Senfrom Maryland concludes that the functions of those States have not been suspended. Why? The 1st reason he assigns is that the war could not have suspended them. He tells us that the U.S. cannot declare war against a State. I never asserted that it could. The proposition was very ably, and I think conclusively, maintained by the Senator; but after all it does not seem to me to have elu cidated this discussion. He tells us that 2 of the most distinguished members of that convention which framed our constitution declared that the U.S. ought not to make war 11 on a State. He declares that the Supreme ourt of the U.S. has asserted, since the constitution was adopted, that Congress cannot declare war against a State. He cites these 2 authorities to the American Senate Iafs if they sustained one and the same principle. he had told us the reason why Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton thought the U.S. ought not to make war upon a State, I think he would have done a great deal to enlighten the Senate in reference to our relations to these very communities. Sir, what was the reason why Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton thoughtthe U.S. ought not to make war upon a State? They were in convention to framea constitution for the purpose of securing a more perfect Union. at was the imperfection in that Union? It was that the laws of the Federal Congress wereaddressed not to the people but to the States, and the States were sovereign; that they had the right to pass upon the validit of those laws and to obey or disobey them as they pleased. Whenever, therefore, Congress enacted a law which any State did not approve it refused to obey; and when one State disobeyed one law, itwas made the pretext foranothei State disobeying another law which y was unsatisfactory to it. To amend these difficulties was the purpose of that Convention. A great many propositions were submitted to it, one of whichand if I remember aright it ema nated from N ewJersey, being offered by Mr. Pat tersonproposed to let the States still remain sovereign, but to empower the Federal Governmentto enforce any laws it might pass bywar; whenever a State refused to obey a law of congress, that war be declared against that State; let it refuse obedience at the peril ofwnr. Against that proposition Mr. Madison and Mr. Hamilton exclaimed. They said we cannot maintain a union where war is a recognized means, an ordinary means of executing the laws the sovereignty of these several States must, therefore, be abandoned; you must not haveaunion of sovereign States; but you must have a union of all the people within all the States, and on must have a Government for the guidancean control of those people; limitits powers as you please, but whatever power you give to that Government must be exerted against every individual alike; its commands, its precepts, must be addressed, not to the States, but to the people. That is what was called the national plan and that is the plan which was adopted. Consequently you have States not sovereign as they eXisted before the constitution was adopted, but subordinate as they stand today. True, the Supreme Court has said that war cannot be declared against a State; and if senators will just cast their eye upon any State in the Union now they willsee the reason wh war cannot be declared. Look at the State of bio; see what makes the State of Ohio. There is a people existing within certain boundaries, clothed by the constitution of the U.S. with certain powers, among which is the power to choose, by certain districts to be prescribed by herself, Representatives and Senators to a State Legislature, to enact laws for the government of the people in reference to such matters as are let? under the control of the State; authorized by this same constitution to choose a Governor to execute those laws; authorized by this same constitution toappointthe judges of courts, to into ret laws, and ) to apply them to the rights of individuals. There is the State of Ohio. While she stands within that orbit she is only exerting powers which somebody must exert, which, if the people of Ohio do not exert for themselves must be exerted by some body else for them, and they are powers which, by the constitution, are exclude from the authority of Congress. There is a mere aggregation of people larger than a county and With powers more extensive than those of a county, but still limited, circumscribed by the constitution of the U.S. There is nothing but people with these prerogatives; there is no power; there is no force; there is no there authorizy; is neither an army nor a navy, nor e rigIhIt to create an army or a navy. ow, tell me why should Congress declare war againsta State like that of Ohio? What is there to fight? You mightaswellmarshal troops against a vapor; there is no force, there is noting there to resist you. The Almighty himself might as well lead the columns of His planets upon the earth while it is pursuing its coursein its own orbit, as for the U.S. to declare waragainstthe State ofOhio, oragainst any other State, so long as it confinesitselfto the sphere grescribed to it by the supreme law of the land. at, sir, when the earth steps out of its orbit there is apt to be a collision and when a State steps out of its orbit and ceases to be the organization which the constitution prescribes, there may be a collision, as there has been between the U.S and the people of the 11 districts which constitute what we call the seceded States. If the Supreme Court mean to sa, or if the Senfrom Maryland means to a rm, that the U.S. cannot make war upon any State, I must insist that they are very much mistaken, or else we have been very much mistaken during the last 4 years. We can make war upon every State on the face of the earth except a State which is pursuing its course, which is discharging its duty, which is meeting its obligations as prescribed to it by the constitution of the U.S. While it is within that orbit it is safe, it is protected; all the laws of the land are thrown around it it is as safe against the war powers of the U.S. as am when I am going from the Capi tol to my boardinghouse, or returning from my boardinhouse to the Capitol; the people aggregate into aState are as safe as any individual in any of the States is against the war powers of the U.S.; there is no more occasion for making war, and no more right to make war, upon them than there is upon an individual and so, sir, I do not say, and I never contended, and I never thought for a moment, that the people of these districts lost the rerogatives of States through the war which has been made upon them, or which was made by them upon us. They lost it before the war commence, so to speak; they went to work themselves, before war was inaugurated, and took down the State which the constitution permitted to them, and established another as unlike that which the constitution permits as is a German State to an American State, or as is a Mexican State to an American State. But the Senfrom Maryland next insists that those State governments did not destroy themselves, because they did nothing but enact ordinances of secession, and those ordinances were ille al. I conceded the other day that if that had cen all they did, that Would not have authorized Congress to provide provisional governments for them. I pointed out what more itwas that they did do; that in addition to enacting their ordinances of secession they placed every local organ and tribunal under an oath not to support the constitution of the U.S., but to resist the constitution of the U.S and then they made flagrant war upon the U.S. The issue right here between the Senfrom Maryland and myself is as broad and as clearl defined as it couldwell be. The Senfrom Iaryland affirms that when the government which represented the people of SCarolina had enacted her ordinance of secession, had placed the whole local authorit in the hands of local agents or tribunals which were sworn to resist and overthrow the constitution of the U.S.; which had destroyed and crushed out every Federal organism existing within that community; which had raised armies in defiance of the Constitution of the U.S.; which had made war ii on Our flag: which had bombarded our forts; which had taken possession of our property in defiance of us, that that still remained an American State. entitled to the prerogatives which the constitution confers upon an American State, and must be respected as such. I say, on the other hand, that when that thing was done there was not the vestige of an American State there; there was not a feature which be IOngs to an American State as defined by the constitution; and there was scarcely a man in that whole. communit who was not a criminal before the law, and who was not only not to be respected as n Governor, or a judge, or a legislator of a State is to be respected, but was to be respected as the law respects him, as a felon and a traitor.