Mr. COWAN. I have always been delighted to agree with my ancient friend; and knowing him to be a most learned and astute lawyer, have always felt myself strengthened when that agreement took place; and I was really some what shocked when I found or supposed I had found him advocating a different theory. But I propose to go a little further; it may i. that he is oil, out of the woods yet. If a State cannot commit treason, if it has no soul to be damned and no body to be kicked, I should like to ask further whether it can commit any other crime. I should like to know from the honorable Senator as a lawyer whether this corporation, this incorporeal thing as he odmits it to be, has any power or can do anything other than that which the charter of its incorporation allows it to do, because that is a most important and pertinent inquiry here; a most ponderous inquiry, an inquiry which today rives this nation from j. to turret, which shakes it from the steeple to the cellar, can a State commit a crime? Can a State rebel? I say, Mr. President, I want to know this, and I want to know it for a most Fo reason, for one that is all important. in my State am in a minority; in my State I am at the mercy of the State authorities, who believe differently from me, who are of a different opinion, who hold to different views of policy, and I desire here now at this time and in this place to know how far I am bound by those State authorities. I understand that the Governor of Pennsylvania, a most respectable gentleman, whom I see upon this floor now, is limited in his power and in his authority by the Constitution and the laws; that the Legislature of Pennsylvania are so limited; that the judges are so hedged round about by the law; so that they have no right to do what as Governor, as Legislature, as judicial officers, as corporate officers, if you please representatives of this io.about to be created here that they have no authority as such officers to do that which is not warranted in and by the Constitution and the laws. Mr. President, I want to know if that is true in these U.S.A.; I want to know if that is a fundamental principle; because if it is not all our rights are in jeopardy. If these corporate officers can in their own persons transcend their corporate powers, step outside of their limits, do unlawful things, and involve me in the consequences, I want to know it. I want to know, and I want to know it from the honorable Senfrom Ohio, whether if his excellency the Governor of Pennsylvania, the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and the judiciary of$o, were to declare that the State of Pennsylvania was out of the Union and in augurate a war to maintain that theory, I who maintained that she was not out of the Union, and who persisted in my loyalty and my direct allegiance to the U.S. all the way through; could possibly be involved. That is the plain question, there is no blinking it, there is no getting around it. If the State can commit treason, then the State may involve me in the consequences of treason; then the State may affect me because she has in her corporeal, not in her incorporeal, but in her corporeal, actual state and entity committed a crime; and I, for sooth, an humble member of the minority, must submit to it and must bear the penalty consequent upon it. I have said that this was the question which now shook this nation to its center. I have said that this was the question of this age and this day. Is it true or is it not true? Of whom are we followers here? Are we the followers of John C. Calhoun; are we the advocates of nullification; are we the advocates of secession; or are we the followers of Daniel Webster and that school which declared that this Constitution of ours was not a compact or agreement, but an ordinance which created a Government? In what way is the citizen of Nebraska to be bound to the General Government of these U.S.? Is he to be bound to that Government by direct, immediate, personal allegiance, or is he to be bound, as was contended by the secessionists, through his State? They contended that he was not tied, that there was no ligamen, allegiance in lawful English, holdin him directly to the General Government, an that he was bound to it only through his State. If that were true, and his State something which cut off that ligamen, which cut off that bond of connection, the inhabitants of the State would be cut off, too. But if the tie was direct, immediate, and personal the action of the State would and could have no effect whatever on the status of the individual as to the General government. Hence it is, Mr. President, that I say this is the important question of the hour; this the test question of the day. It is upon the determination of this question that the existence of this Union hangs today trembling in the scale. I agree with what the honorable Senfrom Ohio has said about the right of suffrage; I agree with the main part of his speech; but I do not agree with his notion, as P understand him, that a State may commit treason, that a State in rebellion may forfeit the rights of inno cent people. And I put it to his sense of justice, I put it to his sense of humanity, I put it to that sense of right which I know exists in him toward the loyal people of this country, to know whether their States by any unlawful act of theirs can deprive their innocent people of their o