Mr. COWAN. Mr. President, this is a question upon which I feel a very great degree of interest, and that feeling has been heightened and increased by the speech which has just been made by the honorable Senfrom Qhio and the views which he has given upon ". nature of the work in which we are engaged. ow, sir, what is it? The proposition before the Senate is to create a State; to make out of the people of Nebraska and the Territory of Nebraska, its snow covered prairies and its ice bound rivers, a State. Then, Mr. President, what is a State? Something or nothing. If something, it behooves us, the representatives of the people here, and the representatives I, might say of States, and of States claimed to be sovereign States, that we should know well what we do. I ask again what is a State? If we have power to create a State at all; if we have authority and jurisdiction to make it, then that State must be a body corporate, not a thing existing as an actual, substantial entity, but a legal artificial person existing only in contemplation of law, and which for certain purposes enumerated in the law and designated by the law is to be taken to be a person. Then, in that sense, the people of the Territory of Nebraska may be taken to be corporators; the State of Nebraska is the corporation, the legal person created by this bill and who is to have perpetual existence, to sue and be sued, and to perform all other functions which are usually performed in law by a natural person. I do not know that I follow strictly the legal definition of a corporation, but }. prehend that lawyers at least will comprehend what I mean. In the creation of a corporate body of this kind, it becomes of the utmost importance that we should inquire what powers it may have. As a usual rule, they extend only to the boundaries of the charter which creates the corporation, or in other words they have no power to do that which the law of their creation does not allow them to do. So far I am willing to go. I am willing to join in the creation of a State limited in its powers in this way; but if a corporation is to be created with powers extending beyond the limits of that instrument which creates it, and to be invested with larger and wider powers, then I object; and it is to this point that I desire to call the attention of the honorable Senfrom Ohio particularly. I put the question to him whether a co State commit treason. I shall not undertake to give his answer, simply because I cannot; there was nothing about it of which my memory took hold; and, of course, to avoid any disposition to misrepresent him I will leave that to those who shall read the Globe tomorrow morning. I certainly understood the honorable Senator however to say that a State could commit treason.: WADE. No thing.;Idid not say any such. COWAN. Does the honorable Senator say now that it cannot?