Mr. RAl MOND. Why, sir, if there be no constitution ofany sort in a State, no law nothing but chaos, then that State would no longer exist as an organization. But that has not been the case, it never is the ease in great communities, for they always have constitutions and forms of government. It may not he a constitution or form of government adapted to its relation to the Government of the U.S.; and that would be an evil to be reme died by the Government of the U.S. That is what we have been trying to do for the last 4 years. The practical relations of the governments of those States with the Government of the U.S. were all wrongwere hostile to that Government. They denied our jurisdiction, and they denied that they were States of the Union, but. their denial did not change the fact; and there was never any time when their organizations as States were destroyed. A dead State is ii solecism, a contradiction in terms, an impossibility. These are I confess, rather metaph sical distinctionsfbut I did not raise them. Those who assert that a State is destroyed whenever its constitution Ais changed, or whenever its practical relations with this Government are changed, must be held responsible for whatever metaphysical niceties may be necessarily involved in the discussion. I do not know, sir, that I have made my views on this point clear to the Gentfrom Pennsylvania, [Mr. KELLEY, who has questioned me upon it, and I am still more don tful whether, even if they are intelligible he will concur with me as to their justice. Ilut I rerd these States asjust as trul within the juris iction of the constitution, an therefore just as really and truly States of the American nion now as they were before the war. Their practical relations to the constitution of the U.S. have been disturbed, and we have been endeavoring, through 4 ears of war, to restore themand make them whatthey were before the war. The victory in the field has given us the means of doing this, we can now ree stablish the practical relations of those States to the Government. Our actual jurisdiction over them, which they vainly attempted to throw off, is already restored. lhe conquest we have achieved is a conquest over the rebellion, not a connest over the States whose authority the rebelion had for a time subverted. For these reasons I think the views submitted by the Gentfrom Pennsylvania. [Mr. Sp rnvans] upon this point are unsound. Let me next cite some of the consequences which, it seems to me must follow the acceptance of his position. If, as he asserts, we have been waging war with an independent Power, with pa separate nation, I cannot see how we can talk o treason in connection with our recent conflict or demand the execution of Davis or anybody else as a traitor. Certainly if we were at war with another foreign Power we should not talk of the treason of those who were opposed to us in the field. If we were engaged in awar with France and should take as prisoner the Emperor Napoleon, certain] we could nottalk of him as a traitor or as liable to execution. think that by adopting any such assumption as that of the honorable gentleman, we surrender the whole idea of treason and the punishment of traitors. I think, moreover, that we accept, virtually and practically the doctrine of State sovereignt, the right of a State to withdraw from the Hnion, and to break up the Union at its own will and pleasure. I do not see how upon those premises we can escape that conclu 61011. If the States that engaged in the late rebellion constituted themselves, by their ordinances of secession or by any of toacts with which they followed these ordinances, a separate and independent Power, I do not see how we can deny 51c principles on which they professed to act, or refuse assent to their practical results. I have heard no clearer, no stronger statement of the doctrine of State sovereignty as paramount to the sovereignty of the nation than would be involved in such a concession. Whether he intended it or not, the Gentfrom Pennsylvania [Mr. SrnvnNs] actually as sents to the extreme doctrines of the advocates of secession.