Mr. COWAN. No, sir, nor trespass. I beg the honorable Senator's pardon. If they commit a trespass they commit it in pursuance of the provisions of their charter; that is, in transcending the powers of their charter they may commit a trespass; but they cannot commit a crime. I should like to hear my honorable friendfrom Massachusetts demonstrate how it is possible for a corporation to commit suicide. I can very well understand how a man may commit suicide; I can understand how the corporeal entities, beings, who are the support of the trust, and who are intrusted with the administration of it can commit a crime, how they can incur penalties, how forfeitures might be declared with regard to them; but how the corporation itself, this thing which exists in contemplation like the dagger in the drama, can commit a crime, and how any act of those who represent it can involve innocent people in the consequences, passes my comprehension. I understand that the theory of my honorable friendfrom Massachusetts is that because the corporate authorities of the rebellious States were guilty of certain offenses therefore the States themselves committed suicide. I understand the doctrine of my honorable friendfrom Ohio to be that because the States went into rebellion or rather not the States, for the States had no authority to go, but because their Governors, their Legislatures, and their judges went into rebellion therefore the States incurred forfeitures. What forfeitures? Not the forfeitures which the law imposed upon individuals, but forfeitures which it is pretended we can impose on a State, on a whole people. If that be the doctrine, it becomes of the most intense importance; negro suffrage pales beside it; female suffrage sinks into insignificance before the magnitude of the question so far as it regards us. I beg Senators to ponder on this question. If it be true, as I said before, that the corporate authorities of my State can by violating the provisions or the charter of that State, can by violating the laws of the Union and the constitution of the Union involve me in any way in crime, I want to know it; and I want to know whether, if it can be so, it is upon any other principle under heaven, upon earth, or among men, except that these States are sovereign. If my State is a sovereign State, and if I am covered up in her vessel, inclosed in her basket, only attached to the Union by a ligament which attached her if that is so, and I am to be involved in the consequences of her corporate wrongs; her corporate faithlessness; her infidelity to her vows, I want to know it. And Isay, Mr. President, again, that this is the most important question which has ever been presented to any people. Here we have a central Government, a Government of the Union. I owe it allegiance. How? When? Where? How far? Is it absolute, or is it qualified? Is it immediate, or is it through somebody else? If we leave this question as we have it now, what is a man to do? Here is a double government, a double sovereignty, a double allegiance. I owe allegiance to the U.S.A., and I owe allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania. I am told by honorable gentlemen that I owe allegiance to the General Government within its constitutional sphere, and I am told that I owe allegiance to the State of Pennsylvania within its reserved sphere. Who is to draw the line, pray? When am Ito stop obeying the U.S. Government and to begin to obey the State of Pennsylvania? When am I to stop, obeying, Pennsylvania and to begin to obey the U.S. Government? Mr. President, I wish to direct the attention of Senators to this fact in the Constitution of our Government, that it is an anomaly. There is no other Government on the earth situated as this is; there is no other double Government, no other double sovereignty, no other double allegiance; and when you undertake to talk about people being rebels and traitors, and guilty of the highest crimes known among men, it were well that we have the lines fixed so that you and I may not stumble and incur these imputations. ow, I ask again, is the allegiance of the people of Nebraska Territory, when they are admitted as a State into the Union, to be a personal, direct, and immediate allegiance to the Government of the U.S.? If it is, then I understand it; then, if I were a citizen of that State, I should understand it when it becomes a State. But if you leave it as it is now, I am free to confess that I do not understand it. I understand gentlemen upon this floor to be astride a dilemma. I understand them one moment to say that a man who follows his State into rebellion and into war is a rebel and a traitor; and I understand them in the next breath to turn around and say that he is a conquered victim, to hang over him not the penalties of treason, not the penalties of the municipal law, but to say to him “was victis, ' “at the mercy of the conqueror.”. Which of these is your theory today?, Which is Iit, ask you? I ask it of Conservatives and I ask it of Radicals. Are you ready to answer it?. You must take one or the other. If this allegiance to the U.S. is direct and immediate, by what right can you declare that States commit suicide, and that States go out of the Union, and that the whole people of a State, innocent and guilty, men, women, and children, irrespective of the part they took in the war, are criminal and to be held at your mercy? If on the other hand the tie is through the State, if it is not direct between the person and the Government, and if the person is not immediately responsible to the Government, then by what warrant do you consider a whole population as guilty of treason, as guilty of crime, and by what warrant, do you undertake it to impose municipal penalties and talk about for treason? If hereafter the people of Nebraska should rebel, how are they to be treated? I have a right here to inquire what may be the fate of Nebraska. This is not the only point of time that we are to consider; this is not the only rebellion of which we are to take cognizance. The wise man will not con: fine himself to this particular point; he will not create precedents or hamper himself with laws which in the end may come back to torment the inventor. I have, then, a right to see how this is to affect the people of Nebraska. The people of the southern States, who went into rebellion, want to know today how this question is to be settled. “What are we? Are we in the Union or are we out? Are we held by a direct allegiance to it or are we held by an indirect, intermediate allegiance? Are we quasi foreigners and conquered people, or are we rebellious and traitorous citizens, having engaged in a useless and lawless war against our government?” That is the question which trou bles every hearth stone at the South today. That is the question upon which the Union hangs, and it is upon the determination of that question whether the Union shall live or whether the Union shall die, whether the Union is buried beyond the power of the hand of resurrection to give it life, to breathe breath into its body again, or whether we are now filling up its grave with that hollow sounding voice which indicates farewell, a last farewell upon the earth to those we love. That, Mr. President, I say again, is the great question. I have an opinion upon that question. I have always held it. I have always supposed it was orthodox. I have always believed that the Constitution of the U.S. was not a compact between States, that it was not an agreement between States, but that it was an ordinance of the people, through their States, by which they created a Government; that it did not bind sovereignties to do or not to do certain things; that it did not leave to sovereignties to determine whether the compact was kept or whether it was broken, but that it was an instrument which established a Government with the right to command and the power to compel obedience, and to which the citizen owed direct and personal allegiance, and that if the citizen was guilty of an offense against it in the shape of levying war, he could be indicted and convicted of treason. I have always considered it to be a Government which had its hand upon the head of the citizen, a Government W. levied taxes upon him without the intervention of his State, which sent its tax gatherer into every nook and corner of the country; he visited every household, he made his requisitions there as though there had been no government at all. As to the postoffice Dept in the several States, it was immediately and directly in contact with the people. As to the bankrupt laws in the several States it was immediately and directly in contact with them. It was in contact with them because it was the organ of peace and war. It was the organ through which their relations with foreign countries were made, held, and maintained. It was, in short, Mr. President, a Government distinct and independent from the States, and able to exist without the States except as to this body.