in Congress, with the concurrence of the Executive. It means the
political Government--the concurrent action of both branches of Congress
and the Executive. The separate action of each amounts to nothing,
either in admitting new States or guaranteeing republican governments
to lapsed or outlawed States. Whence springs the preposterous idea that
either the President, or the Senate, or the House of Representatives,
acting separately, can determine the right of States to send members or
Senators to the Congress of the Union?

To prove that they are and for four years have been out of the Union for
all legal purposes, and, being now conquered, subject to the absolute
disposal of Congress, I will suggest a few ideas and adduce a few
authorities. If the so-called "confederate States of America" were an
independent belligerent, and were so acknowledged by the United States
and by Europe, or had assumed and maintained an attitude which entitled
them to be considered and treated as a belligerent, then, during such
time, they were precisely in the condition of a foreign nation with whom
we were at war; nor need their independence as a nation be acknowledged
by us to produce that effect.

After such clear and repeated decisions it is something worse than
ridiculous to hear men of respectable standing attempting to nullify the
law of nations, and declare the Supreme Court of the United States in
error, because, as the Constitution forbids it, the States could not go
out of the Union in fact. A respectable gentleman was lately reciting
this argument, when he suddenly stopped and said, "Did you hear of that
atrocious murder committed in our town? A rebel deliberately murdered
a Government official." The person addressed said, "I think you are
mistaken." "How so? I saw it myself." "You are wrong, no murder was or
could be committed, for the law forbids it."