The gentleman [Mr. H. W. Davis] maintains two propositions, which lie
at the very basis of his views on this subject. He has explained them to
the House, and enforced them on other occasions. He maintains that, by
reason of their secession, the seceded States and their citizens "have
not ceased to be citizens and States of the United States, though
incapable of exercising political privileges under the Constitution, but
that Congress is charged with a high political power by the Constitution
to guarantee republican government in the States, and that this is
the proper time and the proper mode of exercising it." This act of
revolution on the part of the seceding States has evoked the most
extraordinary theories upon the relations of the States to the Federal
Government. This theory of the gentleman is one of them.

The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia established the
relation between herself and the Federal Government; it created the
link between her and all the States; it announced her assumption of
the duties, her title to the rights, of the confederating States; it
proclaimed her interest in, her power over, her obedience to, the
common agent of all the States. If Virginia had never ordained that
ratification, she would have been an independent State; the Constitution
would have been as perfect and the union between the ratifying States
would have been as complete as they now are. Virginia repeals that
ordinance, annuls that bond of union, breaks that link of confederation.
She repeals but a single law, repeals it by the action of a sovereign
convention, leaves her constitution, her laws, her political and social
polity untouched. And the gentleman from Maryland tells us that the
effect of this repeal is not to destroy the vigor of that law, but to
subvert the State government, and to render the citizens "incapable of