competent authority, and also that, till the State is revived and
restored as a State in the Union, the only authority, under the
American system, competent to supersede or abrogate them is the
United States, not Congress, far less the Executive. The error
of the Government is not in recognizing the territorial laws as
surviving secession but in counting a State that has seceded as
still a State in the Union, with the right to be counted as one
of the United States in amending the Constitution. Such State
goes out of the Union, but comes under it.

I have endeavored throughout to refer my particular political
views; to their general principles, and to show that the general
principles asserted have their origin and ground in the great,
universal, and unchanging principles of the universe itself.
Hence, I have labored to show the scientific relations of
political to theological principles, the real principles of all
science, as of all reality. An atheist, I have said, may be a
politician; but if there were no God, there could be no politics.
This may offend the sciolists of the age, but I must follow
science where it leads, and cannot be arrested by those who
mistake their darkness for light.

I write throughout as a Christian, because I am a Christian; as
a Catholic, because all Christian principles, nay, all real
principles are catholic, and there is nothing sectarian either
in nature or revelation. I am a Catholic by God's grace and
great goodness, and must write as I am. I could not write
otherwise if I would, and would not if I could. I have not
obtruded my religion, and have referred to it only where my
argument demanded it; but I have had neither the weakness nor