6.

CHAPTER X.

ALL TREASON IS AGAINST THE STATE.

ONSISTENTLY with the foregoing, the federal

CONSI

consti

tution itself proves the state to be the sole object of treason. In discussing this.point, I do not aim at a historical, legal, or philosophical disquisition on the subject, so much as to show the design of the framers; the intent of the commonwealths; the impression made upon the people; and, in short, the understanding with which all acted.

Not only does the federal instrument, as we have seen, prove citizenship and allegiance to belong to states, but it gives a striking corroboration of the view I have presented on treason. We have seen that the states, by ratifying, ordained and established the constitution, to provide for and effect their defence and welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to themselves and their people; that, ipso facto, the ratifiers associated themselves; that they are named in the instrument and recognized throughout, and especially in the last article, as the only parties, and the prospective actors; and that the said constitution is their law their supreme law.

-

The Treason-Clause is the Law of the States. Of course the treason-clause must be their law, bearing solely on their citizens—that is to say, on all the citizens of the states that associated themselves. It reads thus: "Treason against the united states [not "the nation" not "the people" - not "the government"] shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort." Mr. Curtis, the "Massachusetts school's" "historian of the constitution," says this clause was designed “to defend the supremacy of the national government," i. e. the sovereignty thereof. But the said government is not mentioned; and when Mr. Curtis shows that "the government of" the united states is the united states themselves, it can be proved, by the same logic, that the horse of Mr. Curtis is Mr. Curtis himself. Besides, it is very singular, if the plural pronouns "them" and "their" stand for government - a singular word not in the sentence instead of "states," which is

their plural antecedent. In truth, the only purpose of the clause is to compel citizens to obey the will or law of their respective states, as expressed in the federal compact; and to be true to the said states singly and collectively. And it is obvious that refusal to obey is disobedience to the state, and that warlike resistance is treason to the state, for which offence the state necessarily has the original right to punish; the right of the federal government to do so being merely delegative and derivative from the states.

We see, then, that the federal compact itself positively proves, in the citizenship and treason clauses, that the only object of allegiance and treason is this sovereign society of people, called the state. Our only monarch for allegiance is society, or the organized people; and our only tie, answering to the allegiance of political science, is the social compact. Republican allegiance must involve fidelity to society in return for society's protection; and treason must be a violation of this allegiance. And, accordingly, the state constitution provides for treason against the state per se, and the federal one for treason against her and her chosen associates, both laws being her will and voice; and both being evidenced by acts of conventions, representing the sovereignty of the state, and deriving all their life and force therefrom. The key-note of all the acts of the states and the utterances of the fathers is that "the sovereign authority of the state is the palladium of the private and personal rights of the citizens" [Samuel Adams]; there being no people but states, no state but citizens, and no semblance of a nation that is not composed of the very states which agreed, in specified matters, to govern themselves together, and made all federal institutions to protect themselves, and, ipso facto, their citizens, as the sacred records of our country all conclusively show.

The federal instrument itself proves this view, not only, 1st, in asserting treason against the several individuals associated, to be "levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies"; but 2d, in declaring all the people to be members and "citizens of different states," and providing for them as such. This is really the end of argument, for treason in a republic must be a crime against the commonwealth, which the one charged is bound to obey. As to the general government, it must be subject to its creators; and all its powers must be derived from them. It has no inherent vitality and strength no original authority - nothing that is underived — nothing that is not subject. Hence, not it, but the original and creative power above it, must be the object of treason.

Yes, it is the republics or people-governments themselves, and not their mere artificial and governmental institutions, endowed with trusted authority only, that define and denounce "treason against the

united states," and delegate the power, and appoint the functionaries, to punish. And each state laid her law upon her own subjects, as is absolutely proved in Part II. So we find it beyond question that federal jurisdiction in any given state, and the legal force of the treason-clause on her citizens, flow from her sovereignty alone.

Inter-state Faith is the Sole Basis. As the states were preexistent moral persons, had minds, and came together through mental action, they are necessarily in a voluntary union; and are bound in association, and moved to their societal duty by plighted faith. Each promises that, in certain matters, her subjects shall obey the will of all; and she "lays the law," i. e. the federal compact, on them to that effect; delegating to the association the power to try and punish federal treason, which is hostile opposition to the federal will, which will she has pledged her faith her subjects shall obey. In truth, everything federal is based on this faith, which is more than knightly or royal, it being the faith of all the people both in their individual and collective capacity. This faith pervades-nay, it is the be-all and the end-all of the constitution its most important expression being the guaranty of all the states to each that she shall be and act as a republic or self-governing people. [Art. IV. § 4.] It is beyond controversy, then, that treason against the united states is a violation of allegiance to the state, in disobeying and fighting against her authority in the federal constitution; and that she has defined it in her said supreme law, and delegated jurisdiction to her agency the federal to try the offender and pungovernment ish him. This becomes clear, when we reflect that the state could have declined to delegate, and could have "reserved" to herself the power to punish treason against the united states, just as she could have done in respect to any other power. Indeed, she might have reserved half the powers she delegated in the compact, and still have had as extensive an instrument as was the first "federal constitution"

that of 1778.

Now, let us apply, and at the same time illustrate, the above principles, by showing the testimony and the functional action of the two most important of the original states.

Let us first see the case of Virginia. - In providing for self-preservation, and also self-government, in matters common to her and her sister states, Virginia held her convention of her own' motion, and in her own time and place, and declared her sovereign will as follows: "We... in convention, . . . in the name and behalf of ... Virginia, do... ratify the constitution, . . . hereby announcing . . . that the said constitution is binding on the said people, according to an authentic copy hereto annexed, in the words following," &c. In her then

existing and solemnly established character as a "free, sovereign, and independent state," she then and there completed her ratifying, ordaining and establishing of the constitution, and, ipso facto, her union with the other states. In every possible respect, she was Virginia after the establishment, and was under obligations of faith to act as such in the union. She was named in article I., with her statehood, faculties, and sovereignty intact. Said Chancellor Pendleton, the president of the ratifying convention, no one dissenting,"Our purpose is to be intimately connected with the other twelve states; to establish one common government, and bind in one ligament the strength of thirteen states." It is impossible to suppose she did not survive ratification, or that she was, with the other twelve, consolidated into one. No record shows any nationalizing process, but all the evidence is that such an idea was emphatically repudiated. [See Part III., chapter VII.]

So we see that "sovereign, free, and independent" Virginia, as she and all her sisters declared her to.be, did, by her sovereign power, subject her citizens to her supreme law the federal constitution, or, in other words, "laid the law on " her people to use the apt expression of Rufus King. They still remained her citizens, and were recognized as such by clauses interwoven, in the federal constitution, with the very treason-article which was invoked to punish the said citizens for obeying her call to arms, e. g.: "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states." [Article IV. § 2.] "The judicial power of the united states shall extend . . . to controversies between citizens of different states; between citizens of the same state," &c. [Art. III. § 2; see also Amendment XI.] No citizen of a nation was ever recognized, or provided for. States, as complete and sovereign political bodies, existed before the federal agreement. Each state was composed of its citizens originally, and it has ever continued to be so. These "citizens of different states" were the only people in the land possessed of civil and political rights. Their citizenship or allegiance has never been changed. No hint of transfer can be produced.

The Transfer of Allegiance a Gross Absurdity. - How absurd is the new idea taught by the "school," that the state, in passing the ordinance ratifying the federal constitution, and commanding the obedience of her members to the federal government then, ipso facto, formed, alienated, in that act and moment, the said citizens, and discharged them from duty to herself. To do so was to defeat her own purpose; for her authority over her citizens was necessary to secure or coerce their obedience to her new political arrangement and supreme law." Not only so, but such transfer of allegiance would

have been a virtual dissolution of the state (the tie of allegiance, as has been shown, being the social compact), and the formation of a consolidated and homogeneous commonwealth, comprising all the states, the very thing the fathers dreaded, and sought to avoid, as all the records show.

The notion of a transfer of allegiance, like that of a delegation of sovereignty, is an utter absurdity. Either is state suicide, which no presumption favors, and which the records of the country entirely disprove. Delegating sovereignty (including the transfer of the citizens to a representative government) would be as manifest a solecism as delegating ownership to an agent. As in the latter case the agent becomes owner, so in the former the representative becomes sovereign both cases being alienations or abdications unknown to legal or constitutional history.

Consistently with the above, we find no change in the states hinted at in the federating instrument, but them named and provided for as pre-existent entities—moral persons.

Secondly, let Massachusetts testify. Here, as usual, she steps forward as the champion of statehood. As a free, sovereign, and independent commonwealth, she put her mind deliberately to the subject, and, through her convention, she approved and adopted the federal constitution, declaring as follows, February 7, 1788: "The convention . . . do, in the name and behalf of the people of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, assent to and ratify the said constitution for the united states of America."

Her self-assertion then stood, as it has ever since done, as follows: She declares her citizens to be formed into the state by the social compact, wherein each is bound to be governed in all things by the voice of the said state. Her declaration is quoted only a few pages back, and it is hers to-day. [p. 410, supra.]

She declares that the commonwealth so formed is absolutely sovereign. Here are her queenly- nay, imperial words, sounding to-day; "The people of this commonwealth have the sole and exclusive right of governing themselves, as a free, sovereign, and independent state; and do, and forever hereafter shall, exercise and enjoy every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not, or may not hereafter be, by them expressly delegated to the united states, in congress assembled." "Government is instituted for the protection and happiness of the people. . . . Therefore, they alone have an incontestable, unalienable and indefeasible right to institute government, and to reform, alter, or totally change the same, when their protection and happiness require it." [Const. Mass. Part I. articles 4, 7.] She declares every power, vested by her in the united states, to be

...