In the next place, may it please your honors, it becomes very important to consider what bearing the Constitution and laws of the United States have upon this Rhode Island question.  Of course the Constitution of the United States recognizes the existence of States.  One branch of the legislature of the United States is composed of Senators, appointed by the States, in their State capacities.  The Constitution of the United States[1] says that “the United States shall guarantee to each State a republican form of government, and shall protect the several States against invasion; and on application of the legislature, or of the executive when the legislature cannot be convened, against domestic violence.”  Now, I cannot but think this a very stringent article, drawing after it the most important consequences, and all of them good consequences.  The Constitution, in the section cited, speaks of States as having existing legislatures and existing executives; and it speaks of cases in which violence is practised or threatened against the State, in other words, “domestic violence”; and it says the State shall be protected.  It says, then, does it not? that the existing government of a State shall be protected.  My adversary says, if so, and if the legislature would not call a convention, and if, when the people rise to make a constitution, the United States step in and prohibit them, why, the rights and privileges of the people are checked, controlled.  Undoubtedly.  The Constitution does not proceed on the ground of revolution; it does not proceed on any right of revolution; but it does go on the idea, that, within and under the Constitution, no new form of government can be established in any State, without the authority of the existing government.

Admitting the legitimacy of the argument of my learned adversary, it would not authorize the inference he draws from it, because his own case falls within the same range.  He has proved, he thinks, that there was an existing government, a paper government, at least; a rightful government, as he alleges.  Suppose it to be rightful, in his sense of right.  Suppose three fourths of the people of Rhode Island to have been engaged in it, and ready to sustain it.  What then?  How is it to be done without the consent of the previous government?  How is the fact, that three fourths of the people are in favor of the new government, to be legally ascertained?  And if the existing government deny that fact, and if that government hold on, and will not surrender till displaced by force, and if it is threatened by force, then the case of the Constitution arises, and the United States must aid the government that is in, because an attempt to displace a government by force is “domestic violence.”  It is the exigency provided for by the Constitution.  If the existing government maintain its post, though three fourths of the State have adopted the new constitution, is it not evident enough that the exigency arises in which the constitutional