Rhode Island, and in New York, at different periods in our history, violent and armed opposition to the United States was carried on; but the relations of those States with the Federal Government were not supposed to be interrupted or changed thereby after the rebellious portions of their population were defeated and put down.  It is true that in these earlier cases there was no formal expression of a determination to withdraw from the Union, but it is also true that in the Southern States the ordinances of secession were treated by all the friends of the Union as mere nullities and are now acknowledged to be so by the States themselves.  If we admit that they had any force or validity or that they did in fact take the States in which they were passed out of the Union, we sweep from under our feet all the grounds upon which we stand in justifying the use of Federal force to maintain the integrity of the Government.

This is a bill passed by Congress in time of peace.  There is not in any one of the States brought under its operation either war or insurrection.  The laws of the States and of the Federal Government are all in undisturbed and harmonious operation.  The courts, State and Federal, are open and in the full exercise of their proper authority.  Over every State comprised in these five military districts, life, liberty, and property are secured by State laws and Federal laws, and the National Constitution is everywhere in force and everywhere obeyed.  What, then, is the ground on which this bill proceeds?  The title of the bill announces that it is intended “for the more efficient government” of these ten States.  It is recited by way of preamble that no legal State governments “nor adequate protection for life or property” exist in those States, and that peace and good order should be thus enforced.  The first thing which arrests attention upon these recitals, which prepare the way for martial law, is this, that the only foundation upon which martial law can exist under our form of government is not stated or so much as pretended.  Actual war, foreign invasion, domestic insurrection—­none of these appear; and none of these, in fact, exist.  It is not even recited that any sort of war or insurrection is threatened.  Let us pause here to consider, upon this question of constitutional law and the power of Congress, a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in ex parte Milligan.

I will first quote from the opinion of the majority of the court: 

  Martial law can not arise from a threatened invasion.  The necessity
  must be actual and present, the invasion real, such as effectually
  closes the courts and deposes the civil administration.

We see that martial law comes in only when actual war closes the courts and deposes the civil authority; but this bill, in time of peace, makes martial law operate as though we were in actual war, and becomes the cause instead of the consequence of the abrogation of civil authority.  One more quotation: