circuits made by the judges at the December term, 1865, every one of these States is put on the same footing of legality with all the other States of the Union.  Virginia and North Carolina, being a part of the fourth circuit, are allotted to the Chief Justice.  South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida constitute the fifth circuit, and are allotted to the late Mr. Justice Wayne.  Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas are allotted to the sixth judicial circuit, as to which there is a vacancy on the bench.

The Chief Justice, in the exercise of his circuit duties, has recently held a circuit court in the State of North Carolina.  If North Carolina is not a State of this Union, the Chief Justice had no authority to hold a court there, and every order, judgment, and decree rendered by him in that court were coram non judice and void.

Another ground on which these reconstruction acts are attempted to be sustained is this:  That these ten States are conquered territory; that the constitutional relation in which they stood as States toward the Federal Government prior to the rebellion has given place to a new relation; that their territory is a conquered country and their citizens a conquered people, and that in this new relation Congress can govern them by military power.

A title by conquest stands on clear ground; it is a new title acquired by war; it applies only to territory; for goods or movable things regularly captured in war are called “booty,” or, if taken by individual soldiers, “plunder.”

There is not a foot of the land in any one of these ten States which the United States holds by conquest, save only such land as did not belong to either of these States or to any individual owner.  I mean such lands as did belong to the pretended government called the Confederate States.  These lands we may claim to hold by conquest.  As to all other land or territory, whether belonging to the States or to individuals, the Federal Government has now no more title or right to it than it had before the rebellion.  Our own forts, arsenals, navy-yards, custom-houses, and other Federal property situate in those States we now hold, not by the title of conquest, but by our old title, acquired by purchase or condemnation for public use, with compensation to former owners.  We have not conquered these places, but have simply “repossessed” them.

If we require more sites for forts, custom-houses, or other public use, we must acquire the title to them by purchase or appropriation in the regular mode.  At this moment the United States, in the acquisition of sites for national cemeteries in these States, acquires title in the same way.  The Federal courts sit in court-houses owned or leased by the United States, not in the court-houses of the States.  The United States pays each of these States for the use of its jails.  Finally, the United States levies its direct taxes and its internal revenue upon the property in these States, including the productions of the lands within their territorial limits, not by way of levy and contribution in the character of a conqueror, but in the regular way of taxation, under the same laws which apply to all the other States of the Union.