The ratification of the Constitution by Virginia established the relation between herself and the Federal Government; it created the link between her and all the States; it announced her assumption of the duties, her title to the rights, of the confederating States; it proclaimed her interest in, her power over, her obedience to, the common agent of all the States.  If Virginia had never ordained that ratification, she would have been an independent State; the Constitution would have been as perfect and the union between the ratifying States would have been as complete as they now are.  Virginia repeals that ordinance, annuls that bond of union, breaks that link of confederation.  She repeals but a single law, repeals it by the action of a sovereign convention, leaves her constitution, her laws, her political and social polity untouched.  And the gentleman from Maryland tells us that the effect of this repeal is not to destroy the vigor of that law, but to subvert the State government, and to render the citizens “incapable of exercising political privileges”; that the Union remains, but that one party to it has thereby lost its corporate existence, and the other has advanced to the control and government of it.

Sir, this cannot be.  Gentlemen must not palter in a double sense.  These acts of secession are either valid or invalid.  If they are valid, they separated the State from the Union.  If they are invalid, they are void; they have no effect; the State officers who act upon them are rebels to the Federal Government; the States are not destroyed; their constitutions are not abrogated; their officers are committing illegal acts, for which they are liable to punishment; the States have never left the Union, but, as soon as their officers shall perform their duties or other officers shall assume their places, will again perform the duties imposed, and enjoy the privileges conferred, by the Federal compact, and this not by virtue of a new ratification of the Constitution, nor a new admission by the Federal Government, but by virtue of the original ratification, and the constant, uninterrupted maintenance of position in the Federal Union since that date.

Acts of secession are not invalid to destroy the Union, and valid to destroy the State governments and the political privileges of their citizens.  We have heard much of the twofold relations which citizens of the seceded States may hold to the Federal Government—­that they may be at once belligerents and rebellious citizens.  I believe there are some judicial decisions to that effect.  Sir, it is impossible.  The Federal Government may possibly have the right to elect in which relation it will deal with them; it cannot deal at one and the same time in inconsistent relations.  Belligerents, being captured, are entitled to be treated as prisoners of war; rebellious citizens are liable to be hanged.  The private property of belligerents, according to the rules of modern war, shall not be