Here the question occurs, How shall this rightful jurisdiction be established in the vacated State? Some there are, so impassioned for State Rights, and so anxious for forms, even at the expense of substance, that they insist upon the instant restoration of the old State governments in all their parts, through the agency of loyal citizens, who, meanwhile, must be protected in this work of restoration. But, assuming that all this is practicable, as it clearly is not, it attributes to the loyal citizens of a Rebel State, however few in numbers,—it may be an insignificant minority,—a power clearly inconsistent with the received principle of popular government, that the majority must rule. The thirteen voters of Old Sarum were allowed to return two members of Parliament, because this place,—once a Roman fort, and afterwards a sheep-walk,—many generations before, at the early constitution of the House of Commons, had been entitled to this representation; but the argument for State Rights assumes that all these rights may be lodged in voters as few in number as ever controlled a rotten borough of England.
Pray, admitting that an insignificant minority is to organize the new government, how shall it be done, and by whom shall it be set in motion? In putting these questions, I open the difficulties. As the original government has ceased to exist, and there are none who can be its legal successors so as to administer the requisite oaths, it is not easy to see how the new government can be set in motion, without resort to some revolutionary proceeding, instituted either by the citizens or by the military power,—unless Congress, in the exercise of its plenary authority, should undertake to organize the new jurisdiction.
But every revolutionary proceeding is to be avoided. It is within the recollection of all familiar with our history, that our fathers, while regulating the separation of the Colonies from the parent country, were careful that all should be done according to forms of law, so that the thread of legality should continue unbroken. To this end the Continental Congress interfered by supervising direction. But the Tory argument denied the power of Congress then as earnestly as now. Mr. Duane, of the Continental Congress, made himself its mouthpiece.
“Congress ought not to determine a point of this sort, about instituting government. What is it to Congress how justice is administered? You have no right to pass the resolution, any more than Parliament has. How does it appear that no favorable answer is likely to be given to our petitions?”[203]
In spite of this argument, the Congress of that day undertook, by formal resolutions, to indicate the process by which the new governments should be constituted.[204]
If we seek for the principle which entered into this proceeding of the Continental Congress, we find it in the idea that nothing can be left to illegal or informal action, but that all must be done according to rules of constitution and law previously ordained. Perhaps this principle has never been more distinctly or powerfully enunciated than by Mr. Webster, in his speech against the Dorr Constitution in Rhode Island. According to him, this principle is a fundamental part of what he calls our American system, under which the right of suffrage is prescribed by previous law, including its qualifications, the time and place of its exercise, and the manner of its exercise; and then, again, the results are certified to the central power by some certain rule, by some known public officers, in some clear and definite form, thus accomplishing two things: first, that every man entitled to vote may vote; secondly, that his vote may be sent forward and counted, so that practically he may exercise his part of sovereignty in common with his fellow-citizens. Such, according to Mr. Webster, are minute forms which must be followed, if we would impart to the result the crowning character of law. And here are other positive words from him on this important point.
“We are not to take the will of the people from public meetings, nor from tumultuous assemblies, by which the timid are terrified, the prudent are alarmed, and by which society is disturbed. These are not American modes of signifying the will of the people, and they never were.”
“Is it not obvious enough, that men cannot get together and count themselves, and say they are so many hundreds and so many thousands, and judge of their own qualifications, and call themselves the people, and set up a government? Why, another set of men, forty miles off, on the same day, with the same propriety, with as good qualifications, and in as large numbers, may meet and set up another government.”
“When, in the course of events, it becomes necessary to ascertain the will of the people on a new exigency or a new state of things or of opinion, the legislative power provides for that ascertainment by an ordinary act of legislation.”