It is sometimes said that the States themselves committed _suicide_, so that, as States, they ceased to exist, leaving their whole jurisdiction open to the occupation of the United States under the Constitution. This assumption is founded on the fact, that, whatever the existing governments in these States, they are in no respect constitutional; and since the State itself is known by the government with which its life is intertwined, it must cease to exist constitutionally when its government no longer exists constitutionally. It were better, perhaps, to avoid the whole question of life or death in the State, and content ourselves with inquiry into the condition of its government. It is not easy to say what constitutes that entity we call a State; nor is the discussion much advanced by any theory. To my mind it seems a topic fit for the old schoolmen or a modern debating society; and yet, considering the part it has already played, I shall be pardoned for a brief allusion to it. There are well-known words which ask and answer the question, “What constitutes a _State_?” But the scholarly poet[195] was not thinking of a “State” of the American Union. Indeed, this term is various in use. Sometimes it stands for civil society itself. Sometimes it is the general name for a political community, not unlike “nation” or “country,”--as when our fathers, in the Resolution of Independence which preceded the Declaration, spoke of “the _State_ of Great Britain.” Sometimes it stands for the government,--as when Louis the Fourteenth, at the height of his power, exclaimed, “The _State_, it is I,”--or when Sir Christopher Hatton, in the famous farce of “The Critic,” ejaculated,-- “I cannot but surmise,--forgive, my friend, If the conjecture’s rash,--I cannot but Surmise _the State_ some danger apprehends.”[196] Among us the term is most known as the technical name for one of the political societies composing our Union. When used in this restricted sense, it must not be confounded with the same term when used in a different and broader sense. But it is obvious that some persons attribute to the one something of the qualities which can belong only to the other. Nobody has suggested, I presume, that any “State” of our Union has, through rebellion, ceased to exist as a _civil society_, or even as a _political community_. It is only as a _State of the Union_, armed with State Rights, or at least as a _local government_, annually renewing itself, as the snake its skin, that it can be called in question. But it is vain to challenge for the technical “State,” or for the annual government, that immortality which belongs to civil society. The one is an artificial body, the other is a natural body; and while the former, overwhelmed by insurrection or war, may change or die, the latter can change or die only with the extinction of the community itself, whatever its name or its form.