three States; Oregon, into three States; and Washington into three States. This would give only nine States in a far greater territorial area than that contained in the thirteen States bordering on the Atlantic Ocean. Even then, this would give us only eighteen Senators; but it would be a nearer approach to equality in political power than now. The question may be asked: Are there no means by which this fatal mistake may now be remedied? As a lawyer, and being somewhat acquainted with the history of my country, I am compelled to answer, No. On the admission of a State into the Union, there is an implied compact on the part of the Federal Government to defend such admitted State against all unlawful invasion of its territory. If there be a dispute about boundaries, it must be settled in the proper Court, and the final decree of that Court will be enforced by all the power of the Federal Government. Again, the possession of power is always connected with the desire to perpetuate it, and also with a sensitive jealousy of all measures having a tendency to diminish its controlling effectiveness, or to lessen the value of the units constituting that power. The admission of every State has, to some extent, this effect; hence the demands are more exacting, and the admission more difficult, now, than heretofore. There has been but one instance in our history where a State has been divided, and the segregated portion been admitted into the Union as a State; and that is the case of West Virginia; but that admission was based on facts and conditions which every patriot hopes may never occur again. Virginia not only claimed the right peaceably to secede from the Union but to be the sole and exclusive judge not only of the existence, but also, of the sufficiency of the causes, to warrant such secession. She did all she could to make that secession effective. Old Virginia had by her act, and by her theory of the nature of the Government under the Constitution, estopped herself to deny that the forty-eight counties west of the Alleghany Range possessed the same right of secession--if any such right existed--that she possessed herself; she could therefore make no rightful objection. The people of the forty-eight counties were loyal to the Federal Government, and flag. They called a Convention, adopted a Constitution republican in form which was approved by nearly unanimous vote of its legal electors--28,321 for and only 572 against--and under that Constitution, with the name of West Virginia they were admitted into the Union on December 31st, 1862. This was done partly as a war measure, and partly to show the disintegrating effect of the logic of secession.