should believe any State could under its reserved powers rightfully secede from the union whenever and for whatever cause it pleased. We see now what the angry brothers did not see. The absolute sovereignty of the States, and the right of secession both _de facto_ and _de jure_ could have been conceded, and at the same time the war for the union justified. The unionists could well have said to the south: "Your independence is too great a menace to our interests to be tolerated, and the high duty of self-defence commands that we resist to the death. The _status quo_ is better for us all. Now that you have set up for yourself, we must tell you, sadly but firmly, that if you do not come back voluntarily, we must resort to coercion,--not under the constitution, for you have thrown that off, but under the law of nations to which you have just subjected yourself." The man who of all southerners has given State sovereignty its most learned and able defence--Sage, the author of "The Republic of Republics"--says: "To coerce a state is unconstitutional; but it is equally true that the precedent of coercing states is established, and that it is defensible under the law of nations."[34] To have received the confederate commissioners as representing an independent nation, and made demand that the seceding States return to the union, would have been a far stronger theory than that on which the war was avowedly waged; for it would have taken from the south that superiority in the argument which had given her great prestige in Europe, and even in the north. And lastly, under the law of nations, the federal government, after coercing the seceding States back, would have had--even according to the theory of State rights as maintained in the south--perfectly legitimate power to abolish slavery. The statement that emancipation was "sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the constitution, upon military necessity," protests so much that one sees that the highly conscientious man hesitated and doubted. And well may he have doubted; for what warrant can be found in the constitution for destroying that property which it solemnly engaged to defend and protect as a condition precedent of its adoption?--that is, if the southern States were still in the union and under the constitution, as was claimed by all who justified the proclamation? But if the southern States had gone out of the union, they had revoked their ratification and had thrown away all the protection of slavery given by the constitution; and while the constitution did not direct how the federal government should act in the matter, the law of nations gave full and ample directions. Its authority was not stinted nor hampered by any rights recognized in the constitution as reserved to the States under it. The subsequent amendment, imposed as a condition of reconstruction, shows that the people of the north seriously