What are we fighting for? To restore constitutional order; to vindicate 'the sacredness of nationality.' In other words, to combat the principle of secession, by force and arms, in its last appeal, just as we have always combated and opposed it hitherto on the platform and in the senate. But what right have we to oppose secession by coercion? The right of self-preservation. For secession loosens the very corner-stone of our Government, so that the whole arch falls, breaking the Union into an infinity of wretched States. Admitting secession, our Constitution is, indeed, no stronger than 'a rope of sand.' We fight to maintain the Constitution as an Ordinance of Sovereignty (as it has been forcibly styled) over the whole Nation. We must so maintain it, or surrender our national existence. This being so, we cannot admit any such right as secession; for that would be to sanction the revolutionary doctrine that a body of men, usurping a State Government, and calling themselves the State, can absolve their fellow citizens from their allegiance to the Constitution, the supreme law of the land. The rebel States are, then, still members of the Union. Otherwise, we are waging an unjust war. Otherwise we falsify and contradict the record of our Revolution, and are striving to reduce to dependence a people who are equally striving to maintain their independence. There is no justification for this war save in the plea for the National Union; no warrant for it save in the preservation of the Constitution, which is the palladium and safeguard of the Nation. The Southern rebellion has usurped the functions and powers of various State Governments: when it is overthrown, the victims of its usurpation will be restored to their former rights. _Their_ allegiance is still perfect. Nothing but their own act can absolve them from it. II. THEORY OF THE STATES AS ALIEN ENEMIES.