“Roll not a drum, sound not a clarion note Of haughty triumph to the silent sky; Hush’d be the shout of joy in every throat, And veiled the flash of pride in every eye. “Not with _Te Deums_ loud and high hosannas Greet we the awful victory we have won, But with our arms revers’d and lowered banners We stand--our work is done! “THY work is done, God, terrible and just, Who lay’dst upon our hearts and hands this task, And kneeling, with our foreheads in the dust, We venture PEACE to ask.” But let us turn from the contemplation of the sufferings and sacrifices of this great war, to weigh the fruits of the victory which the country has by the blessing of God achieved. First, It has been established once and for ever, that the people who dwell between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans, the Great Lakes and the Gulf are a Nation--one and indivisible. That the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of this Nation; that this Nation exists, not as a partnership between States, but as a Government “of the people, by the people and for the people.” That State Sovereignty is an idea fundamentally and absolutely false and inconsistent with the Constitution. That it is indeed the “monster” which Washington called it in his letter of March 10, 1787, to John Jay.[A] That political sovereignty resides with the people alone in their collective capacity, and the only organ for its expression in matters affecting the National interests is the Constitution and Government of the United States. That all State Governments are based upon the principle of unconditional and perpetual loyalty to the Government of the United States, subordination to its power, and submission to its Constitution and laws. That the doctrine of secession is a folly and a crime. Nay, not only a crime, but, as the history of the war has proved, the compendium of all crimes. Since the formation of the Government, this wicked doctrine, the legitimate offspring of the flagitious heresy of State sovereignty, has laid in wait to undermine our strength and to assault our peace and prosperity. General Washington declared in his letter to Congress transmitting the Constitution framed by the Convention of which he was the President, “that the greatest interest of every true American was the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity and safety.” The conspiracy, which had for its object the destruction of the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the principles of Washington, has met an overthrow more complete and a destruction more absolute than any which has ever attended any revolution of similar pretensions. State sovereignty and secession are absolutely and utterly destroyed by the war. No foundered ship that lies rotting in the soundless depths of the ocean is more deeply buried than they. [A] Jay’s Life, vol. 1, p. 258.