I am now brought to the consideration of who are the parties to this controversy, and what are the relations of this Court and of the laws we are administering to the subject and the inquiry. The Government of the United States still stands. The old Constitution, the whole system of its statutes, the whole power of its army and of its navy, stand. It has its Courts of judicature; it has its commerce still on the seas; its laws are still operative, and still to be administered. And when this Court considers this case, it finds it brought before it as every other criminal case is, and limited to the considerations that belong to every criminal case. The Government of the United States, by the ordinary exercise of the process of judicature,--by seizure under public authority,--by arrest within this District, through the criminal process of this Court,--by the indictment of a Grand Jury,--by the prosecution of the District Attorney,--has proposed to this Court the naked and narrow inquiry of whether these men have committed a crime against the statutes of the United States. Now, I would like to know whether there is anything in these occurrences, that have secured, if you please, for the present, (and the future may be uncertain,) in large portions of our territory, a practical control over great portions of our population,--I would like to know if there is anything in these transactions that has displaced the constitutional legislation of the United States of America over crimes on the high seas, and over its citizens committing crimes on the high seas, or over subjects or citizens, of whatever country, committing crimes on the high seas against our property? I take it, not. Therefore, if your honors please, whatever may be said, in one form or another, of the political right, as respects these States, either constitutionally or by the right of force, to be independent, or to attempt to be independent of the United States, or to engage in this struggle for the settlement of some question of dispute under the Constitution,--whatever may be said of that, your honors cannot fail to discover that nothing which has occurred has destroyed the organism of our Government, or altered for a moment the judicial authority or the force and supremacy of the Constitution and the laws, within the territory where the Courts are open, over the subjects of our Government, and the subjects of whatever Government, in respect to whatever property, upon the high seas.