Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/492

454 would work upon good citizens who were inside the Federal military lines, and under duress had acquiesced in the rule of the United States.

Mr. Wigfall regarded the bill as of doubtful constitutionality because it invaded the right of the States to which their citizens were responsible and not to the Confederate States. Mr. Hill argued that under the circumstances of secession every citizen had the right to elect with which of the two governments he would act. The Confederate States had also the right to say that every citizen deciding to be a citizen of the United States should leave the Confederate States and go to the United States. But that decision once made by word or act to be a citizen of the Confederate States could not be changed at the pleasure of the citizen. The Confederate government had the right to define by law who are aliens and who are alien enemies. The Georgia senator had casually used the word revolution in referring to secession, which caused Mr. Wigfall to exclaim that Mr. Hill was agreeing with Lincoln and Seward in calling this a revolution. This, said he, is no civil war. There was an example of civil war in the State of Kentucky, where the citizens of the same State were organized in righting each other. This is a war made by certain States against other States. He also insisted that there was no such person as a citizen of the Confederate States. Citizenship is by States, the Confederate citizenship comes through the States. There was no legal &quot;allegiance&quot; to the Confederate States. Mr. Hill replied at length that the citizen of the State did owe allegiance to the Confederate States. The first allegiance is due the State and through the State he owes allegiance to the Confederate government. Resuming his first proposition that the individual resident of the South at the outset of secession had the right to choose his government and go to its support, he said, 4&amp;lt; If this were not true the United States could hang General Buckner, of Kentucky, for violating an allegiance