Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 1.djvu/493

Rh with the United States, and the Confederate government could hang Andrew Johnson for violating an allegiance to this government. The old doctrine that allegiance once is allegiance always has been exploded. Citizenship is made up of the consent of the individual as well as of the government.&quot;

Mr. Oldham entering into the discussion expressed the view that every citizen of a political community owes allegiance to the sovereign power. In this country the people are the sovereign power, and every citizen owes allegiance to the political community that constitutes his State. He owes similar allegiance to this sovereign power that English people owe to the English government. Mr. Oldham’s idea was that obedience was due to the Confederate government by the citizens of the State, but that his &quot; allegiance &quot; was due the State. The State could direct him as to his duty to the general government which it commanded him to obey. Mr. Hill answered that he would not quibble over words. All he had to say was that every citizen of the Confederate States owes allegiance to the Confederate States. Call it allegiance or obedience. His idea was that the States were originally sovereign and they are so still. As such they had the right to exercise sovereign power. By their own consent they delegated sovereign power to a common government, not to an agency, but a government, which they call a government in the compact, and in that compact they say that all citizens of States are citizens of the Confederate States. The men who were originally citizens of the States, and who are yet citizens of the States, owe their first allegiance to the States, but through the States they owe allegiance to the Confederate government. The Senator said that the State had the power to qualify that allegiance to the common government, but that when the compact was dissolved, the citizen had the right to elect. Alluding to the origination of secession, Mr. Hill showed that by recurring to the history of the United