Page:Hawkins v. Filkins 01.pdf/20

RhTERM, 1866.] Thus it is shown, even admitting that Arkansas should be held as foreign territory—conquered if you please, by the Confederate States, (which was not in point of fact true,)—that, for the time being, no allegiance swas due from the citizens of the state to the United States; because the sovereign power of the United States was suspended over the territory in the possession of the enemy, and was not obligatory upon the inhabitants who remained, because, says Judge S, "where there is no protection or sovereignty, there can be no claim to obedience."

Such was the condition of the people of Arkansas. They owed to the United States allegiance, to the extent of her delegated powers for national purposes, bnt the moment the laws, which protected the citizen, were suspended by force of a civil war, that allegiance ceased.

During the suspension, there must, of necessity, be some law to govern the people. All associations of people, when numerous, must of necessity have government; self-protection, indeed their very existence depends upon it. A civilized christian people are not because of war, to be remitted back to a state of barbarism. Arkansas, with other states, attempted to organize a new government. At the time she attempted to do this she was a sovereign state, with all of her powers and rights as perfect and full as were the powers of the original thirteen states. Amongst the reserved rights of the states, and of the people, is that of making, altering or remodeling their state constitutions. That it is republican in form, and does not infringe any of the powers delegated to the United States, is all that can be required of them. Beyond this, there is no restriction upon them. Nor has it ever been questioned, that the states have an exclusive right to make all necessary laws for the government of the people of the states, and to execute them. They had a government and laws in force at the time that, by force of civil war, the laws of the United States were suspended; and, like the people of "Castine," they owed obedience to the laws and government under which they lived, although that government should be held by force of arms. 21