Page:Hawkins v. Filkins 01.pdf/38

RhTERM, 1866.] declare acts void which did not conflict with it. Additional evidence is furnished of this, from the expressions, "recognizing the legitimate consequences of the existing rebellion." To what consequences do they refer? Perhaps, that the country had been overrun, and was being laid waste, that the laws had ceased to be administered in that part of the state occupied by them, and that the effort to maintain a separate government had become hopeless and ruinous to them. This is what we may presume they meant, as the legitimate consequences of the rebellion. How was this to be remedied? Most evidently, in their opinion, it was by re-uniting the state government with that of the United States, in connection with which they had once lived in peace, and to whom, even then, they looked for protection. To effect this, they must re-unite the state government, by repealing the acts which would prevent a re-union; this accomplished, and all motive for further action ceased.

In further confirmation of this, and to show that the convention did not intend to be understood, when using the word "entire," as declaring that there was no valid government framed by the convention of 1861, and that none thereafter existed, they expressly say, "they do agree to continue themselves as a free and independent state."

Thus the language used in the ordinance, as well as the condition of the country, and the inducements held out by the president to the people, to resume their allegiance to the United States, show that the leading purpose of the framers of the constitution was, that which a limited construction of the words, "entire action," would effect. And by thus construing the words "entire action" to mean the entire action of the convention of 1861, which is in conflict with the constitution and laws of the United States, all of the other acts of the convention will stand, and the leading purpose of the framers of the constitution and ordinance of 1864, be still preserved unimpaired. Otherwise, all government must fall: for no government can exist without a constitution in which there is the necessary power delegated.