This designation does not recognize the State, or manifest any
consciousness of its existence, whereas South Carolina was one of the
colonies that had declared her independence, and, after a long and
bloody war, she had been recognized as a sovereign State by Great
Britain, the only power to which she had ever owed allegiance. The fact
that she had been one of the colonies in the original Congress, had been
a member of the Confederation, and subsequently of the Union,
strengthens, but surely can not impair, her claim to be a State. Though
President Lincoln designated her as a "combination," it did not make her
a combination. Though he refused to recognize her as a State, it did not
make her any less a State. By assertion, he attempted to annihilate
seven States; and the war which followed was to enforce the
revolutionary edict, and to establish the supremacy of the General
Government on the ruins of the blood-bought independence of the States.
By designating the State as a "combination," and considering that under
such a name it might be in a condition of insurrection, he assumed to
have authority to raise a great military force and attack the State.
Yet, even if the fact had been as assumed, if an insurrection had
existed, the President could not lawfully have derived the power he
exercised from such condition of affairs. The provision of the
Constitution is as follows: "The United States shall guarantee to every
State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect
each of them against invasion; and, on application of the Legislature,
or of the Executive (when the Legislature can not be convened), against
domestic violence.
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