_Resolved_, 1st. That any vote of secession, or other act by which any State may undertake to put an end to the supremacy of the Constitution within its territory, is inoperative and void against the Constitution, and when sustained by force it becomes a practical _abdication_ by the State of all rights under the Constitution, while the treason which it involves still further works an instant _forfeiture_ of all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of the State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being, according to the language of the law, _felo de se_, ceases to exist.
2d. That any combination of men assuming to act in the place of such State, attempting to ensnare or coerce the inhabitants thereof into a confederation hostile to the Union, is rebellious, treasonable, and destitute of all moral authority; and that such combination is a usurpation incapable of any constitutional existence and utterly lawless, so that everything dependent upon it is without constitutional or legal support.
3d. That the termination of a State under the Constitution necessarily causes the termination of those peculiar local institutions which, having no origin in the Constitution, or in those natural rights which exist Independent of the Constitution, are upheld by the sole and exclusive authority of the State.
... Congress will assume complete jurisdiction of such vacated territory where such unconstitutional and illegal things have been attempted, and will proceed to establish therein republican forms of government under the Constitution.
It is not shown how a usurpation or illegal act by conspirators in any State or States could justify or make legal a usurpation by the general Government, as this scheme evidently was, nor by what authority Congress could declare that the illegal, inoperative, and void acts of usurpers who might have temporary possession of or be a majority in a State, could constitute a practical abdication by the State itself of all rights under the Constitution, regardless of the rights of a legal, loyal minority, guilty of no usurpation or attempted secession--the innocent victims of a conspiracy; nor where Congress or the Federal Government obtained authority to pronounce "an instant _forfeiture_ of all those functions and powers essential to the continued existence of a State as a body politic, so that from that time forward the territory falls under the exclusive jurisdiction of Congress as other territory, and the State, being, according to the language of the law, _felo de se_, ceases to exist."