I come now to a question which is, if possible, still more important.
Have we the power to establish and carry into execution a measure like
this? I answer, Certainly not, if we derive our authority from the
Constitution and if we are bound by the limitations which it imposes.
This proposition is perfectly clear, that no branch of the Federal
Government--executive, legislative, or judicial--can have any just
powers except those which it derives through and exercises under the
organic law of the Union. Outside of the Constitution we have no legal
authority more than private citizens, and within it we have only so
much as that instrument gives us. This broad principle limits all our
functions and applies to all subjects. It protects not only the citizens
of States which are within the Union, but it shields every human being
who comes or is brought under our jurisdiction. We have no right to do
in one place more than in another that which the Constitution says we
shall not do at all. If, therefore, the Southern States were in truth
out of the Union, we could not treat their people in a way which the
fundamental law forbids.
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