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source. The only difference is that, in the creation of the State governments, each sovereign acted alone; in that of the Federal Government, they acted in coöperation with the others. Neither the whole nor any part of their sovereignty has been surrendered to either Government.

To whom, in fine, could the States have surrendered their sovereignty? Not to the mass of the people inhabiting the territory possessed by all the States, for there was no such community in existence, and they took no measures for the organization of such a community. If they had intended to do so, the very style, "United States," would have been a palpable misnomer, nor would treason have been defined as levying war against them. Could it have been transferred to the Government of the Union? Clearly not, in accordance with the ideas and principles of those who made the Declaration of Independence, adopted the Articles of Confederation, and established the Constitution of the United States; for in each and all of these the corner-stone is the inherent and inalienable sovereignty of the people. To have transferred sovereignty from the people to a Government would have been to have fought the battles of the Revolution in vain-not for the freedom and independence of the States, but for a mere change of masters. Such a thought or purpose could not have been in the heads or hearts of those who molded the Union, and could have found lodgment only when the ebbing tide of patriotism and fraternity had swept away the landmarks which they erected who sought by the compact of union to secure and perpetuate the liberties then possessed. The men who had won at great cost the independence of their respective States were deeply impressed with the value of union, but they could never have consented, like "the base Judean," to fling away the priceless pearl of State sovereignty for any possible alliance.

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PROPOSITIONS ESTABLISHED.

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CHAPTER X.

A Recapitulation.-Remarkable Propositions of Mr. Gouverneur Morris in the Convention of 1787, and their Fate.-Further Testimony.-Hamilton, Madison, Washington, Marshall, etc.-Later Theorics.-Mr. Webster: his Views at Various Periods.-Speech at Capon Springs.-State Rights not a Sectional Theory.

LOOKING back for a moment at the ground over which we have gone, I think it may be fairly asserted that the following propositions have been clearly and fully established:

1. That the States of which the American Union was formed, from the moment when they emerged from their colonial or provincial condition, became severally sovereign, free, and independent States-not one State, or nation.

2. That the union formed under the Articles of Confederation was a compact between the States, in which these attributes of "sovereignty, freedom, and independence," were expressly asserted and guaranteed.

3. That, in forming the "more perfect union" of the Constitution, afterward adopted, the same contracting powers formed an amended compact, without any surrender of these attributes of sovereignty, freedom, and independence, either expressed or implied on the contrary, that, by the tenth amendment to the Constitution, limiting the power of the Government to its express grants, they distinctly guarded against the presumption of a surrender of anything by implication.

4. That political sovereignty resides, neither in individual citizens, nor in unorganized masses, nor in fractional subdivisions of a community, but in the people of an organized political body.

5. That no "republican form of government," in the sense in which that expression is used in the Constitution, and was generally understood by the founders of the Union-whether it be the government of a State or of a confederation of Statesis possessed of any sovereignty whatever, but merely exercises certain powers delegated by the sovereign authority of the people, and subject to recall and reassumption by the same authority that conferred them.

6. That the "people" who organized the first confederation, the people who dissolved it, the people who ordained and established the Constitution which succeeded it, the only people, in fine, known or referred to in the phraseology of that period -whether the term was used collectively or distributivelywere the people of the respective States, each acting separately and with absolute independence of the others.

7. That, in forming and adopting the Constitution, the States, or the people of the States-terms which, when used with reference to acts performed in a sovereign capacity, are precisely equivalent to each other-formed a new Government, but no new people; and that, consequently, no new sovereignty was created-for sovereignty in an American republic can belong only to a people, never to a government-and that the Federal Government is entitled to exercise only the powers delegated to it by the people of the respective States.

8. That the term "people," in the preamble to the Constitution and in the tenth amendment, is used distributively; that the only "people of the United States" known to the Constitution are the people of each State in the Union; that no such political community or corporate unit as one people of the United States then existed, has ever been organized, or yet exists; and that no political action by the people of the United States in the aggregate has ever taken place, or ever can take place, under the Constitution.

The fictitious idea of one people of the United States, contradicted in the last paragraph, has been so impressed upon the popular mind by false teaching, by careless and vicious phraseology, and by the ever-present spectacle of a great Government, with its army and navy, its custom-houses and post-offices, its multitude of office-holders, and the splendid prizes which it offers to political ambition, that the tearing away of these illusions and presentation of the original fabric, which they have overgrown and hidden from view, have no doubt been unwelcome, distasteful, and even repellent to some of my readers. The artificial splendor which makes the deception attractive is even employed as an argument to prove its reality.

The glitter of the powers delegated to the agent serves to

1787]

WORDS STRICKEN OUT.

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obscure the perception of the sovereign power of the principal by whom they are conferred, as, by the unpracticed eye, the showy costume and conspicuous functions of the drum-major are mistaken for emblems of chieftaincy-while the misuse or ambiguous use of the term "Union" and its congeners con

tributes to increase the confusion.

So much the more need for insisting upon the elementary truths which have been obscured by these specious sophistries. The reader really desirous of ascertaining truth is, therefore, again cautioned against confounding two ideas so essentially distinct as that of government, which is derivative, dependent, and subordinate, with that of the people, as an organized political community, which is sovereign, without any other than selfimposed limitations, and such as proceed from the general principles of the personal rights of man.

It has been said, in a foregoing chapter, that the authors of the Constitution could scarcely have anticipated the idea of such a community as the people of the United States in one mass. Perhaps this expression needs some little qualification, for there is rarely a fallacy, however stupendous, that is wholly original. A careful examination of the records of the Convention of 1787 exhibits one or perhaps two instances of such a suggestion-both by the same person-and the result in each case is strikingly significant.

The original proposition made concerning the office of President of the United States contemplated his election by the Congress, or, as it was termed by the proposer, "the national Legislature." On the 17th of July, this proposition being under consideration, Mr. Gouverneur Morris moved that the words "national Legislature" be stricken out, and "citizens of the United States" inserted. The proposition was supported by Mr. James Wilson-both of these gentlemen being delegates from Pennsylvania, and both among the most earnest advocates of centralism in the Convention.

Now, it is not at all certain that Mr. Morris had in view an election by the citizens of the United States "in the aggregate," voting as one people. The language of his proposition is entirely consistent with the idea of an election by the citizens of each

State, voting separately and independently, though it is ambiguous, and may admit of the other construction. But this is immaterial. The proposition was submitted to a vote, and received the approval of only one State-Pennsylvania, of which Mr. Morris and Mr. Wilson were both representatives. Nine States voted against it.*

Six days afterward (July 23d), in a discussion of the proposed ratification of the Constitution by Conventions of the people of each State, Mr. Gouverneur Morris-as we learn from Mr. Madison-" moved that the reference of the plan [i. e., of the proposed Constitution] be made to one General Convention, chosen and authorized by the people, to consider, amend, and establish the same."+

Here the issue seems to have been more distinctly made between the two ideas of people of the States and one people in the aggregate. The fate of the latter is briefly recorded in the two words, "not seconded." Mr. Morris was a man of distin guished ability, great personal influence, and undoubted patriotism, but, out of all that assemblage-comprising, as it did, such admitted friends of centralism as Hamilton, King, Wilson, Randolph, Pinckney, and others-there was not one to sustain him in the proposition to incorporate into the Constitution that theory which now predominates, the theory on which was waged the late bloody war, which was called a "war for the Union." It failed for want of a second, and does not even appear in the official journal of the Convention. The very fact that such a suggestion was made would be unknown to us but for the record kept by Mr. Madison.

The extracts which have been given, in treating of special branches of the subject, from the writings and speeches of the framers of the Constitution and other statesmen of that period, afford ample proof of their entire and almost unanimous accord with the principles which have been established on the authority of the Constitution itself, the acts of ratification by the several States, and other attestations of the highest authority and validity. I am well aware that isolated expressions may be

* Elliott's "Debates," vol. i, p. 239; "Madison Papers," pp. 1119-1124.
"Madison Papers," p. 1184.

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