ples of our system of government. We have seen that our system ultimately rests on two principles, INDIVIDUAL SELF-GOVERNMENT, and COMMON CONSENT; INDIVIDUALITY and CO-OPERATION. These principles are as natural and eternal as nature herself. But nature herself can be law for intelligent beings only in becoming the meaning and ideality of visible forms. Common consent, in like manner is a myth, unless expressed in words and definite propositions. Thus the COMMON MIND is the COMMON SOVEREIGN only in the form of WRITTEN CONSTITUTIONS. The COMMON CONSENT is therefore expressed in such CONSTITUTIONS; and as it cannot be given without PARTIES CONSENTING, the status of the parties is fixed as that of ABSOLUTE. SOVEREIGNS; they being the source of power and the crown and support of the system. The system can, therefore, exist and continue only on condition that those parties retain their sovereign power; only so long as the principle and ultimate foundation of the system, that all power is inherent in the people of each state, remains secure and unshaken. Hence the question, and the all-important question: SHALL THE BASIS AND FOUNDATION OF THE SYSTEM BE CHANGED, AND THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE PEOPLE BE SURRENDERED AS PROOF OF THEIR LOYALTY TO OUR IMPERIAL

1

COURT! This is the question which the SOVEREIGN ASSEMBLIES OF THE PEOPLE are soon to decide.

AMERICANS! However divided by party lines, forget not your trust.

You are the sovereigns of a mighty republic, founded in the wisdom and patriotism of your sires. Under God and your banner, humanity is self-redeemed and liberty is proclaimed to all men.

Shall your place, your power, and your right be usurped, and the sceptre of your might be seized by a treacherous yet trusted hand? Is treason at work and still unsuspected and honored?

Consider, then, the ways of your trusted servants; their perfidious violations of their oaths of fidelity to your

'The people of each state, in their state constitution, have always assumed this to be the basis of our system. See pp. 80, 81, 289, ante.

sovereign will and organic law; their covert homage to the new pretender to the sovereignty of America, couched in the mystic form of 'the right of citizens of the United States TO VOTE;' their open denial of your right to determine and decree, by your own constitutions, who shall share in your sovereign deliberations and resolves; their collusive and wasteful appropriations of your public lands; their profligate expenditure of millions extorted by unwise and ruinous taxation-destroying your manufactures, your commerce and trade, and beggaring one-half of your laboring populations; their merciless oppression and spoilation of your once erring brethren, and their contentions for the spoils; their efforts to mask their usurpations and misrule by arousing the demon and rekindling the fires of sectional hate; their greed of gifts, their love of bribes, their schemes and leagues of corruption, and their hatred, contempt and resistance of reforms which you have decreed.

It is for you to say 'Thus far and no farther.' THE

SCEPTRE IS STILL IN YOUR HANDS.

It is for you to decide, whether your will, as expressed by yourselves in your sovereign enactments and constitutions for the glory and advancement of the cause of humanity and civilization, or the traitorous schemes of your servants for their own elevation and 'self aggrandizement, shall be the paramount law of the land.

The people of Rome, at a critical moment, recollected they were legislators, and there was an end of Tarquin.1 Americans! Awake to your duty! 'Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.' Hold the sceptre or all is lost.

1Montesquieu Spirit of Laws b. xi c. 12.

INDEX.

References are made to Sections.

ABANDONMENT, of Sovereignty by 'The People,' 12.

ABSOLUTE RIGHTS, 16–17.

ABSOLUTISM IN GOVERNMENT (See IMPERIAL THEORY), 12.
ALLEGIANCE, 30, 55, 57, 60, 65, 180.

AMENDMENTS, to Federal Constitution, 89.

mode of making, 87-88.

limit to the power of making, 87 a, 168.

XIVth and xvth, 89 a, 164-172.

partisan Amendments, 88, 193.

ANALYSIS OF THE DIFFERENT FOUNDATIONS OF GOVERNMENT, 11-16.
ANGLO-AMERICAN COLONIES, Political History of, 22-44.
ANNAPOLIS CONVENTION, of 1786, 77.

ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION, 50–51.

nature and defects of, 63.
revision of, 76–82.

BANKRUPT LAWS, power to enact, 160.

BILL OF RIGHTS, See General Form of State Constitution, 75–76.

BODY POLITIC, what it is, 91.

BOUNDARY-LINE, of State and Federal Powers, 16, 112, 117, 125, 126, 141.
CAROLINAS, THE, Colonial Government of, 25, 26.

CITIZENS, What is meant by, 155, 156.

who are, 156, 165.

CITIZENSHIP, before the Confederation, 62, 157.

of a State, 155–157.

of the United States, 155–157.

origin of, 161-162.

'privileges and immunities' of, 163–172.

confers no right to vote, 163-172.

CIVIL STATE, distinguished from the Political, 91, 155, 156.

COLONIES, History of the American, 22-44.

COMMERCE, power to regulate, 142.

•COMMISSIONS, of Delegates to Constitutional Convention, 79.

COMMON CONSENT, Government founded in, 11, 14, 15, 16, 150.

COMMON LAW, confirmation of by the States, 60, 61.
COMPACT, original, of Society, 73-75.

CONGRESS, Colonial, of 1765, 35.

of 1774, 37.

of the Revolution, 45–51.

CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, its Powers Limited, 148.
under xvth Amendment, 171–172.

CONNECTICUT, Colonial Government of, 27.

her Ordinance Ratifying the Constitution, 85 e.

CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, Original Text of, 81-82.

establishment of, 76-86 a.

foundation of, 114.

principle of, 111, 112, 119, 141, 153.

Preamble to, 84, 108-110, 149.

theories of, (See FEDERAL, also IMPERIAL Theory) 101–133.
views of its Framers, 111-128.

CONSTITUTION, of the English Parliament, 192.

CONSTITUTIONS, State, establishment of, 73, 74.

fundamental Principle of, 93, 94, 134.

General Form of, 75–76.

nature of, 73-75.

-CONSTITUTIONAL CONSTRUCTION, Fundamental Rule of, 127, 141, 142.
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, of 1787, 78-83.

CONVENTION, the Annapolis, of 1786, 77.

the General, of the States, of 1787, 78-82.

Political Parties in, 80.

Letter and Resolution of, 83.

difficulties experienced in, 111-112.

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, by Continental Congress, 48-49.

by Virginia, 43.

DELAWARE, her Ordinance Ratifying the Constitution, 85 a.

DEMOCRATS, THE, 152-154.

DOMAIN, of States and United States, 300.

ELECTIONS, Power of Congress concerning, 94 a.

ELECTORS, 91-98, 165, 166, 171-180.

compose the States, as Bodies Politic, 91-93.
hold the Paramount Sovereignty, 91-95.
determine their own Status, 94–95.

regulations of their Rights, Importance of, 95-99.
sovereign Office and Duty of, 97.

ENGLAND, Constitution of, 192.

FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, (See CONSTITUTION) 81-82.

FEDERAL POWERS, extent of, 117, 145.

construction of, 112, 127, 141, 142.

supremacy of, 143–144.

FEDERAL THEORY, 111-128.

how it defines a State, 19.

contrasted with the Imperial Theory, 101.

necessity of understanding the two Theories, 101.