pendence. They were never a nation, nor an entire community, contradistinguished from the people of the several States, having, as such, community rights and powers of a political character. The Revolutionary Government, as has been amply shown, was emphatically a Government of the States, through Congress, as their agent, with very limited powers. The phrase of the preamble is the most common reliance of those who claim the nationality and sovereignty of the General Government, and it is confidently quoted as tantamount to the lodging in the hands of the Government all the powers that belong to any other Government qua Government.' If the Constitution had been made by "the people" of the United States, "in their collective capacity," a certain portion, prima facie the majority, would have had that right. Did such majority ever act? Can the time or the occasion be specified when power was visibly exercised by others than those personally delegated by the organized political peoples of the several States? Was there any mode prescribed by which the majority might act; or, if acting, by which their will could be, or was, ascertained? It is possible that the Constitution became the fundamental law by the suffrages of a minority, for we know that it was laid before the conventions of several States and by them ratified and adopted, each State acting for itself, without reference to I See Cooley's Const. Limita., 5.

any other State, and that the Government was put into operation, when the necessary number was obtained, without counting the aggregate vote, or waiting to inquire whether a majority of the people had assented. The "people of the United States," in the sense held by the Nationalists, were not the authors of the Constitution, and could not have formed it, since they did not appoint the Convention, nor ratify their act, nor in any way adopt it as obligatory upon them. It was voted for by States in the Convention, submitted to the people of each State separately, and became the Constitution only of the States adopting it. "The people of the United States," as a political organism, never had an existence; in the aggregate, never performed a single political act, never was entrusted with any civil function, never was appealed to for sanction to any proceeding, and never can do what a National Government might do, without an entire radical revolution of our system of constitutional, representative, confederated republics. It seems conclusive of controversy to say that the Government of the United States has no inherent powers whatever, none by virtue of the fact that it is a Government. Its powers are all derivative, nominated in the bond, specifically granted, and what is not granted was reserved to the States respectively, or to the people thereof. The Gen. eral Assembly of Virginia of 1798 says forcibly of another portion of the preamble: "Had the

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States been despoiled of their sovereignty by the generality of the preamble, had the Federal Government been endowed with whatever they should judge to be instrumental towards justice, tranquillity, common defence, general welfare, and the preservation of liberty, nothing could have been more frivolous than an enumeration of powers." The Constitution is federative in the power which framed it, in the power which adopted and ratified it, in the power which sustains and keeps it alive, in the power by which alone it can be altered or amended, and is federative in the structure of all its departments. In no sense is our Federal Government a democracy, or do the people rule en masse. The doctrine of State co-operation, of concurrent majorities, of restraints upon mere popular will, of checks and balances, runs through and dominates the whole system. The Government of the Union is the creature of the States. It is not a party to the Constitution, but the result of it, as made by the constituent States, and cannot, as originally formed and designed, exist independently of it, or of the States, its creators. The Union, so much lauded and so beneficial and necessary, is not a self-existing thing. It is a consequence, a creation, and whatever powers it possesses or can exercise, whatever authority it can use, whatever allegiance it can claim, grow out of

the voluntary and separate acts of the several States. The States are united to the extent of the delegated powers; beyond those the States are not in a union. As forcibly stated by Mr. Justice Nelson, "the General Government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the Tenth Amendment, reserved,' are as independent of the General Government as that Government within its sphere is independent of the States." Outside the granted powers, or what is necessarily implied from the granted, the General Government, the Union, has no more right, power, authority, control, dominion, over Massachusetts or Montana than it has over Austria or Chili. Within the powers reserved, and not prohibited to the States and not delegated to the General Government, Colorado or Connecticut is as free from interference or control by the Government at Washington, or should be under the Constitution, as Turkey or Japan or Brazil. The Federal theory of our Government made the party which has sedulously guarded the States against encroachment or usurpation, and has construed the Constitution strictly in its grants and limitations.

1 The Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124.

Standing over in antagonism to this is the opposing view as to the extent of the powers conferred upon the Government,-a view which makes the Government a creature of national sovereignty, and in its machinery of administration independent of, and superior to, the weal of State governments. This theory makes the National Government the ultimate and sole interpreter of its own powers, with no remedy except revolution against usurpation; for there can be no difference between a government having originally all powers, and one having the right to take what powers it pleases. At one time, in the progress of framing the Constitution, the words "National Government" were inserted, but after debate, on motion of Mr. Ellsworth of Connecticut, were stricken out unanimously, thus showing that the Convention intended the Government to be Federal, not National. Mr. Calhoun, in 1811, used this clear and terse language: "The chief object for which the Constitution was formed was to give the General Government power, security, and respectability abroad. In our relations with foreign countries, where strength of Government and national security were most required, the powers of our Government are undivided. In those exterior relations abroad, this Government is the sole and exclusive representative of the united majority, sovereignty, and power of the States constituting this great and glorious Union. To the rest of the world, we are one.