as one great whole; and the one is as needful as the other. The powers of government are not divided between them; they are distributed; so that there need be no collision in their exercise. The union without self-existent states is a harp without strings; the states without union are as chords that are unstrung. But for state rights the union would perish from the paralysis of its limbs. The states, as they gave life to the union, are necessary to the continuance of that life. Within their own limits they are the guardians of industry, of property, of personal rights, and of liberty. But state rights are to be defended inside of the union; not from an outside citadel from which the union may be struck at or defied. The states and the United States are not antagonists; the states in union form the federal republic; and the system can have life and health and strength and beauty only by their harmonious action. In short, the constitution knows nothing of United States alone, or states alone; it adjusts the parts harmoniously in an organized unity. Impair the relations or the vigor of any part, and disease enters into the veins of the whole. That there may be life in the whole, there must be healthy life in every part. The United States are the states in union; these are so inwrought into the constitution that the one cannot perish without the other.

Is it asked who is the sovereign of the United States? The words sovereign" and "subjects" are unknown to the constitution. There is no place for princes with unlimited power, or conquering cities, or feudal chiefs, or privileged aristocracies, ruling absolutely with their correlative vassals or subjects.

The people of the United States have declared in their constitution that the law alone is supreme; and have defined that supreme law. Is it asked who are the people of the United States that instituted the "general government"? The federal convention and the constitution answer, that it is the concurring people of the several states. The constitution is constantly on its guard against permitting the action of the aggregate mass as a unit, lest the whole people, once accustomed to acting together as an individual, might forget the existence of the states, and the states now in union succumb to

centralization and absolutism. The people of the states demanded a federal convention to form the constitution; the congress of the confederation, voting by states, authorized that federal convention; the federal convention, voting likewise by states, made the constitution; at the advice of the federal convention the federal congress referred that constitution severally to the people of each state; and by their united voice taken severally it was made the binding form of government. The constitution, as it owes its life to the concurrent act of the people of the several states, permits no method of amending itself except by the several consent of the people of the states; and within the constitution itself the president, the only officer who has an equal relation to every state in the union, is elected not by the aggregate people of all the states, but by the separate action of the people of the several states according to the number of votes allotted to each of them.

Finally, there is one more great and happy feature in the constitution. Rome, in annexing the cities around itself, had not given them equal influence with itself in proportion to their wealth and numbers, and consequently there remained a cause of dissatisfaction never healed. America has provided for admission of new states upon equal terms, and only upon equal terms, with the old ones.

For Europe there remained the sad necessity of revolution. For America the gates of revolution are shut and barred and bolted down, never again to be thrown open; for it has found a legal and a peaceful way to introduce every amelioration. Peace and intercitizenship and perfect domestic free-trade are to know no end. The constitution is to the American people a possession for all ages; it creates an indissoluble union of imperishable states.

The federal republic will carry tranquillity, and freedom, and order throughout its vast domain. Will it, within less than a century, extend its limits to the capes of Florida, to the mouth of the Mississippi, to the region beyond the Mississippi, to California, to Oregon, to San Juan? Will it show all the Spanish colonies how to transform themselves into independent republics stretching along the Pacific till they turn Cape Horn? Will it be an example to France, teaching its great

benefactor how to gain free institutions? In the country from which it broke away will it assist the liberal statesmen to bring parliament more nearly to a representation of the people? Will it help the birthplace of the reformation to gather together its scattered members and become once more an empire, with a government so entirely the child of the nation that it shall have but one hereditary functionary, with a federal council or senate representing the several states, and a house elected directly by universal suffrage? Will it teach England herself how to give peace to her groups of colonies, her greatest achievement, by establishing for them a federal republican dominion, in one continent at least if not in more? And will America send manumitted dark men home to their native continent, to introduce there an independent republic and missions that may help to civilize the races of Africa?

The philosophy of the people of the United States was neither that of optimism nor of despair. Believing in the justice of "the Great Governor of the world," and conscious of their own honest zeal in the cause of freedom and mankind, they looked with astonishment at their present success and at the future with unclouded hope.

CHAPTER II.

THE LINGERING STATES.

1787 TO 2 AUGUST 1788.

WHEN the constitution was referred to the states Hamilton revived a long-cherished plan, and, obtaining the aid of Jay and Madison, issued papers which he called The Federalist, to prepare all the states and the people for accepting the determinations of the federal convention. Of its eighty-five numbers, Jay wrote five, Madison twenty-nine, and Hamilton fiftyone.* They form a work of enduring interest, because they are

* Mr. Madison's list of the authors of The Federalist: Number 1 by A. H.

No. 2, J. J.

No. 3, J. J.

No. 4, J. J.

No. 5, J. J.

"No. 18 is attributed to Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Madison jointly. A. H. had drawn up something on the subjects of this (No. 18) and the two next Nos. (19 and 20). On finding that J. M. was engaged in them with larger materials, and with a view to a more precise delineation, he put what he had written into the hands of J. M. It is possible, though not recollected, that something in the draught may have been incorporated into the numbers as printed. But it was certainly not of a nature or amount to affect the impression left on the mind of

the earliest commentary on the new experiment of mankind in establishing a republican government for a country of boundless dimensions; and were written by Madison, who was the chief author of the constitution, and Hamilton, who took part in its inception and progress.

Hamilton dwelt on the defects of the confederation; the praiseworthy energy of the new federal government; its relations to the public defence; to the functions of the executive; to the judicial department, to the treasury; and to commerce. Himself a friend to the protection of manufactures, he condemned "exorbitant duties on imported articles," because they "beget smuggling," are "always prejudicial to the fair trader, and eventually to the revenue itself;" tend to render "other classes of the community tributary in an improper degree to the manufacturing classes," and to "give them a premature monopoly of the markets;" to "force industry out of its most natural channels," and to " oppress the merchant." *

Madison commented with severe wisdom on its plan; its conformity to republican principles; its powers; its relation to slavery and the slave-trade; its mediating office between the union and the states; its tripartite separation of the depart

J. M., from whose pen the papers went to the press, that they were of the class written by him. As the historical materials of A. II., as far as they went, were doubtless similar, or the same with those provided by J. M., and as a like application of them probably occurred to both, an impression might be left on the mind of A. H. that the Nos. in question were written jointly. These remarks are made as well to account for a statement to that effect, if made by A. H., as in justice to J. M., who, always regarding them in a different light, had so stated them to an inquiring friend, long before it was known or supposed that a different impression existed anywhere. (Signed) J. M." There exists no list of the authors of The Federalist by the hand of Hamilton. There exists no authentic copy of any list that may have been made by Hamilton. It is a great wrong to Hamilton's memory to insist that he claimed the authorship of papers which were written for him at his request by another, and which the completest evidence proves that he could not have written. The list of the authors of the several papers given above rests on the written authority of Madison. From this list Madison has never been known to vary in the slightest degree. The correctness of his statement is substantiated beyond room for a cavil by various evidence. Meeting an assertion that Madison in some paper in the department of state had changed one figure in his list, I requested a former secretary of state to order a search to be made for it. A search was made, and no such paper was found. * The Federalist, xxxv.