mental one, or the state constitution, is the harness or machine in which work these agents, who are selected by the said sovereign people from among their subjects, and commissioned and sent and sworn to do certain written duties, and to abstain from all not written or implied. This is plain common sense.

The attentive reader will now see and appreciate the error in the following ascription of sovereignty to persons, by a conservative and able professor of a great college, who seems to fall a little short of the true idea — viz. that our members of states (i. e. the "men that "constitute a state") have a dual capacity, and govern only in their collective one. They, as the state, rule, votes being mere instruments of the said state, ordained in her constitution, through which she determines, formulates, and executes her will. The professor says: "The franchise is a prerogative act. It is the act of a sovereign. It is performed without any responsibility whatever, except to one's own judgment and conscience. And furthermore, although we are fond of boasting that every citizen is a sovereign, let us not forget that every one is also a subject."

In conclusion of this chapter, to aid honest reflection, I will present Some Decisive Definitions. As Daniel Webster, in his speech of 1833, says that "well-known words" should be taken in their "well-known sense" in expositions of the constitution, I will invite Noah to "come to judgment" and correct Daniel with the "wellknown sense" of the leading words herein used. The hundreds of dictionaries in the library of the British Museum all agree with the impartial and decisive judgment (for such it may be considered) of the great American lexicographer. I quote from a genuine edition.

"SOVEREIGNTY, n. Supreme power; supremacy; the possession of the highest power, or of uncontrollable power." It is obvious that the word has but one meaning; and that it is a superlative and unqualifiable word. This definition shows all the phrases quoted at the beginning of Chapter V. to be gross errors.

WILL, n. 1. The power of choosing; the faculty or endowment of the soul, by which it is capable of choosing; the faculty of selecting or preferring one of two or more objects. 2. The choice which is made; a determination or preference which results from the act or exercise of the power of choice; a volition. 3. The choice or determination of one who has authority; a decree; a command; discretive pleasure." [Webster's Dictionary, ed. 1844.]

In the edition of 1859, under "Will" is the following, which suits my purpose: "The will is directed or influenced by the judgment. The understanding or reason compares different objects which operate as motives; the judgment determines which is preferable, and the

will decides which to pursue. In other words, we reason with respect to the value and importance of things: we then judge which is to be preferred; and we will to take the most valuable. These are but different operations of the mind, soul, or intellectual part of man." [See also Locke, Understanding, B. II. c. 21.]

The error of the writers herein criticised seems to result from their not always keeping it in mind that "will" and "power" are totally different entities; and that "sovereignty" is supremacy of will, while power or powers refer to the faculty or ability of doing, or the authority to do, what effectuates will. A paralytic may have will without power, and an idiot power without will. Hence we see that either of the said entities can exist without the other. Legislation is sovereign will in the shape of law, though it is ineffectual without executive power.

"DELEGATION, n. A sending away; the act of putting in commission or investing with authority to act for another; the appointment of a delegate. 2. The person deputed to act for another or for others. Thus the representatives of Massachusetts in congress are called the delegation, or whole delegation."

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“Delegate, v. t. 1. To send away; appropriately, to send on an embassy; to send with power to transact business as a representative. . . . 2. To entrust; to commit; to deliver to another's care and exercise; as, to delegate authority or power to an envoy, representative or judge."

POWER. Any and every power in the constitution, being granted or vested by delegation, is necessarily "an authority which enables one person [or a set of persons] to do an act for another." [See note, p. 302, supra.]

Here then is the plain teaching "the well-known sense" — of these important words: 1. The sovereign mind (whether residing in a monarch, an aristocracy, or a state), in governing wills. 2. Powers are, by it, delegated to agencies to effectuate its will. 3. All the powers of the constitution of the united states are delegated, and are so many specific authorizations to "substitutes and agents" to carry out sovereign will. Such will must ever reside in the people as states, for only thus did they ever organize themselves. Republican sovereignty cannot be in constitutions or governments, not only because it must be in the people, who have ever the right of government, but because the so-called governments are, by the people, created and endowed with "delegated" authority, and are administered by the people's representatives, who must be members and citizens, and. necessarily, subjects of states.

IN

CHAPTER VII.

THE UNITED STATES ARE SOVEREIGNS YET.

N every step of progress hitherto, we have seen that "the united states," and "the people of the united states," are identical, the people being named in the instrument constituting the federal government, and delegating to it the powers it is to exercise, as New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and others; being provided for throughout the said instrument as such states; and being recognized, in the seventh and last article, solely in the character of states, and as exclusively ratifying, and thereby ordaining and establishing, the constitution, and giving the only life and authority thereto.

And we have seen that, in all their contemporaneous explanations, the leading fathers asserted, nem. con., that the bodies of people called states were "the parties to the compact," [ Hamilton, Fed. 85], and were in the status and character of sovereigns [Part I. Ch. VII.]. No change in the said states was ever intended or thought of; for they were considered to be, as Hamilton said, the "essential component parts of the system," the destruction of which would be "political suicide." These are his own remarkable expressions.

We have seen that each body had a mind; that government is essentially mental and functional action; that no nation, or national society, could supplant the states, because forming government for preformed society, and not forming society itself, was the subject of action in 1787; that the sovereign wills that ordained the constitution had to subsist through the making, and afterwards, to secure the obedience of their subjects thereto; and, finally, that their continuance in sovereign individuality, throughout the duration of the pact, is necessitated by article V., in which it was agreed by "the parties to the compact" that "three fourths of the several states" shall, by "ratification" of amendments proposed in proper form, amend the constitution.

The People, as States, have always amended. And accordingly, throughout their federal history, and in pursuance of their

federal agreement, the states have amended their constitution, when they thought "the common defence" and "general welfare" were not well enough "provided for" and "promoted." This power of amendment or change is the power of abolition or repeal; and it shows the states, i. e. the collective people, to be above their federal 66 supreme law."

A cursory view of the early, as well as the later, amendments will corroborate fully the view here taken, and settle forever, in any thoughtful reader's mind, the supremacy of the states, whether united or single, over the tripartite agency constituted by them to do their federal business.

The First Twelve Amendments. - Before 1865, twelve amendments had been adopted by the states, and added to their constitution, according to the mode agreed on in article V., just cited. This power of amendment, alone, shows that the states are supreme above the constitution and the federal government; and that they are not in allegiance, but only bound by self-imposed obligations.

Following the lead of Massachusetts, all the principal states, when they ratified, insisted upon amendments; the main one referring to the reservation of all powers not delegated.

Congress, acting as the agent of the associated states, took early action, and proposed to each state, for her adoption or rejection, the first ten of the amendments. Here is the record; the italics are mine:

"Congress of the United States, begun and held at the city of New York, March 4th, 1789.

"The conventions of a number of the states, having, at the time of their adopting the constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction, or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added; and, as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution,

“Resolved, ... that the following articles be proposed to the legislatures of the several states, as amendments to the constitution of the united states; all or any of which articles, when ratified by three fourths of the said legislatures, to be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of the said constitution."

Adoption by Separate States. The said ten amendments were ratified as follows by the states, viz.: By New Jersey, Nov. 20, 1789; by Maryland, Dec. 17, 1789; by North Carolina, Dec. 22, 1789; by South Carolina, Jan. 19, 1790; by New Hampshire, Jan. 25, 1790; by Delaware, Jan. 28, 1790; by Pennsylvania, March 10, 1790; by New York, March 10, 1790; by Rhode Island, June 15,

1790; by Vermont, Nov. 3, 1791; by Virginia, Dec. 15, 1791. The following is the introduction of the said ten articles, as promulgated by congress: "Articles in addition to, and amendment of the constitution of the United States of America, proposed by congress, and ratified by the legislatures of the several states, pursuant to the fifth article of the original constitution."

In 1798 and 1804, the eleventh and twelfth amendments were established; the former being the last of several most studied and careful endeavors to prevent the states from being subordinated and subject to coercion. [Amendments IX., X., and XI.]

The Later Amendments. About seventy years after the first ten were adopted, viz. after the war "between the states," "the people of the united states " again amended, adding the XIII., XIV., and XV.; and doing it in the mode prescribed by their aforesaid article V.1

1 AMENDMENT OF 1865.

Article XIII., section 1.- Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the united states, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2.- Congress shall have power to enforce this article, by appropriate legislation.

AMENDMENT OF 1868.

Article XIV., section 1.- All persons born or naturalized in the united states, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the united states, and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the united states; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of its laws.

Section 2.- Provides for apportionment of representatives, and for a reduction of them in proportion to the numerical reduction of voters.

Section 3. Disqualifies for federal office those who have taken federal oath, and afterwards aided rebellion. But congress, by two-thirds vote, may remove disability.

Section 4.- Provides that the validity of the war debt shall not be questioned. But neither the united states, nor any state, shall assume the rebel debt, or pay for the loss of slaves.

Section 5. -The congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Article XV., section 1.

AMENDMENT OF 1870.

The rights of citizens of the united states to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the united states, or by any state, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

The congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate

Though the stating of facts, and not commentary, is here my object, I must say, en passant, that these amendments simply extend civil jurisdiction, and are to be enforced by the usual civil, and not by military, coercion; the latter being usable in the state, against "domestic violence," only on call of the legislature thereof, or, when it "cannot be convened," "of the executive." Outside of this narrow and to-be-strictly-construed basis, even a Washington would have been perjured, if he had sent coercing federal soldiers to Pennsylvania, whether he acted before or after the amendment.