The founders of institutional liberty, knowing the tendency of all government towards tyranny, recognized this natural separateness of these governmental functions and agencies, and in some constitutions expressed and carefully guarded it. [See the constitution of Massachusetts.] Their aim, especially in forming the federal government, was to subject every measure of the rulers to several successive and independent examinations, tests and vetoes, so as to ensure the wisest and most efficient, and at the same time the most conservative, efforts to secure "tranquillity," "justice," "defence," "welfare," and "liberty," and, above all, to prevent the injury or destruction of the great palladium of all these blessings-the American constitutional polity. This is precisely the theory of those "checks and balances" so many talk of, and so few seem to understand and properly appreciate.

The three agencies under review are the mere mouthpieces, instruments, tools, or slaves of their creator, owner, master, and sovereign - the league of commonwealths, "the united states," "the people" -to speak and effectuate the legislative, executive, or judicial will, as the case may be, of the said sovereignty.

The Unheeded Form of Consolidation is the Worst. — Now the most dangerous form of consolidation in America is that which is least noticed and guarded against, if ever thought of, and that is the breaking down, by these agencies, of the walls separating them; their getting together and acting covertly with one mind, under the greatest temptations, without check and without responsibility; or what amounts to the same, the gradual gaining by one of them of a mastery over the others, so as to get undivided sway. In either case "the government" becomes a unit, and a corporate despot of the vilest imaginable character. If it did not, it would be superhuman.

Reasons why it cannot be a Grantee. The only seat of that "endowment of the soul" called "will," which must be used in government, is in "the people" as organized, and "it never leaves them." Their right of freely exercising it, is sovereignty. Not only is this "faculty of the soul" resident in the people, but the government has no will, because it has no unity, and no corporate mind. Hence it cannot be a grantee of powers, rights, or anything else; but its capacity is simply that of an agent, or trio of agents, who hold nothing of right, must do as told, and remain abjectly submissive, so that without resistance, or even murmur, it, or they, can be kicked out of the way whenever the mighty mind of the people shall move their mighty foot to that end.1

Again, "the government" is never mentioned as grantee, while the

1 The federal supreme court said "the constitution was written by the mighty hand of the people." Why then can they not have and use a mighty foot?

association called "the united states" always is. All titles to federal property, and to the occupation, use and jurisdiction of federal footholds as has been shown are made by the respective states, and to the "united states." Nay, more, the tenth amendment declares expressly that all the powers in the constitution are "delegated to the united states."

Again, there is no grant whatever in the sense of alienation; but powers are delegated, i. e. entrusted to be used for the owners, "the people' the users necessarily being "agents" and "servants." The expounding words "cede," "surrender," "part with," "relinquish," etc., that mean alienate, are quibbles, subterfuges, and fallacies; and they are found in the writings of every "expounder." Again, the language of the pact shows everything still to belong to the states. Note the numerous possessive phrases"the government of the states;" "the treasury of the states;" "the army and navy of the states;" "the territory and other property of the * states," etc.

Again, the government could not be the grantee, because it did not have a being till long after the constitution had been completed by the only parties that then existed, or could exert will upon it, and the association of states had been, ipso facto, formed. In the fall of 1788, the congress of states declared the new federalizing instrument to be complete, according to its tenor, by "the ratification of the conventions of nine states. . . between the states so [i. e. by conventions] ratifying the same;" and the said congress provided for carrying it into effect, by notifying their constituents, the states, of the "sufficient""establishment," and recommending that they should elect their government. Whereupon the respective state legislatures passed laws for elections. In accordance therewith, the states elected their own subjects as senators; their own subjects as representatives; their own subjects as electors to elect the president. And when, in the spring of 1789, the elected persons, as subjects, representatives, and agents under the law, had organized themselves to work in the vocation whereunto called, the government for the first time existed; and, as shown, it had no unity of body or mind, no will, no inherent and original rights and powers, but was composed entirely of subjects and agents who remained individually and collectively under the law, whether home or general, constitutional or statutory.

What are these mighty "government" men under state constitutions and laws? Yea, verily, even under the laws of town councils, if applicable. Let the president, or all his government, go into Gettysburg and violate an ordinance, and he would learn the fact. The wills of the states have declared the federal law to be supreme.

What conflicts is no law. What does not conflict is law, and binding even on the proudest magnate or corporation in the land, whether governmental or not.

How then could this poor agency, instrument, or machine, be a party to the compact, and the grantee of delegations, of federal tenures of property, and of the use and occupation of sites for forts, navy-yards, etc. The idea is absurd. It was the league or federation that was grantee. Each state granted to the states, as is proved by the tenth amendment, providing that all powers not delegated to the united states, are reserved. And, I repeat, every grant was a delegation or giving in trust, and not an alienation. As Judge Parsons said, "The people divest themselves of nothing." Said Judge Marshall, in the ratifying convention of Virginia: "Federal and state officers are alike servants of the people, who hold their powers in their own hands, and delegate them cautiously for short periods, to their servants, who are accountable for the smallest maladministration.” Ell. Deb. 89; III. Ibid. 232.]

[II.

par

A Misleading Misnomer. The phrase, "the government ticularly when the big G is used- misleads the unthinking, unless the purely derivative, delegative, and agential character of the institution so named, is kept in view; for the real government of the republic, or of any republic, is necessarily the state itself the socalled government being a mere agency or commission, created by the people, and empowered by them to administer their governmental affairs. The American bodies-politic govern themselves, separately in domestic, and unitedly in general affairs. They, then, are the government. Hence it is that the first article of the constitution, as unanimously adopted by the convention of 1787, and never reconsidered, though left out by the revising committee, reads as follows: "Article I. The style of this government shall be the United States of America." "The government," then, is "the United States." And, in the nature of things, the government of each republic is the republic itself, while the government of the united republics is the united republics themselves.

Let us Symbolize the Polity. The whole subject, then, in all its parts, being matter of fact or inference, we can present the grades and impartations of authority, as is done on pages 295-297 supra.

1. Suppose thirteen or more figures in a horizontal line to symbolize the organizations of people named in the constitution, and those since admitted. Part of the people were named Massachusetts; part Delaware; part Georgia; and so of the rest. The original commonwealths are still so named, and are unchanged; and the new ones are their political equals.

2. Next below, suppose the same figures to be grouped as the united states, and a line to be drawn from each of the above states to this association, to indicate the delegating of power, by each state, to the union of them. Each state is the delegator, and all of them united are the delegatee.

3. In the third grade, let us suppose a threefold figure to represent the three co-ordinate institutions which form the federal agency of government, through which the individual people are ruled. This figure shows "the government of [i. e. belonging to] the united states," subordinate to the said states, of course.

4. At the bottom we might place a figure to represent the same people that we see atop, but in their capacity as subjects, the republican idea of self-government requiring that, while they appear at the top, and above the institutions of government, in a corporate and sovereign capacity, they should also appear below the said institutions in an individual and subject one.

This process will lastingly impress the reader with the grades of our system 1. the sovereign societies of people associated; 2. their governmental "agents and depositaries of power," as Mr. Curtis calls them the congress, president, and judiciary; 3. the members, citizens, or subjects of the states, and their belongings. The first are the sovereign people, the last the subject people.

UNLESS

CHAPTER XIII.

FACTS MUST PREVAIL.

NLESS we wish plain facts of history and the sacred records of our country to be subjects of contention forever, we must make up distinct issues, and charge either the sons or the sires with deliberate falsehood.

Let those who Devised describe the Polity. The sires who planned our constitution of general government described it as follows. Apology for repetition can hardly be necessary : —

ALEXANDER HAMILTON said the present union is "an association of states or a confederacy;" and that "the people of New York are the sovereigns of it" [Fed. IX.; his address, 1789]. CHANCELLOR LIVINGSTON said our general polity is "a league of states " [II. Ell. Deb. 274]. JOHN JAY said "the states adopted" "the present plan;" and that it is a "union of states " [I. Ell. Deb. 496; II. Ibid. 282]. JAMES MADISON said "the states are regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns" "by the constitution" [Fed. XL.]. GENERAL WASHINGTON Wrote of the constitution as a "compact or treaty ;" and the union formed by it as "the new confederacy" [Let. to Gen. Pinckney, June 28, 1788; do. to D. Stuart, Oct. 17, 1787]. DR. FRANKLIN said the senate was to secure in the union "the sovereignties of the individual states " [V. Ell. Deb. 266]. JAMES WILSON said the sovereignty "is in the people before they make a constitution, and remains in them after it is made," and that the said people are "thirteen independent sovereignties" [II. Ell. Deb. 443; Mass. Centinel, Oct. 24, 1787]. JOHN DICKINSON called the new political system "a confederacy of republics," and he recognized therein "the sovereignty of each state” [II. Pol. Writings of J. D., 107]. GOUVERNEUR MORRIS said the constitution was "a compact between political societies, . . . each enjoying sovereign power" [III. Life of M., 193]. ROGER SHERMAN said "the government . . . was instituted by a number of sovereign states" [see his Letter to John Adams in VII. Writings of J. A.]. OLIVER ELLSWORTH called the states "sovereign bodies" [II. Ell. Deb. 197]. TENCH COXE said the union was of "separate sovereignties,

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