This is evident from the debate and the ordinance of ratification [see II. Ell. Deb. 122-177, et seq.]; and Samuel Adams wrote Elbridge Gerry and R. H. Lee, in congress, in 1789, pressing on the latter, "the importance of the amendments, that the good people may clearly see the distinction between the federal powers vested in congress, and the sovereign authority belonging to the several states, which is the palladium of the private and personal rights of the citizens;" and urging to the former, that "without such distinction, there will be danger of the constitution issuing imperceptibly and gradually into a consolidated government, over all the states, which, though it may be wished for by some, was reprobated in the idea by the highest advocates of the constitution as it stood without amendment." [See III. Life of Samuel Adams.] Numerous evidences of this view could be given. One will suffice. Said General C. C. Pinckney, in the debate on ratification in South Carolina: No powers can be "in the general government but what are expressly granted to it. By delegating express powers, we certainly reserve to ourselves every power and right not mentioned in the constitution."

Successively, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New York joined Massachusetts in her demand for this great amendment. And it is more than probable that the general approval of it, and the "full confidence" in its being adopted, caused the acquiescence in, and the adoption of, the new system.

In the congress of 1789, resolutions proposing the amendments for the action of the states were passed, the preamble setting forth. that some of the states expressed, when they adopted the constitution, "a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction, or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added;" and that "such clauses would tend to increase public confidence, and thereby help to the beneficent ends in view."

The Grand Result of the Movement may be stated thus: The charge that consolidation, or subordinating the states, was in the original instrument, was disproved. To make assurance doubly sure, that the government was to be always an agency of, and subordinate to, the states; to complete the harnessing and utilizing of the individual and collective personnel of the government; to emphasize their subjection to the law, and their inability to act without express and written warrant; and finally, to make coercion of the states, by their own subjects and agency, forever impossible, they—the said states amended the constitution within the first few years of its history, as follows thus putting the people's seal of reprobation on, and forever preventing, all legislative, military, and judicial forms of coercion of commonwealths: - Amendment IX. provides, that the enumeration in

the constitution of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; Amendment X., that the powers not delegated to the united states, or prohibited therein to the states, are reserved to the states or people; and Amendment XI., that there shall be no federal judicial coercion of a state at the suit of a citizen of any other state. [Please refer to Amendments IX., X., and XI.]

It is obvious that Amendment X. alone, in declaring that "all powers not delegated to the united states, are reserved," etc., shows that the several states that delegated must be now absolutely sovereign; that they collectively are the sole recipients and trustees of the powers delegated by the individual states; and finally, that the whole grand federal polity rests solely on sacred international faith - the highest political sanction that is earthly and human; as well as the most likely to endure — if men have the right and capacity for selforganization and self-government.

In closing this point, then, I beg leave to repeat, that the fathers contemplated, and tried to forefend, the danger of the federal delegative authority increasing, to the control and final destruction of the states. Q. E. D.

1 An important part of the perverting interpretation I am exposing, is that which takes hold of the constitution with its profane hands, right at this point, and says that the powers not delegated are reserved to the nation -as if the thirteen organizations of people could severally ratify and delegate (as all the sacred records unequivocally say they did) and then and there, a nation of people, comprising the said "thirteen," could "retain" and "reserve "those powers of the said states which they, the said states, did not delegate. Of course this is intended as a deception, or it is a gross mistake. Referring to Appendix E for the original forms of the 10th Amendment, to show what the meaning and intent of the people was; what they supposed they were declaring; and what common sense teaches they did declare; I will state, as the result of my investigation and thought, that the conclusion of the said amendment, means as if it read- reserved to the state governments respectively, or to the people of the states, who delegate the powers which are not reserved. See the proposition of Massachusetts, on which all the subsequently ratifying states acted, a few paragraphs above.

CHAPTER III.

USURPATIONS TO BE TREATED AS NULLITIES.

DOINT III.

-

- Federal acts, outside of delegated powers, were

- resisted as usurpations.

Said HAMILTON: "The laws of congress are restricted to a certain sphere, and when they depart from this sphere, they are no longer supreme or binding." [II. Ell. Deb. 362.]

Said JUDGE PARSONS, "the celebrated chief justice," as Judge Story calls him: "An increase of power by usurpation is clearly a violation of the federal constitution." Again he said: "An act of usurpation is not obligatory; it is not law." And furthermore he said: the oath to support the constitution "obliges the officers of the several states"

to oppose all such acts. And this great jurist and statesman contemplated opposition by arms, if necessary. [Ibid. 94.]

Said JUDGE IREDELL, afterwards supreme judge of the united states: "If congress, under pretence of executing one power, usurp another, they will violate the constitution;" and he further asserted that "a law of congress, not consistent with the constitution," would "not be binding on the people." [IV. Ibid. 179.]

MASSACHUSETTS, as usual, caps the climax she and CONNECTICUT and RHODE ISLAND having, in 1814-as sovereigns declared that "acts of congress, in violation of the constitution, are absolutely void!" From this doctrine there was no dissent among the fathers and the states, so that further quotations are not needed, though many pages might be given. Like any other agent, the moment it gets outside of its procuration on reserved ground, the federal government becomes a wrong-doer and trespasser. And, furthermore, it being under oath—becomes perjured and deeply criminal. Hence, if there be no law for its restraint, it must be repelled vi et armis. And, indeed, Judge Parsons spoke of the resistance to be offered by the states as war! [II. Ell. Deb. 94.]

It is well to observe that in self-government, every citizen, official or private, has legal and political, as well as moral, duties, which he

must personally perform. His judgment and his conscience must decide each and every case presented for his action. His responsibility is individual here, just as much as it is in the hereafter. PRESIDENT JEFFERSON was right in his letter to the district attorney of New York, dated November 1, 1801, where he said: "I shall treat the sedition law as a nullity, wherever it comes in the way of my functions;" and PRESIDENT JACKSON was right in saying, he had sworn to obey the constitution as he understood it, and that where a sworn or other duty was to be done, his judgment and conscience were to be his guide - precedents only influencing his mind according to their character, weight, and applicability.

And this was PRESIDENT JOHNSON's position, as discussed in his impeachment, that every official, and every citizen, has the right to refuse to obey any and every law, subject only to the danger of judg ment and costs being given against him. And when a constitutional question is involved, it sometimes becomes a sacred duty to resist. with lawful means, and in extreme cases- by violence, especially in these times, when fraud and force are vitally attacking our most cherished institutions.

With peculiar cogency, Webster's words close the argument: "the constitution, to preserve itself," "lays its hand on individual conscience and individual duty." And the lofty phrase of the hero Jackson sounds in unison: "I swore to obey and protect the constitution as I [and not as others] understand it!”

The responsibility for the God-given right of self-government being used correctly, is in individuals, and they must resist, either personally or collectively, as need may be. In government, they only act in the latter capacity; but they have all power, and theirs is the ultima ratio. This same conscience, and the same instinct of selfpreservation, must be the prompters and guides, in either personal or social action.

I conclude, then, that federal acts outside of delegated powers were to be treated as nullities, and if attempted to be enforced — resisted as usurpations. Q. E. D.

POIN

CHAPTER IV.

NO FEDERAL COERCION OF STATES.

DOINT IV. -The federal government is not only without authority, but is actually prohibited, to coerce the state with arms, by legislation, or even judicially.

The states possess sovereignty, that is, untrammelled will over their interest and destiny; and the union is not a hundred-armed Briareus, irresistibly grasping and holding the states together; for if it were, the states would not be free. Where the hand of power constrains a man or state to do or not to do, to stay or not to stay, freedom pro tanto is gone, and all of liberty will most certainly follow.

When the federal convention, desiring to make a sufficiently strong, and a self-sustaining government, was considering the kind of coercion necessary to enforce its powers, some of the members thoughtlessly suggested the idea of coercion against states. This was before the plan was adopted, of giving the federal government precisely the mode and means of exercising and enforcing jurisdiction on the individual citizens of states, that was already, and was to be, exercised by the state governments—that is, courts, sheriffs, and, if necessary, the posse comitatus, etc., it being considered by all, that the federal, like the state government, was a part of the people's agency of selfgovernment.

When the original constitution, as completed by the convention of 1787, was ordained and established "between the states so [i. e. by conventions] ratifying the same," it was the universal understanding of the fathers, that the states were in no wise subject to it. "This constitution does not coerce sovereign bodies states," said Ellsworth, and all agreed with him. They knew the said states “delegated" the only powers put in the instrument, and "reserved" and "retained" all others out of it; and it could not be supposed that their own powers, their own members and subjects, and their own means, could be used to constrain and subjugate their own wills— the sovereign wills that delegated the powers.