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The sphere of the Government so established is indeed limited; but within that sphere its power is supreme. It is a Government of delegated powers; and the powers not delegated are reserved either to the States or to the people (Amendments, art. 10).

The powers and functions granted to the National Government by the Constitution are embraced in three general classes, those concerning the relations of the United States to foreign nations; those concerning the relations between the States and their citizens respectively; and certain powers, which, though belonging to the home-department of Government, to be useful and effective, must be general and uniform in their operation throughout the country. A very large proportion of the ordinary and necessary powers and functions of Government is left in the States. The powers of the National Government do not extend to or include the domestic institutions or internal police of the States. The separation and distinction between the respective spheres of the State and National Governments is an essential characteristic of our system, and is as old as the idea of Union itself. No Union was suggested, no project of one for a moment entertained, on any other basis. The Colonies, in authorizing their delegates to assent to a separation from Great Britain, and to form a Union for the general defence, expressly restricted them from consenting to any articles of union which should take from the Colonies the power over their internal police and domestic institutions. The resolutions of the Colonies of New Jersey, Maryland, and Rhode Island, may be cited in illustration.

The resolution of the Provincial Congress of New Jersey passed June 21, 1776, and laid before the Continental Congress on the 28th of June-empowered the delegates of that Province to

“Unite with the delegates of the other Colonies in declaring the United Colonies independent of Great Britain; entering into a confederation for union and common defence; making treaties with foreign nations for commerce and assistance; and to take such other measures as may appear to them and you necessary for these great ends; promising to support them with the whole force of this Province; always observing, whatever plan of confederacy you enter into, the regulating the internal police of this Province is to be reserved to the Colony Legislature.”

The Convention of the Colony of Maryland, by a resolution (adopted June 28, 1776, and laid before Congress July 1), authorized and empowered the deputies of the Colony to

"Concur with the other United Colonies, or a majority of them, in declaring the United Colonies free and independent, in favoring such further compact and confederation between them, in making foreign alliances, and in adopting such other measures as shall be judged necessary for securing the liberties of America; and that said Colony will hold itself bound by the resolutions of the majority of the United Colonies in the premises; provided the sole and exclusive right of regulating the internal government and police of that Colony be reserved to the people thereof."-Journals of Congress, 1776, pp. 390, 391, 392.

The credentials of the Assembly of Rhode Island, after giving to the delegates power to enter into union and confederation, add,

"Taking the greatest care to secure to this Colony, in the strongest and most perfect manner, its present established form, and all the powers of government, so far as relates to its internal police, and conduct of our affairs, civil and religious."— Ibid., p. 343.

In the Revolutionary Government, in the Articles of Confederation, in the Constitution, in its judicial interpretation, in every administration under the Constitution, and in every department of the Government, the limitation has thus far been carefully recognized and faithfully kept. This familiar, well-settled doctrine, as to the independent respective spheres of the National and State Government, has never, perhaps, been more clearly and strongly stated than in one of the resolutions adopted by the Convention which ushered the present administration into power: —

"Resolved, That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of powers on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends."

It is expressed also, with clearness and strength, in the resolution adopted by the House, near the close of the last session of Congress, by a nearly unanimous

vote:

"Resolved, That neither the Federal Government, nor the people or governments of the non-slaveholding States, have a purpose or a constitutional right to legislate upon or interfere with slavery in any of the States of the Union."

These doctrines, as to the supremacy of the National Government within its sphere and of the reserved rights of the States, are elementary. Between them there is no necessary conflict. Each is the complement of the other, both vital parts of that political system under whose admirable distribution and adjustment of powers the people of the United States have had for

seventy years incomparably the best and most beneficent Government the world has ever known, a Government now imperilled, not by reason of any inherent defect or any want of wisdom or foresight in its founders, not because we have outgrown its provisions, not because it is behind the age; but because it has fallen upon an age not worthy of it,—an age which has failed to appreciate the spirit of wisdom, prudence, and moderation, in which it was founded.

Such being the relation of the Government of the United States to its citizens and to the States, the first question that arises is, how far this relation is affected by the fact that several of the States have assumed, by ordinances of secession, to separate themselves from the Union.

The people of the United States, in and by the Constitution of the United States, established a National Government, without limitation of time, " for themselves and their posterity." It had been provided under the Articles of Confederation, that the Union should be perpetual. The Constitution was established to form "a more perfect union" than that of the Confederation; more efficient in power, and not less durable in time. There is not a clause or word in the Constitution, which looks to separation. It has careful provisions for its amendment, none for its destruction; capacity for expansion, none for contraction; a door for new States to come in, none for old or new ones to go out. An ordinance of secession has no legal meaning or force; is wholly inoperative and void. The Constitution, and the laws and treaties made under it, the people have

declared, "shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding." The act of secession, therefore, cannot change in the least degree the legal relation of the State to the Union. No provision of the Constitution of the United States, no law or treaty of the United States, can be abrogated or impaired thereby. No citizen of the United States, residing in the seceded States, is, by such ordinance of secession, deprived of the just protection of, or exempted from any of his duties to, the United States. In contemplation of law, the reciprocal duties of protection and allegiance remain unaffected. After the act of secession, the province and duty of the Government of the United States are the same, according to the full measure of its ability, as before, to enforce in every part of the Union, and over every inch of its territory, the Constitution and laws of the United States.

It is the necessary result of these principles, that no State can abrogate or forfeit the rights of its citizens to the protection of the Constitution of the United States, or the privileges and blessings of the Union which that Constitution secures and makes perpetual. The primary, paramount allegiance of every citizen of the United States is to the nation; and the State authorities can no more impair that allegiance than a county court or a village constable. Every proposition, however artfully disguised, which seeks to give any effect or vitality to an ordinance of secession, for evil or for good, is itself a confession of the right. To say that an act of

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