the only form, indeed, in which they ever had capacity to act in gov ernment. That instead of the union being preserved by sophistical chains, backed by force, the original motives of union, justice and mutual interest, should be promoted and relied on; and that our statesmanship should in future aim to settle all questions on such righteous basis, by peaceful methods. That, above all, the fixedness and sacredness of the written defences of our "blessings of liberty" should be secure against perversions and unauthorized changes; and that outlawry, infamy, and universal anathema should be the fate of every agent of the people who betrays, in any respect, the sacred trust he is sworn to protect and defend in all its parts THE CONSTITUTION! PART IV. SOVEREIGNTY IN THE UNITED STATES. "WHAT constitutes a state? Not cities proud, with spires and turrets crowned; Men who their duties know, But know their rights, and knowing, dare maintain, And crush the tyrant, while they rend the chain; And sovereign law, that state's collected will, PART IV. SOVEREIGNTY IN THE UNITED STATES. IN CHAPTER I. THE GENESIS OF A STATE. the republican form of government, society governs itself; that is to say, the collective people govern the individual peoplethe former being sovereign, the latter subject. Accordingly all the right of government, in our country, is in society, as formed; and hence the "general government" can have no possible authority, except what is derived from the states-the state, at the institution of the said government, being the only form of society, and being then, as all admit, sovereign. As to sovereignty, or "absolute supremacy," being in "the government," Mr. Webster said, in his speech of 1833: "No such thing as sovereignty of government is known in North America. With us the people alone are sovereign." So said James Wilson, in the Pennsylvania ratifying convention: "The sovereignty is in the people before they make a constitution, and remains in them after it is made." [See supra, p. 101.] No respectable denial of these statements has ever been made, and no one will dare to deny them. The great expounder then admits, as Wilson states, that the constitutors, in constituting government, put no sovereignty whatever in it, but left this in the people. And as the people only exist and have capacity to act in government, as states, the position of both of them necessarily is, that the states are sovereign. This should seem to end controversy; but the people, who are the government, must have an understanding, as well as an impression, of the truth, so that when the hydra heads of perversion shall hereafter be cut off, public hate will cauterize the bleeding necks, and ever prevent renewal. Therefore, elaborate and instructive presentation is necessary, and herein to be pursued. And in the process it will be shown that genuine American history and exegesis plainly prove: 1. That the states are sovereign in the union; and 2. That "the government" is a mere agency. "What political system If, then, a decide our The whole Subject is one of Facts. have we?" is, as I have before said a question of fact, and must be argued as such. The states are facts; the constitution they made is a fact; and so with the government. An ingot of gold, a bushel of salt, or a quintal of codfish, cannot be more precisely weighed and measured than they. The utterances of statesmen, or even courts, cannot make, unmake, or in anywise change such facts. When once existent, they are beyond even the power of Jehovah! thousand officials, whether political or judicial, were to general system to be a union of individual men, and not a union of states; or that the sovereignty is in the government, and not in the commonwealths of people, they would speak in vain; and the question would still remain as one of fact, to be settled by proof. The utterances above italicized are, and must forever remain, true or untrue. Force cannot settle such a question. War never did, or could, make right wrong, truth falsehood, or a fact not a fact. To settle the question, then, we must adduce the evidence that proves the state, or sovereignty, just as we would prove the ingredients of a crime. The facts must fill the technical description. Truth on this subject in 1788 was true in 1860. The foedus was a fact at both epochs. The war did not change it, no matter what politicians say, or deluded people think! -- The States Themselves are the Government. We have heretofore seen that the federal constitution, in Articles I. and VII., names the thirteen original states as the parties, and treats them as such, while all the rest of the articles are corroborative, and give no sign or hint of change, as to the geography, organization, character, or authority of the said states. I have already shown that the instrument repeatedly characterizes the system as a union of states; that the convention unanimously declared that "the government" was to be "the united states" themselves, and never changed their view [V. Ell. Deb. 377]; that the delegations of power for federal government were (not to the government, or nation, but) to "the united states" [Amendment X.]; that the word "state," as to Massachusetts and New York, meant what it did as to France or Spain - "a bodypolitic, or society of men, united together for the purpose of promoting their mutual safety and advantage," etc. [Vattel; Fed. Const. Art. I., §9; III., § 2; Amendment XI.]; and finally, that the personnel |