THE TWO COMPACTS.

THE TWO FEDERATIONS.

declared As

The Declaration of Independence was followed, in less than a year, by the Confederation, styled "The Confederation and the Perpetual Union between the States." They had themselves free, separate, independent and sovereign states. such they formed a compact for their common defense. Under this compact they successfully fought the War of the Revolution. Under it they won their recognition from Great Britain as sovereign and independent states. Their compact declares that "Each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power jurisdiction, and right which is not in the Confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled." How complete this retaining clause of the sovereignty, freedom and independence of the States!

It is as complete as words can make it. It is as incapable of being misconstrued as it is emphatic. It is as emphatic as complete. The framers of the Constitution were determined that it should be known they had surrendered nothing except what they had expressly delegated to their creature and agent; and that the world should know that Congress possessed only delegated powers. Yet this most complete, this strongest, this most emphatic, this clearest of declarations is denied by Francis Newton Thorpe in these words: "It was National feeling that won the Revolution, not State feeling; National feeling that sustained Congress under the Confederation, not State feeling; National feeling that forced unwilling States to respond and make appearance in the Federal Convention of 1787 that framed the Constitution." (Thorpe, p. 163.) By national feeling he means centralized feeling. Except Mr. Thorpe, all people who can understand the simplest words of the purest English, know better.

It exercised all

Congress was the United States assembled. the powers delegated to it by the States and not the powers delegated by a nation. It exercised all the delegated executive powers as well. For bear in mind that all the executive powers

were delegated. Strip the United States of its delegated powers, and it will be as limp as an unstarched rag. It had the delegated power to create courts, having jurisdiction in admiralty and maritime cases, and in cases of disputes between two or more states. Perhaps the exercise of these high delegated functions deceived Mr. Thorpe. In the discharge of all its duties it represented the Staets as equal, free and independent sovereignties. As further evidence each State had but one vote on any question. If the States did not retain their sovereignty let Mr. Thorpe, or any centralist, tell why the States voted as States, and cast but one vote as a State. Let also this question be answered. Why were the United States limited in their power to delegated authority? Let also this question find answer: By whom, or by what, were the United States thus limited in power?

As Congress constituted the three departments of government, and could not be in perpetual session, the general management of affairs, during the recess, was entrusted to a committee of one delegate from each State, known as the "Committee of the States." Why was each State represented in this committee? Does not the answer spell State Sovereignty?

The first Confederation proving inadequate, it was proposed that Commissioners from all the States should meet in Annapolis in September, 1786 to reorganize the Government. Only five States (New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia) were represented. They refused to act, but declared it to be their unanimous conviction "that Congress should call a convention of the several States to meet in Philadelphia on the second Monday of May, 1787, to take in consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the Constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exegencies of the Union, and to report such an act for that purpose to the United States Congress assembled, as when agreed to by them, and afterward confirmed by the Legislature of every State, will effectually provide for the same."

On the 21st day of February, 1787, Congress, by resolution, complied with the suggestion of the Annapolis Convention, de

claring it their belief that a convention of delegates from all the States should meet in Philadelphia, on the second Monday in May next, "for the sole and express purpose of revising the articles of Confederation and reporting to Congress, and the several Legislatures, such alterations and provisions therein as shall, when agreed to in Congress, and confirmed by the States, render the Federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of the Government, and to the preservation of the Union." (Ialics ours.)

The resolutions, both of Congress and the Annapolis Convention clearly define the powers it was thought the States should confer upon the delegates, viz: "To revise the articles of Confederation so as to render them adequate for the purposes of the Union. In the next place they were to report their deliberations to both the Congress and to the several legislatures of the Statesto the Congress of the States and to the Legislatures of the States.

All the States except Rhode Island immediately appointed delegates, and properly instructed them as the resolutions suggested. If Congress constituted a centralized government, and not a government of States, why was not Rhode Island compelled to send delegates to that Convention? Every fact, however testifies to state sovereignty.

From the character of the Congress, composed of State units, from the character of these resolutions, from the character of the instructions each state gave its own delegation, from the fact that each delegation represented its own state, it is self-evident that these several delegations did not represent the United States in mass-to say nothing of Rhode Island's being left out. When centralists make such a claim they confess their poverty of sustaining facts. Yea, more, they confess their disregard for the plain meaning of the fact that each delegation represented its own state. If each delegation represented its own state it did not represent the states en mass. This is beyond honest contradiction.

It is also evident that the object was not to organize a new government, but to "amend," "To revise," and "to report such alterations and provisions as agreed upon."

It is also evident that the term Federal Constitution, used for

the first time in this first Confederation, is freely applied to that system of government established in 1777-78. It is universally admitted that this first Confederation was a league, a compact between the States, each of which expressly retained its sovereignty and independence. Therefore it must also be so construed when used in the second or amended Constitution. In other words the term "Federal Constitution" has the same meaning in both Confederations.

It is also evident that the Convention of 1787 had no function except to "devise, deliberate, discuss, enact, report and recommend."

On the day appointed that historic Convention assembled. Luther Martin was an efficient delegate from Maryland. In his report to the Legislature of his State he said "there were a few in the Convention who would abolish all State lines, and establish a general Government of the States."

"There was a second party in the Convention who, while opposing all monarchial tendencies, favored giving their own States undue power and influence in the Government."

"There was a third party nearly equal to the other two combined. These were truly Federal or Republican. They believed in Federal equality; and that the object of the Convention was to take their present Federal system as a basis of their proceedings, and to give such additional powers as experience had shown to be necessary." We see here why the fiction, Pious Fraud, was

necessary.

It was the larger States that wished to establish a numerical basis of representation in Congress. These were Virginia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. In population they exceeded all the other nine States combined but only fourthirteenths of the voting strength. The smalled States had been instructed through their delegates to insist upon equality in the Union. Hence they demanded absolute equality and obtained it. Without equality there could be no Union. This was the most troublesome question before the Convention. At times it seemed irreconciliable.

By way of parenthesis, this fact, the equality of the States,

shows Lincolns territorial doctrine unconstitutional, independently of the Dred Scott decision.

How was this troublesome question settled? Only by a compromise, which provided that in the Federal Legislature, the House, representation of the States should be in proportion to their numbers; and in the Senate the States should have equal representation. Hence to-day New York has no more representatives in the Senate than the smallest State in the Union—a fact which is a standing witness to the equality of the States.

Early in the Convention Mr. Randolph introduced the following resolution: "Resolved that it is the opinion of this Committee that a National Government ought to be established, consisting of a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary."

This was followed by twenty-three other resolutions in which the word "national" occurred twenty--six times. The next day Mr. Ellsworth of Connecticut, moved to strike out the words "National Government" and insert in their stead the words, "Government of the United States," declaring this to be the proper term. "He wished also the plan to go forth as an amendment of the Articles of Confederation." (Elliott's Debates v. 5, p. 214.)

This resolution was unanimously adopted. Is there no significance in this? No significance in the fact that no where in the Constitution, as finally adopted, the word, National, makes its appearance. Is not this significance emphasized by the fact that it appeared in the resolutions twenty-six times and was twentysix times struck out by a unanimous vote? Is it not far more expressive of the intent and purpose of the authors of the Constitution than if the word national had never been inserted in the Committee's resolutions? Is there not here absolute proof of the strongest kind that this was regarded by the framers of the Constitution as a Government of free, equal and independent and sovereign States? The future historian will collect these and similar facts and write them into a sentence of rebuke for the North that will challenege extravagance, and at the same time will pronounce an encomium on the South that will kindle into