a blaze the spark of patriotism in whatever land or time there beats a patriot's heart.

Note that in such perversions of facts and of the meaning of the Constitution are found the beginnings of the great war of the Sixeties. The North regarded the Constitution as a child does its toy to be played with, and then set aside at will for something else.

There came a time in this Convention when it was confronted by a crisis. The last article had these words: "The articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State, and the Union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter, be made in any of them, unless such alterations be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and afterward confirmed by the States."

There might be no difficulty in securing the ratification by the Congress of the States, for that would be decided by a majority of the votes. But it was clearly foreseen that there would be great difficulty in obtaining a concurrence of all the State Legislatures. In fact Rhode Island, as we have seen, was not represented in the Convention at all, yet she was a member of the Confederation. Also two of New York's delegates had withdrawn; and other evidences of disaffection had appeared.

What must be done in this emergency? The demand for a more efficient government of the States was imperative. The Convention, therefore, decided to transcend the limits of its authority and introduce a provision into the new Constitution, that its ratification by nine of the States would be sufficient for the establishment of a government among the nine ratifying the Constitution. This could not be done without referring the question of ratification to the people of the States. Therefore the last article of the new Constitution has this provision: "The ratification by the Conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of Government between the States ratifying the same."

You cannot touch the Constitution without placing your finger upon a declaration of the sovereignty of the States; and sovereignty carries with it the supreme will of the State; and the

supreme will, paramount authority, the right of secession, as weli as the right of accession.

Is it any wonder centralists seek their arguments elsewhere? Who ever heard of a centralist basing his argument upon the Constitution? They base their logic on such phrases as "A Pious Fraud," "a Divided Sovereignty," "a Mistaken Statement of Fasts," and fictions and absurdities, impossible of proof.

The calling of the Convention, 1787, implies the absolute right of the several States to accede to propositions, and unite for their common welfare. The seventh article of the Constitution providing for its ratification by nine of the States declares the right to accede and the right to secede are taught with equal clearness and equal force. To deny the one is to deny the other. Who ever heard of even a centralist denying the right of a State to unite in a compact with other States? Yet the right to unite implies the right to disunite.

This very evident conclusion is sustained by Mr. Gerry of Massachusetts, afterward Vice President, who said. "If nine out of thirteen States can dissolve the compact, six of nine will be just as able to dissolve the future one hereafter. This truthful utterance was made in opposition to the adoption of the Constitution, but it was true neverheless.

Mr. Madison, who has been called the father of the Constitution, advocating its adoption asks, “On what principle the Confederation, which stands in the solemn form of a compact among the States, can be superseded without the uanimous consent of the parties to it?" He answers his own question thus: "By recurring to the absolute necessity of the case; to the great principle of self-preservation; to the transcendent law of nature and nature's God, which declares that the safety and happiness of society are the objects at which all political institutions aim, and to which all such institutions must be sacrificed." (Italics ours.)

He further states in justification of this right: "It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties that all the articles are mutually conditions of each other; that a breach of any one article by either of the parties absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void.

Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to these delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a dissolution of the Federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they may be confronted? The time has been when it was incumbent on us all to veil the ideas which this paragraph exhibits. The scene is now changed, and with it the part which the same motives dictate."

Mr. Madison is here commenting on the seventh article of the Constitution. He calls secession" a delicate truth," and "a delicate truth can mean nothing but a delicate right." The propriety of veiling any statement of this right until the occasion for its exercise arises, suggests the great caution of the statesmen of that day in regard to "This delicate truth." He calls this seventh Article a provision for the secession of nine States from the Confederation.

Note here another very important fact: The secession of the nine, and two other states, under this Constitutional provision, by one at a time, and by State Conventions, called by the State at the option of the States, is absolute proof that "We, the people," in the preamble of the Constitution, do not mean the people of the United States in the aggregate.

These facts are admitted to be true by historians of the North who value their reputation as historian. Think of this and then know that they claim the right to set them aside because foreign millions in this country know nothing of our Constitution, and because of the mere assumption-not the proofs-that the masses of the North have been "nationalized." Know, too, that the North made these absurd excuses the ground for setting aside the Constitution and insulting the South by the senseless assumption that the Constitution was amended or superceded by a fictitious unwritten Constitution. Know too, that the Constitution, they thus annulled, is "in the form of a solemn compact betweeen the States; and that in disregard of their oaths to abide by that sacred insrument they disavow that the South has rights under the Constitution that should be respected. Know too that the South, ever faithful to the Constitution, knew nothing of their

false laws, nothing of their false fictions. Know too, that if the great masses of the South had known of these false laws and fictions their ordinary intelligence would have spurned the conclusion that such fabricatons could have superseded a written Constitution that provided for the only manner in which it could be changed. It was such gross insults as these, such illogical, senseless assumptions as these, coupled with all the pompous insults of the North, that enraged the South. In this degradation of the Constitution, in these unauthorized assumptions with all their base slanders, were heard the first low mutterings of the coming storm of war that was to spill rivers of blood and lay in untimely graves the flower of Northern and Southern manhood. Yet we are told "the South precipitated this war," and "without cause." If depravity can ever blush, should it not blush here?

THE TWO COMPACTS, CONTINUED.

On the 17th of July 1787, the proposition concerning the election of president was under consideration in the Philadelphia Convention. The original proposition contemplated his election by "the National Legislature"-that is by the Congress of States. Mr. Morris of Pennsylvania, a strong centralist, moved that the words "National Legislature" be stricken, and the words "Citizens of the United States" be inserted. The mover was a recognized centralist, and the words were ambiguous. Hence the motion received only one vote-that is the vote of one State, Pennsylvania.

On the 23rd of July, 1787, just six days later, the question of the ratification of the Constitution by the conventions of the people of the States was considered. Mr. Morris now moved that the reference of the plan be made to one general convention, chosen and authorized by the people to consider, amend and establish the same (Elliott's Debates p. 239, Vol 1).

Here the issue of centralism was directly made. With what result? Two words give the answer, "Not Seconded."

It has been said of Mr. Morris that "he was a man of distinguished ability, great personal influence, and undoubted patriotism." It was not the man, but the proposition that was so signally condemned. In the light of these facts what becomes of "We the People" in the sense of " the people in the aggregate?"

Remember twelve soverign States were in this ConventionRhode Island being absent of her own free will. Centralism in this Convention was represented by a small but able minority. There were no abler men in that Convention than Hamilton, King, Wilson, Randolph, Pinkney and Morris. Yet no statesman of that day would have risked his reputation by construing the Constitution as that of a centralism. Such a construction would have met with indignant protest throughout the entire domain from North to South, and from East to West.

Mr. Hamilton, and his gifted allies knew that they had failed to incorporate centralism into the Constitution. Right loyally did