The Congress had no executive power. It could decree war It remained for the colonies to enforce the

and levy troops. suggestions of Congress.

Here we have a Confederacy, or Federal Government, antedating the Declaration of Independence by one and one-third centuries, teaching the advantages of Union for their common welfare, yet separate and distinct as families in the same com munity. We see that in their deliberations the Colonies were equal; that the Confederacy was Republican to the core. They did not "abandon or compromise the great principle of Community independence." This principle is innate in the human heart. It throbs in the hearts of savage tribes and in the communities of the learned and civilized alike. It has always been so. Long before the Caesars this form of independence had "germinated in the German forests." Through "the mailed hand of the Barons" it rung "truth and right" from King John at Runnymede. It nerved the strong arms and brave hearts of our ancestors in the war for our Independence. It was not only sheltered and nourished and strengthened in the New England forests, but it lived and grew in every true liberty-loving heart throughout all the thirteen colonies. Community interests gave a brave people self-reliance in 1776. It spoke in the Declaration of Independence. It was heard in the drum-beat of the Colonies, seen in the sufferings of the fathers. It triumphed with a shout when Yorktown fell. It still lives. It is transmitted from sire to son. It can never die. Living, its abiding testimony is this: The independence of the States is the mightiest factor in all this great American Republic; and that this Republic is a Confederacy, Federal Union, or League of States for their own mutual welfare and common action.

This fact is so evident, both from the standpoint of history and of the Constitution, that no defender of Northern aggression bases his defense on the Constitution or the facts of history. In the foregoing deceptive plea of Thorpe the Constitution is not mentioned as the basis of an argument. Even Edward Everett, a man of acknowledged errudition, abandoned the Constitution, disregarded the facts of history, and appealed to mere "dislocated phrases, in his famous 4th of July oration,

delivered in New York in 1861. He first goes outside of America to the British Parliament, for his loose phrases. In the days of the immortal Burke there fell from the lips of English orators such phrases, as these: "That people," "that loyal and respectable people," "this enlightened and spirited people," referring to the American Colonies. Everett quotes them in an effort to show that they (Colonies) constituted "one provincial people." If these indefinite phrases, outside of their true connection, prove anything, they prove too much for Mr. Everett. We speak of the people of Europe. Yet Europe is divided into Republics, Kingdom and Empires, all separate and independent governments. We have referred to the United Colonies of New England. The fact that these Colonies were united as separate and independent governments for more than a century is to history what a light-house standing on the rock-ribbed shores of this important section of our country is to the mariner. They, too, contradict Mr. Everett.

But Mr. Everett does not place his entire reliance upon the disconnected phrases of the British Parliament. In October 1774 the Continental Congress addressed a letter to Gen. Gates, urging him not to erect fortifications in Boston. That letter reads as follows: "We entreat your excellency to consider what a tendency this conduct must have to irritate and force a free people, hitherto well disposed to peaceable measures, into hostilities." (American Archives, Series 4, Vol. 1, p. 908). The proceedings of Congress show that this letter was written to "the town of Boston and Province of Massachusetts Bay." "The free people," therefore, evidently refers to the town of Boston. Yet Mr. Everett applies it to the people of the thirteen Colonies in the aggregate. Can there be stronger evidence that even Mr. Everett could not appeal to the Constitution? It is well known and universally admitted, that the term, the people, may mean a town, as in this case, or any body of people whatever, not even excluding a congregation.

Are we mistaken? Does not Mr. Everett after all refer to the Constitution? Yes, to its preamble-not to its fundamentals; and to its preamble only because in it he finds his favorite

term, a people, or "one people." In that preamble are these significant words: "When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which unite them to another," etc. If the term one people can be properly applied only to a number of communities or a number of States combined in a common cause, even then his argument would be deficient; for these thirteen States were not less separate and independent States after their Declaration of Independence than they were before. In fact that Declaration declared them thirteen separate and independent States. In other words they were not States, in their own estimation, till after they had so declared themselves. But, as we have shown, the term "one people," can also be applied with equal propriety to States, a State, a city, a town, a village, or a settlement. Patrick Henry knew at least two things, a good argument and selfish human nature. When Madison said, "Were it such a Government as is suggested it would now be binding on the people of Virginia without their having had the privilege of deliberating upon it." Henry knew the argument was good. But on the other hand he knew the depraved human nature that would in coming time control politicians in construing the term, "one people," to the advancement of their greed and ambition. Events have shown that he was no less a prophet than a logician. Emergencies often render men desperate. saying that "a drowning man will catch at a straw." Mr. Everett has caught at three straws, and, like other drowning men, has gone down with the rope of safety within easy reach.

There is an old

But there is a fact of history that throws additional light on this terms, "the people," and removes all possible ambiguity. It is this: The original language of the preamble, as reported by the committee of five appointed to prepare the Constitution, as found in the proceedings of August 6, 1787, was, “We the people of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Providence Plantation, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, do ordain, declare and es

tablish the following Constitution for the Government of our

selves and our posterity." people of the States."

Here it is in plain terms, "We the The journal shows that this preamble

was read before the Convention the next day, August 7, 1787, Is this act of the Convention and was unanimously adopted.

meaningless?

Yet, the names of the States were stricken. answer is evident:

Why? The

Because upon reflection it was wisely de

cided the Convention could not tell in advance what States would ratify it. Was it not therefore proper that the names of the Yet, Was there any other alternative? States be stricken? even this fact has been urged by centralists as a proof that the States did not enter into a compact among themselves. ett, and Lincoln and hundreds of other politicians must have But it is certain the millions of ignorant known the facts.

Ever

Hence conceal

foreigners and the American masses did not. ment and perversions, and substitutes were many and bold. "The loveliest thing in life, Tom," for the hard and pressed Republicans are substitutes for the Constitution.

From the foregoing it is evident that this Government was a All league of the States, and therefore Federal to the core. independent Federal governments are Nations and therefore naAll independent republics fill certional as well as Federal. Each State was tain offices by a direct vote of the people. therefore national also from that standpoint, and so was the But the national idea, instead of being Federal Government.

antagonistic to a Federal Government, was in perfect harmony with it.

"THE UNWRITTEN CONSTITUTION."

We have considered the two written Constitutions, the genuine and the true, the productions of Statesmen in Conventions assembled. Under the same masterful hands the one gave place to the other. They have received the highest commendations from sages of world wide fame. They were definite, clear and wise.

The blush of American civilization is that the greatest political document "ever struck off by the mind of man," the Philadelphia Constitution, of 1787, was supplanted by a third Constitution, "the Unwritten," a Constitution that knew no convention hall, that was never subjected to the deliberations of patriotic statesmen, or was ever honored as the production of the deliberations of any assembly of wise men whatever; a Constitution that, on the other hand, sprang from the brain of fanaticism and unlicensed ambition. False as the whisperings of Satan it arrogated to itself all virtues, and walked forth with the stride of the Caesars in the garb of truth and fidelity. Without authority it laid claim to all authority. Laying foul hands upon the legitimate and long revered document of the Philadelphia Convention, it declared that the teachings of the legitimate and illegitimate were identical. Unconventional, unlicensed, "unwritten," unlimited, unrestrained, it was the spontaneous production of unreason and madness. Its scepter was that of the usurper. Its cruelty was that of the Prince of the

air, as we shall show at the proper time.

The attempt to force this bastard of a Constitution, "without form and void," on the Southern States against their will, brought on the "Great War" For resisting this insult these States were represented to the civilized world as traitors, conspirators and all other kindred designations. Yet no section, not even the North, had sworn fidelity to this bastard. But both the North and the South had sworn eternal fealty to that noblest conception of human governments, the Constitution of