vote in the Senate, was a compromise between the small and the great states and between the national and federal parties in the Convention. The latter compromise has been styled the great compromise.” The Constitution itself has been considered as a compromise between sections and interests, and indeed the spirit of compromise throughout it is evident. Concession had to be made on all sides and by all parties before it was reduced to its present form.

There is a word in the Constitution of 1788 which is not to be found in the Articles of Confederation; it is the word “republican," and it occurs in Article IV, section 4, where it is said that, "the United States shall guarantee to every state in this Union a republican form of government." What was the notion of a republican form of government entertained by the makers of the Constitution ? The answer is, that, in reference to the Constitution solely, it was the form of government then prevailing in the thirteen states: that is to say, a government consisting of an executive, a representative-legislative, and a judicial branch, each distinct from the other branches, and one, the judicial, independent of them: and a government which rested upon the principle, that it derived its powers from the governed, and that the sovereignty lay in the people of the state, or in the words of James Wilson, that the supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable authority remains in the people.1 Such were

1 Wilson before the Ratification Convention of Pennsylvania, 1787. He says further: "His (Mr. Findlay's) position is, that the supreme power resides in the states as governments; and mine is, that it resides in the people as the fountain of government; that the people have not -that the people meant not-and that the people ought not, to part with it to any government whatsoever." - Elliot's Debates, II, 418, et seq.

REPUBLICAN FORM GUARANTEED.

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the forms and principles of the governments of the states that met in Convention, and of the two states, Rhode Island and North Carolina, which afterwards joined the makers of the Constitution in their adoption of this instrument. They were popular, representative, and defined governments acting as agents and representatives of the body of the people to whom they were strictly accountable.

That these existing forms were the only ones in contemplation of the Convention, is shown by the debates, the correspondence of the members, the essays of the Federalist, and the journals of the day, and by the requirements of the Constitution itself; for the frame of the general government was such as was adapted only to the particular governments that embodied such forms and such principles, and the object of this clause was to prevent the admission to the Union of any government not in harmony with the existing constituents, and to maintain by the combined forces of these constituents, the integrity and stability of each of the existing governments. It need hardly be said, that future accessions to the Union were required to accept this clause, and that the government of the United States, like the governments of its constituents, was a republican form of government.

It will not fail to be observed, that the requisite went no farther than the form of government; all that was required was, that the government should be "republican" in form. This left everything else to the pleasure of the state, and the Union took no account of its domestic institutions. It might have a Senate, the terms of whose members were for one year or for life; its electoral vote for President might be

cast by the legislatures or through electors chosen by the people at large or in districts; it might impose a property qualification for the exercise of the voting franchise, or suffrage might be free; it might maintain or abolish slavery, which was then general; in a word, it might govern itself as it pleased, so long as its form of government complied with the Constitution: when this was done, the United States guaranteed the maintenance of this form, and protection against foreign and domestic violence.

The action of the United States is limited to a guarantee of this form of government: this form therefore is a prerequisite without which there can be no action of the government. Nor can the United States compel a people to accept such a form, nor bestow it upon them; much less can they abolish or even alter such a form, for a guarantee implies maintenance of existing conditions. The people of a state may change or alter its constitution at pleasure, but so long as it preserves a republican form of government and remains a member of the Union, the United States are bound to recognize this form and to maintain it against the world.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FORMATION OF PARTIES.

The evolution of parties in free governments - The colonial epoch, the brooding epoch; fondness of colonists for politics, and practical part universally taken by them in governing No general parties during colonial period — Parties generated during the revolutionary epoch-Change of colonial character · Constituents of the Feder

alists.

ALTHOUGH parties appeared so abruptly upon the field after the adoption of the Constitution of 1788, as to convey the impression that they owed their existence to circumstance merely, such was not the case. They were the outcome of time, and they owed to circumstance the acknowledgment which is due to opportunity only. They did not appear unheralded, nor had they failed to pass through the regular stages of development: but the final stage of their generation was accomplished so speedily, and their organization was effected so rapidly, that before Washington's first term had ended, they were confronting each other in full vigor. They exhibited the earnestness that is to be attributed to the advocacy of principles which have been handed down from father to son, and they were manifesting the skill which springs ordinarily from protracted and thorough discipline alone. The principles which actuated these parties, had been inherited by one generation from another from the remote period which had beheld the rise of anglican liberty; but the skill was all their own.

Knowledge of the formation of parties in the United States is essential to a right understanding of our constitutional history. We seek in vain to know the nature of anything political in a people, unless we can refer it to the character impressed upon their politics from the beginning. The characters of states are born with them; their politics are expressions and exponents of these characters, and as in representative governments especially, everything, sooner or later, speaks through or is reflected by the government, politics comprehend the historical motives and acts of the people. There is nothing more certain in the history of representative governments, than that every political event is to be explained by the constitutional character of the people, and it is equally certain that this constitutional character is best ascertained at the period of its inception. It is when a people chooses a form of government and creates a system by which its public affairs are to be administered, that it discloses its true nature most simply; it is really making choice of the best mode of living, and in doing so it acts naturally. We must revert, then, to the events and to the principles which actuated it at the period of its formation, in order to determine its constitutional being. When such a people reaches the point of actually writing out in fixed phrase the conditions and principles of its political life, the moment of its doing so is the only one when the circumstances and conditions existed which produced this authoritative expression. The rule holds good, even though the constitution be the original and single act of one people: but where it is a compact between peoples, the rule is all the more applicable, inasmuch as the intention, which