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was the chairman and wrote a report which ended with another call for the constitutional amendment proposed by Clay, for a limitation of the veto. The report accomplished nothing; but the question at issue was by no means dead, and appeared in both the Whig and Democratic platforms of 1844.

The custom of laying constitutional "planks" in a party platform was brought in by the National Republicans in 1832. Those were the days when nullification was rife, when the Supreme Court was defied, when the outlay of public money on internal improvements was still thought unconstitutional. But such was not Republican doctrine; and in their platform, the first ever framed by a national convention, they boldly declared for internal improvements, and pronounced the Supreme Court the only tribunal for deciding all questions arising under the Constitution and the laws.

As this was the first, so for eight years it was the last party platform. Then, in the campaign of 1840, the Democrats imitated the Republicans of 1832, framed their first party platform and in it laid down the party views on the Constitution. The Federal Government was declared to be one of limited powers. These powers were derived solely from the Constitution and were to be construed strictly. Such a construction gave to Congress no power to make internal improvements, to assume State debts, to charter a bank, nor to meddle with the domestic institutions of the States. In these principles neither time nor experience wrought any changes, and for twenty years they were regularly reaffirmed by every Democratic convention. Four years later the men who nominated Clay drew up three resolutions, which must be considered as the first Whig platform, and in them demanded one term for the President and a reform of executive usurpations, which every true Whig understood to mean the constitutional amendments supported by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay.

But the election was contested on very different grounds. It was under the cries of "The reannexation of Texas and the reoccupation of Oregon," "The whole of Oregon, or none," "Fifty-four forty or fight," that the Democrats entered the campaign. It was under such cries as "Texas or disunion," "Give us Texas or divide the spoons," that they won it. The treaty of annexation had failed in the Senate on constitutional grounds. Some denied the right to acquire foreign soil in any manner. Some objected to annexing it by treaty: to remove their scruples annexation by joint rule was proposed, only to be resisted by those who claimed that annexation by treaty was the only constitutional method of procedure. A compromise followed, and Tyler was left to submit to Texas the joint

rule or open negotiations for a new treaty, as he saw fit. He submitted the joint rule and gave the country Texas. Then came the war. The war gave us new territory; the new territory had to be governed, and the attempt to set up territorial governments in California, New Mexico, and Utah brought up the question whether those governments should be slave or free.

On the one hand were the Free-soilers, holding two definite theories of the status of slavery under the Constitution. Slavery in the State was, they held, a purely domestic institution. State laws created it. State laws protected it, and these laws the Federal Government could not repeal. For slavery in the States, therefore, the Federal Government was not to blame. But for the existence of slavery in the Territories the Federal Government was to blame; for over the Territories the States had no authority and the Congress all authority. But the Constitution expressly denied to Congress power to deprive any man of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. Congress had, therefore, no more power to make a slave than to make a king; no more power to set up slavery than to set up monarchy. The Congress must prohibit slavery in the Territories, in the District of Columbia, and wherever else its authority was supreme.

On the other hand were the Democrats, resisting the Wilmot proviso, resisting the exclusion of slavery from the Territories; demanding the fulfillment by the North of the constitutional obligation to return fugitive slaves; asserting the doctrines of popular sovereignty and non-interference, and threatening disunion if every demand were not conceded. Noninterference meant the constitutional right of every slaveholder to take his slaves to any State or any Territory and be secure in their possession, and the constitutional duty of Congress to do nothing tending directly or indirectly to hurt slavery even " in its incipient stages." Popular sovereignty meant the right of the people in a Territory to determine for themselves when they framed their State constitution whether they would or would not have slavery.

By 1850 these two doctrines had become so well defined that an attempt was made to fasten them on the Constitution. One amendment proposed that the Constitution should never be amended so as to abolish slavery without consent of each State in which slavery existed. By another resolution the Committee on the Judiciary were to frame an amendment setting forth that the people of each separate community, whether they do or do not reside in the Territories, have a right to make their own domestic laws and to establish their own domestic government.

Again the proposed amendments were

thrown aside; but the doctrine of popular sovereignty triumphed. By the compromise of 1850 it was applied in the organization of Utah and New Mexico, and in them slavery was established. By the act of May 22, 1854, it was again applied in the organization of Kansas and Nebraska, and in Kansas slavery was desperately resisted. When that dreadful war was over, Clay was dead; Webster was dead; the old Whig party was dead; the Free-soil party had given place to the Republican party; the Dred Scott decision had been made, and the Democratic party was rent into two sectional factions holding two very different views on "sovereignty." The Southern wing, led by Breckinridge and Lane, still held to the old form of "popular sovereignty," and still declared that when the settlers in a Territory, having an adequate population, form a State constitution, the right of sovereignty begins; that they then have the right to recognize or prohibit slavery, as they see fit, and must then be admitted as a State with their constitution free or proslavery, as they wish; still held that the government of a Territory is provisional and temporary, and that while it lasts all citizens of the United States have equal rights to settle in the Territories without their rights or property being impaired by congressional action. The Northern wing, led by Douglas, proclaimed the doctrine of "squatter sovereignty," the right of the people while still in the territorial condition to determine through their territorial legislatures whether they would or would not have slavery.

The Republicans, on the other hand, asserted the normal condition of the Territories to be that of freedom, and denied the authority of Congress, of the territorial legislatures, of territorial constitutional conventions, and of any individual to give legal existence to slavery in the Territories. In 1860 this doctrine triumphed, and the Southern States at once began to carry out the threats so often made, and one by one seceded.

cause he could not comply with the terms of the law of 1795, which provided for putting that power into effect. Having laid down these principles, he fell back on the old remedy and urged an "explanatory constitutional amendment." This amendment was to declare, not that secession was unconstitutional, not that the General Government might coerce, but that the right of property in slaves was recognized in every State where it then existed or might exist; that this right should be protected in the Territories so long as they remained Territories; and that all State laws hindering the return of fugitive slaves were unconstitutional, null, and void.

Then came up for final settlement two questions, many times discussed in vague or general language: May a State secede? May the Federal Government coerce? The answer of Buchanan to these questions is given in his message to Congress in December, 1860. He admitted, as all men must admit, that revolution is a " rightful remedy" for tyranny and oppression. He denied that secession was a constitutional remedy for anything. But he asserted that the Constitution gave no power to coerce a State when it claimed to have seceded. He admitted that the Constitution did give the power to enforce the laws of the Union on the people of a so-called seceded State; but he asserted that he was powerless to do so be

The hint was taken, and men of all parties made haste to lay before Congress a vast mass of propositions and amendments. One was for urging the States to call a constitutional convention. Jefferson Davis was for declaring by amendment that property in slaves stood upon the same footing as other kinds of property and should never be impaired by act of Congress. Andrew Johnson had a long list of six more. Mr. Crittenden, a senator from Kentucky, offered seven. From the House Committee on the State of the Union came seven. From the Peace Conference came seven. All were compromises. The slave States had complained that they were not given equal rights in the Territories. They were now given rights; and the public domain was parted by the old Missouri Compromise line of 36° 30'. In the Territories north of the line there was to be no slavery; in the Territories south of the line slavery was to be protected. The slave States had demanded "popular sovereignty." They were now given popular sovereignty, and the Territories both north and south of 36° 30′ were to be suffered, when they formed State constitutions, to set up or prohibit slavery. The free States had complained of the acquisition of territory for the purpose of spreading slavery. The Federal Government was now forbidden to acquire any territory in any way, save by discovery, without the consent of a majority of the senators from the States where slavery was not allowed and of a majority of the senators from the States where slavery was allowed. The free States had demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia; but this was refused, and in future neither the Constitution nor any amendment was to be so construed as to give Congress power to meddle with slavery in the States, nor to abolish it in the District without the consent of Maryland. The free States had demanded that the slave trade between the States be stopped, and this was granted. The slave States had demanded a better enforcement of the fugitive-slave law: this too was granted,

and the States were to have power to pass laws to enforce the delivery of fugitive slaves to legal claimants. All these amendments, and all the provisions of the Constitution touching slavery, were never to be changed without the consent of each State. But the day for compromise was gone. Congress would not accept them, and March 2, 1861, sent out to the States a short amendment in their stead, providing that Congress should never abolish nor meddle with slavery in the States. Maryland and Ohio alone ratified it. The war made it useless, and in February, 1864, it was recalled, to be followed in February, 1865, by an amend ment which the States did accept and which abolished slavery in the United States forever. Then began the days of reconstruction, and when March 30, 1870, came, two more amendments had been added to the Constitution.

With these the amending stopped; but the rage for amendment went on burning with tenfold fury. State sovereignty was gone; Federal sovereignty was established. The National Government, not the State Government, was now looked up to as the righter of wrongs, the corrector of abuses, the preserver of morals;

and individuals, societies, sects, made haste to lay their grievances before Congress and ask to have them removed by constitutional amendment. The change which the war has produced in this respect is most marked and curious. During the nineteen years which have passed since 1870, three hundred and ten amendments have been offered. Many of these, it is true, have in one form or another tormented Congress for ninety years; but among them are others which indicate nothing so plainly as the belief that the Government is now a great National Government and that its duty is to provide in the broadest sense for " the general welfare " of the people. To Congress, therefore, have come repeated calls for constitutional amendments, forbidding special legislation; forbidding the manufacture and sale of spirituous liquors; forbidding bigamy and polygamy; forbidding the repeal of the pension laws; giving Congress power to pass uniform marriage and divorce laws, and power to limit the hours of labor; giving women the right to vote; giving the States power to tax corporations; and for amendments abolishing and prohibiting the convict-labor system and acknowledging the existence of a God.

John Bach McMaster.

SIXTY AND SIX; OR, A FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.
Fons, delicium domus.- MARTIAL.

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THE LAST ASSEMBLY BALL:1

A PSEUDO-ROMANCE OF THE FAR WEST.

BY MARY HALLOCK FOOTE,

Author of "The Led-Horse Claim," "John Bodewin's Testimony," etc.

PART II.

THE SITUATION DEVELOPED.

I.

T was two months or more after Milly came that Mrs. Dansken began to fancy the situation was becoming strained. The weather was now extremely cold; the ice on the water-cask of a morning was so thick that it was necessary to cut it with a hatchet. In doing this Milly had cut her hand, and again there was an uprising on the subject of the water-pitchers. Mrs. Dansken was immovable and logical, as usual.

Had it ever occurred to the young men to inquire how the little woman who did their washing managed to get her tubs filled this winter weather with the "ditch" half a mile from her cabin? It had not occurred to Mrs. Dansken to make active inquiries on this subject herself. She considered it was none of her business; nor was it the business of her young men to concern themselves how their water-pitchers were filled. Both were paying to have these things done without inquiries. But for the sake of consistency, would they tell her how they could put on a clean shirt without thinking of the woman who washed it a little woman, not half so big as Milly, and an old woman at that? "As for the little scratch Milly has given herself-well, it is n't the fashion to speak of such things, but you should see Mrs. Murphy's wrists! If you can only accept service that costs nothing, you'll certainly have to wash your own shirts."

After breakfast Strode handed to Mrs. Dansken an unopened pot of vaseline.

"What's this for?" she asked. "For the wrists it is not the fashion to mention."

This time, decidedly, there was temper shown on both sides. But the little washerwoman told Mrs. Dansken with tears of gratitude, when she came with her weekly basket, how kind the young men had been-how they had sent a man to dig a little channel from the main hydraulic mining ditch to her cabin, so that now she had the water at her door.

Mrs. Dansken knew that this tapping of a main ditch meant considerable trouble as well as money, but she did not attempt to sully the widow's gratitude by casting doubts upon the motives of her benefactors. It was Mrs. Dansken's opinion that one motive was as good as another, so long as the result was the same.

As Christmas drew near, the subject of gifts was mooted. The young men made sarcastic allusions to the rules of the house, and asked if their oath would permit them to remember the waitress, as well as the cook. "As a waitress, certainly," they were informed. How were they to make it sufficiently understood that the remembrance applied to the waitress to the exclusion of the girl?

"Easily enough," Mrs. Dansken explained, with gravity equal to their own. Let the remembrance take the form of a general gift from them all to Milly, not from each one of them to Miss Robinson.

It might be difficult, the young men objected, to unite on a single gift that should represent them all.

Would they find it difficult to unite on a gift for Ann?

The session broke up with something of the old hilarity; only Mrs. Dansken insisted that the gift should be appropriate. The term was allowed, without discussion of its application to a gift for Milly. But an opportunity was not long delayed for further elucidation of Mrs. Dansken's views on this subject.

A few of her guests, among them Frank Embury, were in the habit of knocking occasionally at the door of the sitting-room where she betook herself to wrestle with her accounts, or make over her dresses, or hold consultations with Ann. She had drawn closer in these days to the older woman, and liked a quiet talk with her on matters which had been their own before the stranger had come into the house. 1 Copyright, 1889, by Mary Hallock Foote.

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"Oh, I gave her some myself. Even a hardhearted person like me can spare a little vaseline. Pray keep it, or give it to Milly. If we should take up a contribution for her wounds, she might anoint herself from head to foot, like a Fijian bride."

Frank knocked and entered with a pile of books under his arm; they slid to the floor as he took a seat. Mrs. Dansken was careful not to look at them too closely, thinking they were for herself. Frank saw that she thought so, and this made it more difficult for him to say that they were for Milly.

Mrs. Dansken recovered herself, and looked at the books with the most amiable interest. "Is this the general gift?" she asked, wondering not a little at the choice of a modern edition of Miss Austen's novels.

"No," said Frank. "It is something I thought of doing on my own account; or, rather, of getting you to help me to do."

"You wish me to help you give these books to Milly Robinson ? "

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"Yes- that is, they are submitted first, of safe." course, to the public censor of gifts."

Mrs. Dansken did not like to be called names, though she could sometimes give them to others with great facility.

"Frank!" she exclaimed, "really it seems almost perverse of you to insist upon this sort of thing! These are books you could give your sister. Why do you wish to give her books?" "I don't wish to give her poor ones. That's the kind she seems to be reading now."

"Dear me! How do you know what she reads?"

"Oh, I happen to know," said Frank. "But these are books entirely over the head of a girl like Milly. Have you ever read Miss Austen?"

Frank owned that he had not.

"I have n't either, but I 've got an idea she is a sort of fad nowadays, like old miniatures and paintings on velvet."

"Oh, I don't think she 's a fad. My sisters were reading her in an old edition that belonged to one of my aunts - board covers and paper labels and jolly rough edges."

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Well, your sisters may come naturally by their Miss Austen in board covers. I don't mean she would be a fad for everybody. 'Pride and Prejudice!' 'Sense and Sensibility!' Now, Frank, do you suppose when Milly Robinson has got through one of these books-which I doubt if she ever does-she will have the faintest idea what even the title means ?"

"I don't know, I am sure," said Frank, sulkily. He was not so confident himself about his choice, which was one reason for indulging illhumor now that it was being criticised.

"Oh, well, give her the books if you want to," said Mrs. Dansken, relenting in amusement at his disgust. "She will be the chief sufferer."

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Is that what Milly reads ?" "I think so, sometimes."

"Well, I must look after her reading, for your sake. But I wish you would tell me how you came to know so much more about it than I do?"

"It's not much that I know. You could easily get the inside track of me there.”

Mrs. Dansken seemed struck by this expression. "The inside track! Yes, of course, there are two ways of getting there. Don't you suppose I know that my way is n't the true way? Frank," she exclaimed in a burst of harassed confidence, "if I could only be fond of the girl, as I am of crabbed old Ann - if I could make her like me and trust me, as Ann does! Well, I should know all about her then― more than any of you could know. But I cannot do it. Good people, I think, have no likes or dislikes." (Mrs. Dansken always spoke of good people with toleration as a race by themselves, alien in some sense to the rest of humanity.) "I would like to make Milly believe that I like her, but she has her intuitions. I would get rid of her, if I could possibly get on without her. I hate to acknowledge what a difference she has made in the house. And yet, there are days-oh, well, this is all 'nerves,' don't you know? Did you ever find yourself nursing an antagonism? You have no idea how it occupies the mind. It's as exciting as the first stages of a love affair."

"How queer women are about their business relations," said Frank. "They are so personal. Men never think whether they like each other or not. They get on together all the same."

"So do I get on. Don't I get on most beautifully? I've never had a word with Milly -and yet there are mornings when I wake up "I wanted you to give them to her." and think, I 've got to go down-stairs and say, "Well, I shall not! She 'd think I was 'Good-morning, Milly!' and look at her withmaking fun of her."

out meeting her eyes. She never looks at

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