carried by the votes of seven States, notwithstanding the opposition of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and South Carolina.

The effect of these resolutions, as Mr. Ellsworth declared, was to render the government partly federal and partly national. The States would stand on the same footing in the Senate, where each would have as much weight as every other, and the smaller be secure against the numerical preponderance of the larger; but the people of the States, who were also the people of the United States, would be represented in the lower House in proportion to their numbers, and would thus have an effectual guaranty that if the popular wil might be thwarted by a coalition of the smaller States, no measure could be adopted which it did not approve.

From the above account of the origin and nature of the Constitution, we may deduce the following inferences:

1. Sovereignty is indelibly impressed on the government of the United States, by the grant of the supreme legislative authority, by the institution of a judiciary whose decisions rule those of the State tribunals whenever the case arises under the laws or Constitution of the Union, by the possession of the attributes which have in all ages been the badge of sovereign power, the custody of the sword and the exclusive or predominant right to control the purse. It is a national government, not acting upon or through the States, but directly on individuals; and it is through it, and it alone, that the American people exist as an organic whole, and are entitled to a place in the family of nations.1

2. The government of the United States cannot ordinarily or in the normal course of events exercise a supervision or control over the State governments: but it can and does make laws which are obligatory on its citizens, who are also citizens of the States; and as it has an indefeasible right to their obedience, so the States cannot loose the tie which binds them to the United States. In other words, although the States are not as such directly subject to the United States, their citizens are, and through them the States.

14 Madison's Writings, 321, 418, 421.

3. Two points must be kept steadily in view in interpreting the Constitution, the supremacy of the Union, and the existence of a qualified sovereignty in the several States. There are in every State two governments, one deriving its authority from the people of the State, the other established by the people of the United States; each having powers peculiar to itself, and neither of them entitled to exercise any authority that has been exclusively delegated to the other. The State of Pennsylvania cannot, for instance, regulate the navigation of the Delaware, or the United States lay down rules for the acquisition or descent of real or personal property in Pennsylvania. It is, on the other hand, equally clear that if a State and the United States act by virtue of their common powers, or of such as have been exclusively delegated to either, over the same things or persons, and there is not room for both, the authority of the State must yield to that of the General Government. Hence, if a State and the United States tax the same bale of goods, and the fund is not sufficient to satisfy both demands, the State will be postponed. So State legislation for the discharge of insolvents, or the distribution of their assets among their creditors, may be valid so long as Congress does not legislate on the same subject-matter, but will be suspended by the enactment of a national bankrupt law which prescribes a different rule. Moreover, in the event of a conflict of jurisdiction arising from a difference as to the nature or extent of the powers reserved by the States or conferred on the Union, the question belongs, in the last resort, to the Supreme Court of the United States; and its judgment not only concludes the parties, but must be followed to the State tribunals in any future controversy involving the same point.

4. The rights of the States are not less clearly written than those of the United States, and no wise man will wish to see them abrogated or materially lessened. But when their existence is insisted on, to the exclusion of the duty and allegiance owing to the country as a whole, we may be tempted to wish that such a phrase as State-rights had never been pronounced. The due subordination of the States is

essential to the harmonious working of our institutions, and without it, a system comprising so many and such various parts could not long endure. Nor should it be forgotten that the existence of the government of the United States is the surest guaranty for the privileges of the States. Had the Union been swept away in the late Rebellion, the governments that would have been created to fill the void would not have been nicely balanced or hedged in with constitutional restraints. They would have been framed on simple lines, calculated for defence or aggression, and subordinating local rights to the overwhelming sense of necessity.

5. The States are not less essential to the Union than is the Union to the States. A country so vast, bounded by either ocean and stretching through the whole width of the temperate zone, cannot be governed from a single centre. Centralization would be not less pernicious here than it has proved in France; and if, as there is reason to apprehend, events are tending in that direction, every effort should be made to maintain the equipoise of the Constitution and avert a result that would imperil freedom. The cause of Staterights is legitimate, so far as it is synonymous with local self-government and the franchises through which it is administered, and which are its only efficient guaranties. That cause, however, can best be defended, not through the doctrine that a State may at its pleasure break the tie which renders us a nation, nor by a recourse to arms, save for the redress of such intolerable grievances as can be remedied in no other way, but through that broad interpretation of the Constitution in which Chief-Justice Marshall was so great a master, which teaches that if the General Government is sovereign as representing the American people as an organic whole, relatively to the matters confided to its care, the States also have rights which it is incumbent on the United States to regard; while certain other rights have been reserved to the people, and are beyond the reach alike of the State legislatures and of Congress.

1 See the Tenth Amendment, and 4 Madison's Writings, 139.

LECTURE III.

Ratification of the Constitution.

The Method adopted by the Convention. Transmission of the Constitution through Congress. - The State Conventions. Hamilton.-Madison. - The Organization of the Government.

THE Convention still had to determine in what way the instrument which they had devised should be submitted for ratification to the States and to the people. Like the sages. who are said to have given laws to the States of Ancient Greece, the delegates had no enacting power save that which comes from the reputation of superior wisdom. The thirteenth and final clause of the Articles of Confederation declared that no change whatever should be made in any of them, unless such alteration "be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every State;" and this provision was, as we have already seen, embodied in the resolution by which Congress called the Convention and prescribed the time and place of meeting. An agent cannot transcend the powers conferred by his principal, but he may recommend what he is not authorized to perform; and as the function of the delegates was purely advisory, they did not hesitate to go beyond the strict line of their instructions. The seventh article of the Constitution accordingly declared that "the ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same." This clause, though obviously revolutionary, as providing for the subversion of the existing government without its consent, was yet one of those bold and sagacious strokes which succeed where a more cautious policy might fail. If Congress did not adopt the Constitution or sanction its submission to

RATIFICATION OF THE CONSTITUTION.

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the States, these or any nine of them might still adopt the new scheme of government and proceed to put it in execution.

The Convention, which had labored diligently for nearly four months, was now ready to take the last steps towards the completion of its task. If this point was reached sooner than could reasonably have been anticipated, in view of the multiplicity and importance of the questions involved, it was owing to a singleness of purpose which was intolerant of useless debate, and kept the main issue steadily in view. The draft was referred to a committee on style and arrangement, which, after making various formal, though not unimportant, alterations, reported the Constitution nearly as we have it now. It was then taken up clause by clause, and still further amended; and finally, on the 15th of September, 1788, agreed to by all the States present, through the votes of a majority of their duly authorized representatives. There was, nevertheless, a dissentient minority in some of the delegations; and though Hamilton affixed his signature, he could not cast the vote of New York in the absence of his colleagues. The instrument was then engrossed; and having been again read on the 17th of September, was laid before the Convention for their signatures. Unanimity was regarded as important, and Gouverneur Morris proposed the following ingenious form of attestation, which is said to have been devised by Franklin as one that might be signed without implying approval: "Done in Convention by the unanimous consent of the States present." The Constitution as thus authenticated was then signed by all the members in attendance except Mason, Randolph, and Geary; Hamilton's being the only signature from New York, and Luther Martin, Yates, and Lansing, with some other opponents of the measure, absent.

Could the future have been unrolled before the delegates, we may believe that none of them would have hesitated to put his name to an instrument that was destined to give order and prosperity to a country which in wealth, extent, and numbers, bids fair to be the first in the civilized world. To have been one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or of the Constitution, is in the eyes of all Ameri