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Constitution, within a certain time, is a conditional ratification that does not make New York a member of the new Union, and consequently that she could not be received on that plan. The idea of reserving a right to withdraw was started at Richmond, and considered as a conditional ratification which was abandoned as worse than a rejection." 1

The argument had the weight which it deserved, and the friends of the Constitution resolved to consent to no terms which would endanger the stability of the new government on which they had set their hopes., After a prolonged debate, in which Jay, Hamilton, and Chancellor Livingston participated, Melancton Smith, who led on the other side, moved that the Constitution be ratified, "upon condition, nevertheless, that until a second general convention be convened for proposing amendments to the Constitution, certain powers therein conferred should not be exercised save with the restrictions and limitations prescribed in the act of ratification."

An earnest discussion followed, and lasted for several days, varied by a motion to adjourn sine die, which was rejected; and it was then resolved, on the motion of Mr. Jones, that the words" on condition" should be stricken out, and "in full confidence" substituted. Mr. Lansing finally raised the direct issue, by moving that New York should reserve "a right to withdraw herself from the Union after a certain number of years, unless the amendments should previously be submitted to a general convention." The motion was lost, and the Constitution ratified unconditionally in the mode proposed by Mr. Jones, which expressed an expectation that did not form part of the contract, or render it less obligatory.2

The course of events in Virginia is not less instructive. The question whether the momentous change involved should be irrevocable, was present to every reflecting mind, and Richard Henry Lee wrote to Mason, urging that Virginia should reserve a right of withdrawal. This proposal was so 1 2 Rives' Madison, 627.

2 2 Elliott's Debates (2d ed., Phila., 1876), 111, 112. ·

contrary to the sentiments of the Convention that no one ventured to bring it forward; and a strenuous effort to make the ratification conditional having failed, the Constitution was, as I have elsewhere stated, adopted unconditionally, with a declaration that its powers were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed by them if abused, which implied that they did not come from the States, and that a State could not secede from a government which was founded on national consent, and could only be dissolved by the power that had called it into being.1

The notion that the Constitution was ratified conditionally is as unfounded in the case of the other States as it is with regard to Virginia and New York. Various amendments were indeed suggested as desirable and important. Of these some were adopted after the government went into operation, and others dismissed. But none of them, directly or indirectly, sanctioned the right of secession, an omission almost, if not quite, as conclusive as an explicit disavowal.

While the advocates of the Constitution fairly met the issue presented by their opponents, that it was a national government, established by the people and supreme within its sphere, they were equally distinct in the avowal that State sovereignty would remain for local purposes, although in a qualified form. This was unequivocally stated by Madison when the Constitution was under consideration in Virginia, and with equal clearness in the Conventions of New York and Pennsylvania. In reply to a question whether the proposed government would be national or federal, Mr. Madison said: "It is, in my opinion, of a mixed nature. It is in a manner unprecedented. No express example can be found in the experience of the world. In some respects it is a government of a federal nature."

Madison's just and candid statement was assailed with unsparing ridicule by Patrick Henry. "We are told," said he, "that this government, collectively taken, is without an example; that it is national in this part, and federal in that

2 Rives' Madison, 607, 609, 627; 3 Elliott's Debates (2d ed., Phila., 1876), 630, 656.

RATIFICATION IN VIRGINIA.

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part, etc. We may be amused, if we please, by a treatise of political anatomy. In the brain it is national; the stamina are federal; some limbs are federal, others national. The senators are voted for by the State legislatures, so far it is federal. Individuals choose the members of the first branch, ---here it is national. It is federal in conferring general powers, but national in maintaining them. It is not to be supported by the States; the pockets of individuals are to be searched for its maintenance. What signifies it to me that you have the most curious anatomical description of it in its creation? To all the common purposes of legislation it is a great consolidation of government.

"You are not to have the right to legislate but in trivial cases; you are not to touch private contracts; you are not to have the right of having arms in your defence; you cannot be trusted with dealing out justice between man and man. What shall the States have to do? Take care of the poor, repair the highways, erect bridges, and so on, and so on. Abolish the State legislatures at once. What purposes should they be continued for? Our legislature will indeed be a ludicrous spectacle, one hundred and eighty men marching in solemn, farcical procession, exhibiting a mournful proof of the lost liberty of their country, without the power of restoring it. But, sir, we have the consolation that it is a mixed government; that is, it may work sorely on your neck, but you will have some comfort by saying it was a federal government in its origin.

"I beg gentlemen to consider; lay aside your prejudices. Is this a federal government? Is it not a consolidated government for almost every purpose? Is the government of Virginia a State government after this government is adopted? I grant it is a republican government; but for what purposes? For such trivial domestic considerations as render it unworthy of the name of legislature."

Like ground was taken by the opponents of the Constitution in Pennsylvania. It was said there, as it was subsequently alleged in Virginia, that the very manner of establishing the Constitution changed the principle of the Confederation, and

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introduced "a consolidating and absorbing government.” The sovereignty of the States was not preserved. “There could not be two sovereign powers; and a subordinate sovereignty was no sovereignty." And again, "that the proposed government was not a federal government, but a complete one, with legislative, executive, and judicial powers; it was a consolidating government." To render the ground taken by the opponents of the measure entirely clear, the delegate from Fayette County declared that he understood by a consolidated government one that would transfer the sovereignty from the State governments to the General Government. And Mr. Findlay, from Westmoreland, added: "That is a consolidation which puts the thirteen States into one."

To this objection Mr. Wilson gave substantially the same answer as Madison: "If when the gentleman says it is a consolidation he means so far as relates to the general objects of the Union, so far it was intended to be a consolidation; and on such a consolidation our very existence as a nation depends. If, on the other hand, he means that it will absorb the governments of the individual States, so far is this position from being admitted, that it is unanswerably controverted. The existence of the State governments is one of the most prominent features of this system."

That Mr. Henry could not see that the States had a great and important part to play under the Constitution, may seem singular to us who view the event in the light of history; but it is not surprising that he should have feared that they would gradually lose their individuality, or be absorbed by the Government of the United States. His forebodings were unquestionably sincere. Should they also be regarded as proofs of his sagacity? Had he the prophetic insight, which enables its possessor to discern the shadow of coming events and forecast the future? Does our Government tend towards centralization? Have we reason to apprehend that State sovereignty and the guaranties which it affords to freedom will be merged in a popular despotism, ending, perchance, in the

1 2 Elliott's Debates (2d ed., Phila., 1876), 261.

SOUTH CAROLINA THE AGGRESSOR.

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dominion of a Cæsar, or of a multitude of petty tyrants bestriding the fragments of a broken empire? Such a result may seem improbable, but will assuredly ensue should the experiment, never before tried on such a scale, of democracy ruling through universal suffrage, prove unsuccessful. It is not ours to solve a problem which belongs to time; but on looking back it will be seen that his expectations were not verified by the course of events. For seventy years the balance of the Constitution was evenly maintained, two generations passing away in peace beneath its shade, and when at length the equipoise was disturbed, the offence came not from the General Government, but from a State. The Union did not assail South Carolina, it was she who sought to subvert the Union. That civil war should follow, and all that war involves, was a natural consequence. According to the theory of secession, the States reverted to a state of nature, and the weaker had no right to complain of the use of force. In the language of a member of the South Carolina Convention, the roof beneath which they had so long reposed was gone. If necessity became the law, and danger roused the instinct of self-preservation, the cause was not the strength. of the federal bond, but the seeming weakness which induced the belief that it might be broken with impunity. Under such circumstances nice Constitutional restraints will be disregarded by both the contending parties and on either side of the line; peccetur intra Iliacos muros et extra; and a Hampden or a Fairfax will resort to martial law as readily as a Rupert or a Goring.

The ingenious and eloquent writer who acted as VicePresident of the Confederate States during the late rebellion. asks in a recent publication why, if the Constitution is national, did those by whom it was supported assume the name of Federalists? The answer is obvious. It was not, as Mr. Stephens would intimate, because the government of the United States was a mere confederacy, but because it was unjustly reproached with going to the other extreme. The object was to put the argument of Mr. Madison in a popular form, and show that if the new government was clothed with