THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF THE CONSTITUTION.

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establishment of a government that should be at once free. and durable, had been ascertained by experience, and was no longer a subject of dispute among the English race. That government should be representative and not purely democratic; that numbers should not always or at once control, but according to some fixed rule prescribed by law; that the legislative, executive, and judicial powers should be confided to different hands and kept as far as possible distinct and separate; that the judges should be independent, and the legislature divided into two branches serving as a mutual check, were axioms which no public man on either side of the Atlantic was likely to dispute; and it was equally well recognized that centralization should be avoided and local matters left to the decision of those chiefly interested. This in the "mark"- the "hundred," the county and the township had been a distinctive feature of Teutonic liberty, and found an additional guaranty on this side of the Atlantic in the Colonial franchises and the rights and liberties of the several States.

The above enumeration shows how small a part of the machinery of the government of the United States was devised by the framers of the Constitution - how much taken from forms which long and constant use had rendered not less venerable than familiar. The English Constitution was in fact, to a great extent, reproduced in ours, not servilely, or with a desire to imitate, but as being in its ultimate development the most harmonious expression of principles which had been endeared to the Anglo-Norman race by centuries of patriotic effort, and which were the moving cause of the war that had separated the Colonies from England.

And here it seems proper to remark that this contest, though commonly styled the American Revolution, had in it little that deserves the name. It was not, like the French Revolution, an uprising of one portion of society against the oppressive domination of another, an effort for freedom by a people who had long been enslaved. It was a purely defensive struggle, prosecuted by men whose claim to be free had never been questioned, to vindicate long-established

rights and chartered privileges. The leaders were generally from the wealthier classes, valuing themselves on their descent or family connection, and — which seldom happens when revolution is on foot-continued to hold a first place until the contest was brought to a successful issue. When that came, nothing had been subverted. Laws, religion, property, remained on their former basis; the only alteration was the severance of the tie that had bound the Colonists to the mother-country. Never did a revolt, destined to produce such momentous results, work so little immediate change. A traveller passing through the country might have seen the poverty and suffering incident to an arduous and protracted contest; but he would hardly have guessed that one sovereignty had been overthrown, and another instituted. This general acquiescence, this orderly transition to a new series of events, was due to causes which had never before in the history of the world prevailed to anything like the same extent. The early Colonists brought the principles of self-government with them from England, and began to put them in practice almost before landing from their ships. Each colony became a miniature republic, enacting its own laws, choosing many of its local magistrates, providing, or neglecting to provide, for its own defence. Following the lead of England like a fleet of small craft in the wake of a man-of-war, they yet had in themselves all that was essential to separate existence, and might at any moment if cast adrift, spread their sails with a not unreasonable hope of reaching port. When a governor nominated by the proprietary, or by the Crown, had been replaced by one chosen by the people, the change was accomplished. The other branches of government remained the same, and were administered as they had been previously. In Connecticut and Rhode Island there was absolutely no alteration. The governor had always been elected by the people, and the charters which had been granted by the Crown sufficed for the government of the State after allegiance to the Crown had ceased, and were not laid aside until a comparatively recent period. That can hardly be called revolution where government remains for the greater part on

THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE.

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the same basis; and it is only in a limited sense that such a term can be applied to the War of Independence. When Louis XVIII. returned to France at the Restoration, the Comte d'Artois declared that the only difference was one Frenchman more. It might have been said with more truth that the overthrow of the supremacy of England was but a sentiment the less, so light had been the yoke, so full the exercise of the right of self-government. Yet the change was not on that account necessarily the less material. If things influence us through the ideas which they impress, ideas are for many purposes things. What the sun is to the planets, keeping each in its appropriate sphere, the mothercountry had been to the Colonial system. It was through their allegiance to the Crown that the Colonists had felt and acted as one people; and there was reason to apprehend that the rupture of the common tie would be followed by discord. that might end in an internecine conflict.

The several States were not merely deficient in wealth and population, they did not sufficiently possess the respect and affections of the people. It was jealousy of a central power, rather than devotion to the local sovereignties, that prevented the earlier formation of an efficient general government. The Colonists no doubt had the local pride which binds the burgher to his town, the peasant to his homestead. Virginia was then as now peculiarly dear to Virginians; the inhabitant of Massachusetts felt a just pride in his Puritanic descent; the Philadelphian clung to his city; and the riceplanter of the Santee or the Edisto entertained that exclusive regard for South Carolina which has been displayed with so much intensity since she became a State: but these sentiments were essentially provincial. They were not, and could not be, in any just sense national.

The patriotism of the Colonists was a patriotism of race. The mother-country was still familiarly spoken of as home; under her flag they had successfully combated the French and their savage allies. They fondly claimed her common law as the best guaranty of their freedom. It was by virtue of their birthright as Englishmen that they took up arms

against the arbitrary measures of the English Parliament; and this birthright was one common to them all. When it was assailed by a blow struck in Massachusetts, all felt the injury, and united for the common defence. As the contest proceeded, it changed its character, resulting in a declaration of independence. A new people came into existence; another nation was born into the world. That nation was not

Virginia, or Massachusetts, or Pennsylvania; it was the United States of America. As if by prophetic anticipation, the nascent commonwealth was baptized by a name indicating that its sway was to be continental and imperial.

mons.

"My Lords, I rejoice that America has resisted," exclaimed Lord Chatham; and it was as Americans that we were eloquently vindicated by Burke in the House of ComWashington's care was for the Union which he helped to form, and he was saluted as father by the entire country, from South to North. The fame of Franklin redounded not to Massachusetts, where he had been born, nor to Pennsylvania, where he was domiciled, but equally to every State in the Union, and was shared by all Americans.

While the United States was regarded as a whole by the best and most patriotic citizens, there were many obstacles to the realization of such an idea. The country lay parcelled out into thirteen distinct territories, each claiming to be sovereign, but wanting nearly all that is essential to independence. Each had, it is true, a regularly organized government, a legislature, an executive, a judiciary, the authority to levy taxes, to make and administer laws. On the other hand, nearly all these things were wanting to the nation in its collective capacity as the United States.

But to every one who looked below the surface, it was apparent that with much of the show of power, the States wanted its essentials; that they had not the wealth, the population, nor the credit requisite for national existence. Above all, they were deficient in the moral force, the sense of obligation, which binds the citizen to his country, the subject to his king, and more than armies prevents rebellion.

That sentiment, prior to the Declaration of Independence,

THE STATES HAVE NO NATIONAL EXISTENCE.

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took the form of a loyal devotion to the Crown, and when the Crown fell, became justly due to the American people. Community of laws, of origin, of language, of religion, natural boundaries, all that goes to constitute a nation, were theirs already, except the central and controlling authority which had been supplied by the English Government. If this want could be made good, the new country might reasonably anticipate a long era of prosperity. If it could not, there was too much reason to fear that the clouds which darkened the horizon would obscure the entire atmosphere. The States were too near not to become enemies if they attempted to live merely as friends. Sprung from the same. blood, members of the same household, discord must inevitably ensue unless the family tie was recognized and some common head obeyed. Established by grants made in the wildest ignorance of the topography of the great unknown land which fortune had placed at the disposal of the English Crown, they had for the most part no natural boundaries, did not follow or control the courses of the great rivers, had in some instances no sure means of access to the sea. If Pennsylvania had remained an isolated an isolated commonwealth, patriotism and necessity would have impelled her rulers to acquire such control of the capes which enclose the estuaries of her great rivers as would enable commerce to find an unobstructed exit. The State of Delaware might have fallen in such a struggle, and Maryland might have experienced a similar fate in a contest with Virginia for the dominion of the Chesapeake, while New York could not easily have suffered her seaboard on the Sound to be monopolized by Connecticut. No sufficient means could be devised to prevent a contraband trade between the States, and suppress smuggling along the lines of the frontier that ran back from the Atlantic, across the Alleghanies to the unexplored West. It was absurd and visionary to suppose that the several States could have a true or permanent national existence. The weaker would inevitably have been devoured by the stronger; the strongest did not, with the exception of Virginia, number half a million of souls. All were wanting in the wealth and power