I. THE STATES MADE INTO ONE STATE.

Said PATRICK HENRY in the Virginia ratifying convention: "It must be one great consolidated national government of the people of all the states." [III. Ell. Deb. 227.] For similar views of ELBRIDGE GERRY, see I. Ibid. 493.

Said WEBSTER, in his speeches of 1830 and 1833: "The federal constitution is established by the people of the united states in the aggregate. . . . The union is the association of the people." "It is the people who speak, and not the states."

II. THE CHANGE FROM A FEDERACY TO A NATION. Said PATRICK HENRY: "This is an alarming transition from a confederacy to a consolidated government." [III. Ibid. 44.]

Lowndes, Martin, and Lansing maintained the same position. [See Ell. Deb. passim.]

Said WEBSTER in his speech of 1833: "All contemporaneous history shows that a change was made from a confederacy of states to another system." And the Supreme Court of the United States have, through Judge Story, declared the same thing. [Gibbon vs. Ogden, 9 Wheaton, 1.]

III. THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT A SOVEREIGNTY.

"So

See next point for expressions of Webster, making fuller the accord with Williams. See also quotation from Curtis under the next point.

LANSING, WILLIAMS and SMITH, Said WEBSTER in his speech of in the New York convention, and 1833: "This constitution," etc., "is HENRY and MASON in the Virginia the supreme law of the land." one, contended that the constitution far as the people have expressed their is, by the will of the people, expressed will in the constitution, so far state in the "supreme law" clause, placed sovereignty is effectually controlled." above the states; and that the general government can therefore control every power that would impede its operations. [II. Ibid. 374, 377.] WILLIAMS said: 66 Congress is the highest power in the government." "Whatever they judge necessary for the proper administration of the powers lodged in them, they may execute without any check or impediment." [Ibid. 338.]

The federal Supreme Court have recently said that the states submitted themselves to the dominion of a government, etc. [Cruikshank Case, 1876.]

IV. THE GOVERNMENT THE FINAL JUDGE OF ITS AUTHORITY.

Said LUTHER MARTIN: "By its [i. e. the government's] determinations every state must be bound." [I. Ibid. 380.]

Again: "All courts, whether federal or not, would be bound by oath

Said WEBSTER, in his speech of 1833: "The government of the united states does possess, in its appropriate departments, the authority of final decision on questions of disputed power."

to give judgment according to the laws of the union."

Said SMITH, in the New York convention: "The general government has moreover this advantage: all disputes relative to jurisdiction must be decided in a federal court." [II. Ell. Deb. 332, 378. See also Lansing, p. 354.]

He also said in the same speech : "It rightfully belongs to congress, and to the courts of the united states, to settle the construction of this supreme law in doubtful cases."

GEORGE T. CURTIS, in his argument in the Dred Scott case, Dec. 18, 1856, said: "Congress is . . . the absolute, supreme, and final judge of what the constitution has committed to its political discre

It was claimed generally by the enemies, that the general government was to arbit finally on all questions tion." concerning jurisdiction.

V. A STATE AND A COUNTY EQUAL IN RIGHTS.

to the Presidency: "In what, on principle, is a state better than a county?" His contention was that states had "no status or rights," but those given to them in the national constitution; and that in rights, states and counties were alike.

Said TREDWELL in the New York Said LINCOLN, after he was elected convention: "The sole difference between a state government under this constitution, and a corporation under a state government, is, that a state being more extensive than a town, its powers are likewise proportionally extended, but neither of them enjoys the least share of sovereignty." [Ibid. 403.]

Many extracts like this could be given from the contemporaneous foes of the constitution.

WEBSTER, in his speech of 1833, said substantially the same thing, viz.: that "state sovereignty is effectually controlled " by the govern

ment.

The dictum of the federal Supreme Court heretofore given, is idem sonans with the above.

"Look here, upon this picture, and on this;

The counterfeit presentment of two brothers."

Let us stop and reflect! Did the American people really adopt the consolidation that they feared, and hated, and scorned so much, that the mere suspicion of it well nigh caused the repudiation of the system? To appreciate the great and general dread of consolidation, or destruction of the commonwealths, let the reader recur to the views of Fisher Ames, and those of Chancellor Pendleton, pages 81 and 110 supra.

In justice, however, to pure patriots, I should here say, en passant, that Henry, Mason, Martin, Lowndes, Yates, Lansing, Gerry and others, were opponents of the constitution, because they were friends of liberty, which they thought or feared the system endangered. Their idea was, that it might reduce the commonwealths to their then recent provincial condition, and make the revolution nugatory.

The Federal simulacrum. Expositions, thus originating, necessitated the misstated facts, the abuse of logic, and the perversion of language, of which sophistry is composed; and finally became formulated as commentaries, judicial decisions, obiter-dicta, party-platforms and so-called constitutional arguments, through which media alone the federal instrument was seen, -the result being virtually a spurious constitution.

And under the teaching and lead of politicians who as a class have become the greatest enemies of liberty-the people actually turned away from the real system, and the golden words of the fathers, as well as the truths of political philosophy; and the very opposites of them all became "public convictions" [for this phrase see quotation from Mr. Curtis in the opening of the next chapter]. Perversion, for gaining and effectuating what the constitution denies and prohibits, has been so long habitually practised, that a concordant usage has gradually supervened, and the precious compact is hidden by a simulacrum!

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The Sheik al Gebel. - Hassan Sabah, the founder of the order of Assassins commonly called the "Old Man of the Mountain," who flourished near the shore of the Caspian in the 11th century, composed for his dais or initiated, a catechism consisting of seven heads, among which were implicit obedience to their chief; secrecy; and the principle of secking the allegorical, and not the plain sense of the Koran, by which means the text of that book could be distorted to signify anything which the interpreter wished." [I. Univ. Hist. 240. Encyc. Brit. verbo Assassin.]

In the formation of the union, and for many years thereafter, Massachusetts held the first place as the exemplar of institutional liberty, and the representative of statehood. But to the grand old mother came degenerate sons men who, like the Sheik al Gebel, founded an exegetical system to distort the plain sense, the evident purpose of the constitution, so as to make it provide for a nation of provinces, instead of a confederacy of states, - the central power of the former promising advantages to sections and classes, as well as personal gains, which a compact among sovereign, equal, watchful, and jealous states, covering the actual points contemplated, and leaving out all others, with strict construction and faithful execution of powers, would never permit.

Judge Story's Relation to these Perversions. - As headmaster of the Massachusetts school, Judge Story succeeded Nathan Dane, who, after having striven with others to prevent the adoption of the constitution, revived the charges they had made against it, and foisted them upon it as expositions.

Whether Judge Story was his disciple and follower in this matter, I am not prepared to say; but he quotes Dane with approval, and neglects, or fails to quote, all the advocates of the constitution, both of his own state, and elsewhere, save such as suit his purpose. Why does he confine his citations of contemporaneous evidence to Dane, Henry, and other known enemies? Why does he not cite the instructive debate of the ratifying convention of Massachusetts? Why does he not quote from the other debates, say those of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia? Why does he nearly ignore the important parts of the Federalist? Why does he not quote, fully and fairly upon the points he makes, from Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Madison, Livingston, Patterson, Wilson, McKean, Coxe, Dickinson, Pendleton, Randolph, Nicholas, Corbyn, Marshall, Davie, Iredell, and others? Is it because they are unanimous against his cherished dogma - that an undivided nation, from the plenitude of its political sovereignty, formed and empowered both general and state governments? When he resorted to contemporaneous debates, he found his theory of the constitution, only in the shape of charges made by enemies, for the purpose of defeating it. These he avails himself of as follows: "It is also historically known that one of the objections taken by the opponents of the constitution was, that it is not a confederation of states, but a government of individuals.'" [I. Story Com. § 356.] By recurring to the text the reader will see (what the word "also indicates) that Judge Story introduces this as cumulative evidence of the truth of his theory. He plainly admits the theory of the enemies to be his. They charged it to defeat the system. He uses their charges as explanations of it, though they are contradicted and refuted by all the fathers. He quotes Patrick Henry, the most determined enemy of the system, as follows: "That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear. The language is, 'we, the people,' instead of 'we, the states.' States are the characteristics and soul of a confederation. If the states be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated national government of the people of all the states." [Ibid. § 358, note and authorities cited.]

Now, here is a professed friend and expounder of the constitution, predicating of it precisely the assertion made as a charge to defeat it by its most bitter enemy; and quoting the statement of that enemy to prove the correctness of his exposition. Nay, more, he ignores or suppresses the volumes of opposing statements made by the advocates of the constitution, and fails to state that it is also "historically known" that the triumphant refutation of these charges of Henry, Martin, Lowndes, Dane, and others, alone saved the constitution from overwhelming defeat; and furthermore, that these charges operated

as warnings to the people, and induced them, in their state conventions, and everywhere among themselves, and through the press, emphatically to repudiate (as their deputies had done in the convention of 1787), every idea of a national government, or a governmental sovereignty; and, moreover, to make the 9th, 10th, and 11th amendments, to prevent the possibility of these curses ever supervening. Probable Reasons for Judge Story's Error. - It is known, however, that Judge Story did not originate these dogmas; and it is conjectured that without that close research and profound thought that so momentous a subject required, he adopted the views and copious citations of Dane, than whom there was no abler lawyer or more competent investigator. Moreover, from 1811 to his death in 1845, Judge S. was a member of the federal Supreme Court, which, being interested, generally favored the idea of a strong, self-perpetuating government, and leaned to national views. So that, besides being prejudiced, when, in the era of perversion-say from 1830 to 1835-the said dogmas came into prominence as a system, he was engaged in judicial, professorial, and book-making labors, and hence was compelled to remit the research and argument to sustain the new exegesis, to Webster and Jackson, who did not investigate, because, like themselves, the champions of the commonwealths merely assumed the premises of their arguments. Both parties needed to be driven to industrious research for the facts of the case!

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Were the Motives worthy of the Occasion? - It seems to me that all the contestants cared more as is the case with partisans generally for keeping or getting power, for gaining material advantage, or for gladiatorial triumph, than for basing our polity on the deep and earth-wide rock of truth, and measuring it with the mete-wand of Eternal justice. They cared more for victory than for right!