states were to be accommodated in their interests, or opinions of interest;" and that hence arose the necessity of making such a system, as would "satisfy all the parties to the compact." And, in the same article, he argues that the failure of this plan would be a "dissolution of the confederacy." And in the New York ratifying convention, about the same time, he described the system provided for in the proposed constitution, as "a confederacy of states." [II. Ell. Deb. 353.]

In Article 39, it is stated that "each state, in ratifying the constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new constitution will, if established, be a federal, and not a national constitution." This is Madison's, italics and all.

In Article 40 Madison continues the subject, meeting the objection that the new system was so different from the preceding one, that it was not within the intention of the states: "Will it be said that the fundamental principles of the confederation were not within the purview of the convention, and ought not to have been varied? I ask, what are those principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the constitution, the states should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the constitution proposed."

Article 20 the joint production of Hamilton and Madison concludes with the following remarkable and decisive passage: "Experience is the oracle of truth; and where its responses are unequivocal, they ought to be conclusive and sacred. The important truth which it unequivocally pronounces in the present case is, that a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation for communities as contradistinguished from individuals; as it is a solecism in theory, so in practice it is subversive of the order and ends of civil polity, by substituting violence in the place of law; or the destructive coercion of the sword, in the place of the mild and salutary coercion of the magistracy."

All the numbers of the Federalist, and all of Washington's writings, are consistent with the above passages. The extract from Article 20 is one of the numerous decisive proofs that the states were never intended to be subject to the government; for they were the sources of all power—were republics, i. e. self-governing states. And it is amazing that anybody should ever have been inconsiderate or wicked enough to say that the states are subject to their own compact, and the government they created by it. Yea, verily, it is a solecism, as Hamilton and Madison above say, to talk of " a sovereignty over sovereigns, a government over governments, a legislation

for communities as contradistinguished from individuals." And it shows either ignorance of history, or suppressio veri, for expositors of the constitution to deny that the states purposely excluded coercion of states from the compact; and afterwards nem. con., provided by Amendment XI. against even judicial federal coercion of them.

We find, then, from Washington's own expressions, his views to have been that the states "established" the union; that the instrument providing for it is the "compact or treaty" of the states; that the object accomplished was the forming of "a new confederacy," i. e. "a more perfect union" of the states, than the previous pact provided for; and that the states were not only voluntary parties to, but they were to be voluntary actors in, the union.

Washington always took it for granted, that the states were sovereign bodies of people; and that the federal compact, and the agency created, were simply the instrumentalities of the states for self-government, and remained of course subordinate to them.

Now, in order to see Washington's clearness and breadth of view, and his admirable consistency throughout, let us glance back at his statement of the great political desiderata for our country, in his circular letter to the governors of the states in 1783, on the occasion of his laying down his office as Commander-in-Chief:

1. A "union of the states under one federal head."

2. A "sacred regard for public justice."

3. A proper peace establishment.

4. The cultivation of friendly feelings among all the people of the country, etc.

Washington never lost sight of these objects; he always took it for granted that the states were the sole actors in federalizing themselves; and he finally had the satisfaction to see the work done precisely as he forecasted. The thoughtful reader cannot fail to see that Washington was much more admirable as a statesman and political philosopher, than is commonly supposed.

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CHAPTER XII.

VERBAL JUGGLERY.

FTER contrasting the doctrines of "the two Washingtons," it is well to bring to view, in the same line of investigation, the two sets of so-called definitions of Noah Webster, as to the matter in hand, one genuine and the other counterfeit.

With sapping and mining industry, equal to that of a species of rodent vermin, and quite as difficult to follow and counteract, a certain class of teachers and leaders have undermined to its ruin the sacred temple of.constitutional freedom. Unfortunately they and their disciples or followers mainly control the political propagators, print, press, publishers, politicians, and, in short, the most of the means of political teaching in the whole land.

Strategic Exposition. In 1830-3, Daniel Webster abandoned his previous and sound constitutional views; and he is charged with having, in the great controversy of that time, played most skilfully "with double sences and with false debate." But I presume that his errors were a part of his faith, and that his incorrect facts and unsound premises were based upon the data furnished him by others. At all events standing on the plane of his noble efforts in behalf of the union we go down a steep and long declivity to reach the artifices now to be exposed.

Said he, in his speech of 1833, "Words are things. . . of mighty influence; because a just conclusion is often avoided, or a false one reached, by the adroit substitution of one phrase or one word [or he might have said one definition] for another." He evidently saw that even the strongest logical position in any argument could be turned, by changing the definitions of the chief words of it, and having them accepted as "public convictions."

And a minority politician, in the early part of the present century, is said to have remarked, in substance: "The terms are against us, but their meanings are subject to usage." Sophists seem to have

accepted these hints, and labored assiduously ever since to produce a desired usage, and a "public conviction" of new and false meanings, tending towards, if not powerfully aiding, consolidation and imperialismi. Many an "adroit substitution" has since, with flagitious cunning, been made, the latest, most conspicuous, and most banefully influential being the counterfeit definitions, which are the subject of this chapter, and which are coined and circulated throughout the land as Noah Webster's.

Phrasing the process to be exposed, as I do above, is dignifying it; for it is the appending of Noah Webster's most venerated and potential name to declarations of fact and opinion, directly and flagrantly opposed to his life-long views, and "passing the counterfeits" as his statements.

We early learn the meanings of the leading words, which affect all the affairs of life. They are often of vital moment. If, after putting our rights in language, we find the definitions of our words changed, we may suffer great wrong without remedy. The discovery may sometimes amuse us, much as "thimble-rig " would, but we must ever have the bitter reflection that this sapping and mining process affects alike our language and our polity, and that the poison of error is imbibed as truth by the generation to which we owe the supreme duty of teaching sound principles, and the sacred verities of our constitutional freedom.

The American “Old Man of the Mountain." If the "school" is responsible for the foregoing deceptions, and the sophistries yet to be exposed, have we not found the American "Sheik al Gebel," — the "Chief of the Assassins" of liberty? The honor and conscience of perverters in general are estimated, and the character of them portrayed by Gouverneur Morris, the statesman, as follows: "But, after all, what does it signify that men should have a written constitution, containing unequivocal provisions and limitations. The legislative lion will not be entangled in a logical net. The legislature will always make the power which it wishes to exercise. . . . The idea of binding the members by oaths is puerile. Having sworn to exercise the powers granted, according to their true intent and meaning, they will, when they desire to go further, avoid the shame, if not the guilt, of perjury, by swearing the true intent and meaning to be (according to their comprehension) that which suits their purpose." [III. Life of Morris, letter dated Dec. 22, 1814.]

Noah Webster's real Doctrines. Noah Webster died in 1843, aged eighty-five, after having attained the first rank of great AmeriHe was one of the ablest and most efficient of those eminent patriots called "the fathers," who devised the new federal system and

cans.

secured its adoption. In 1784-5, he wrote and published his "Sketches of American Policy," advocating a general government that should act, not on states, but directly on individuals, just as the state governments did, and should possess powers to effectuate its laws in like manner. When the federal system of 1787 was devised, he published in its favor "An Examination of the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution," and in the American Magazine, founded and edited by him in 1787-8, he monthly and most ably exposed the essential ideas and traits of the system. I now present some extracts, not only to show the deceptions referred to, but to instruct the people as to their real federal polity, and exhibit to them, in compendious form, this great man's abiding political faith. "The whole body of people in society is the sovereign power or the state, which is called the bodypolitic. Every man forms a part of this state, and so has a share in the sovereignty; at the same time, as an individual, he is a subject of the state." [Am. Mag. Dec. 1787.]

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The States above Constitutions of Government. "The individuals who compose a political society or state, have a sovereign right to establish what form of government they please in their own territory." [Ibid.]

In the number for January, 1788, he said: ". . . No constitutions in a free government can be unalterable. . . . A state is a supreme corporation that never dies. Its powers, when it acts for itself, are at all times equally extensive, and it has the same right to repeal a law this year as it had to make it the last. If, therefore, our posterity are bound by our constitutions, and can neither amend nor annul them, they are to all intents and purposes our slaves. . . . We have no right to say that our posterity shall not be judges of their own circumstances. The very attempt to make perpetual constitutions is the assumption of the right to control the opinions of future generations, and to legislate for those over whom we have as little authority as we have over a nation in Asia."

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The Aim is to preserve the States complete. He said in reply to objections, that "the federal constitution will preserve our equal republican forms of government; nay, that it is their only firm support, and the guaranty of their existence." [Ibid.]

The object universally held in view was the preserving of the states intact; and numerous quotations of similar tenor to the following, from Chancellor Livingston, in the New York ratifying convention, could be quoted: "Our existence as a state depends on a strong and efficient federal government."

Just so Noah Webster considered the absolute preservation of the states to be the object of their union, as will be seen in the following