the present author saith not. ROUSSEAU, in his "Treatise on the Social Compact" [Ch. VI.], most conclusively sets forth the republican social compact, and states the object of the association to be, "to protect and defend, with the whole force of the community, the persons and property of each individual." And HUME, though writing before the British provinces became American republics, forecasted or recognized the very principle of the social compact, which became the law of their being, as states. [Hume's Essays, No. XII.] And the great Burke said: "Society is indeed a contract." [See his French Revolution.]

But let us take a step further. These bodies were formed for selfgovernment, and

Government is Mental and Functional. All acts of government are acts of mind, and mind must dwell in a body, and act through its organs. In our system, the only possible body for original governing mind to dwell in, is an organized society of people — a state. And whatever is done in making institutions of government, and putting them in force, through laws and the execution thereof, must be functional (for such acts are precisely what society and its mind were made for), just as thinking is functional to the brain, and digesting to the stomach. Hence such action in no wise touches, let alone impairs or changes, the existence, essentials, or authority of the commonwealth. And it is of this mind and its right of investigating, thinking, reasoning, judging, and willing, that sovereignty is alone predicated. And this dwells not in persons, but in the collective mind of the people in the corporate body called the commonwealth, republic, or state the "moral person as Vattel and others call it; "the moral collective body," to use Rousseau's phrase.

Constituting the General Government was Functional. — It follows from the above, that ordaining and establishing the constitution was functional action of the states. They could, and did, through their deputies, meet in "the convention of states," as Hamilton and others called it, and deliberate upon and mature a plan of union and government. They could and did send the plan to the congress of themselves. They could and did, in congress, send the plan to each one of themselves, for separate adoption or rejection. Each state could and did, of her own motion, in her own time, and wherever she pleased, call a convention to say whether she would join the "union of states," and be one of "the united states," or not. Each was unlimited as to deliberation, and as free to reject as adopt. All finally adopted, thus doing the only acts history mentions, or even hints at, towards ordaining, establishing, and vivifying the constitu

tion. And afterwards, in the same functional way, each chose and sent her allotted part, or quota, of the personnel of the government, to administer it those she sent, being her own "members," "citizens," "substitutes," and "agents," as all the fathers and all the states considered and called them. And, finally, upon this point, the right to amend - identical with the right to abolish is to be exercised functionally by the states-[See Article V.] this indicating the continued existence of the state, with the same mental machinery to amend, that adopted, and necessitating the same functional action in the future.

A Clear Conception of the States is needed, and by a moment's thought the reader can get as precise and clearly defined an idea of them, as he can of thirteen men, horses, dogs, steamboats, or eggs. Thirteen entities, or pre-existent things called states, were named and provided for in the constitution, as the united states. They had already appeared in history, and often acted. Look at their names, and reflect. The word Pennsylvania (or Massachusetts), for instance, means a distinct thing, with area, people, organization, mind, power, right, duty-all distinct and peculiar. Such entities (and there were thirteen of them) were unsusceptible of being made one, without being, ipso facto, destroyed. If their people were then made into one state, they cannot now be united states. This shows why Webster said, in 1850, near the close of his life-as heretofore quoted : "The states are united, confederated not, chaos-like, together crushed and bruised." "The constitution is the only bond of the union of these states." See also his remarkable speech in 1852, at Annapolis. [See p. 210, supra.]

Divine Right. - The mind and capacity for, and the right to, selfgovernment, are Divine creations and gifts, whether in a person or society; and such mind is alike the seat of self-government, and of the instinct of self-preservation. Self-control, both of persons and states, and human accountability therefor, are the only ideas on this subject that consist with the revealed plan of the Almighty Father and Governor. And to assail either person or state with violence, is attacking one of God's beings, for, as man is created with a social nature, society, not less than man himself, is a creation of Deity.

The Divinely ordered social instinct, then, causes society. This republic, commonwealth, or state, has the God-given right of selfgovernment, which it exercises through mind, and functionally. It and its fellows get together, in federal or league-al compact, voluntarily. When did involuntariness come, so as to make the indissoluble union?

If named pre-existent bodies of people were united or associated, how did the said bodies lose their separate integrity, so as to become part of an aggregate nation of people?

If, by the revolution, the communities called provinces became states, how did they lose the "sovereignty" all declared each to possess, and again become provinces or counties?

CHAPTER III.

SOCIAL-COMPACT FALLACIES.

THE EXPOUNDERS ON THE SOCIAL COMPACT.

TORY, Webster and Curtis aim to show that the people of all the

STORY

states, by a second social compact, formed a nation, called the "united states" an absurdity like saying that thirteen persons were formed into a person, called the united persons. Moreover, the forming of such nation of individuals would require that the constituents should be free to act. This could not be, for each was bound, in political matters, to be governed solely by the body-politic he belonged to, and to act only as part of said body. Indeed, his political authority was confined to that vote, which the body delegated to him, to be used as a part of the means of determining her will; and he actually exercised this privilege by voting for the members of her ratifying convention, through which she willed to adopt the federal pact. The formation of the national society in question would have necessitated the dissolving of the state, and the absolving of the citizen from his obligations. We know this was not done, because the states are named in the pact as "the United States;" and they went, with their citizens, into the union unchanged. And no citizens are recognized in the said pact, but citizens of the several states.

The expounders argue that the state constitutions are not social compacts, but fundamental laws. [I. Sto. Com. § 333 et seq.] This is entirely true, but the constituting of society is one thing, and the constituting of government another. The social compact is the law of the society's or state's being, whilst the constitution must be the law of the government's being, or, in other words, the law creating, directing, and controlling the government of the said society, which is the pre-existent and law-making body. History plainly distinguishes the law of being of the community from the law of being of the government; for when the first constitution of Massachusetts that of 1780- was formed, she had been a perfect community — a bodypolitic, for many generations, requiring nothing but independence to make her a sovereignty; and when Pennsylvania's first constitution

was formed, in 1776, she had, for about one hundred years, been a complete body-politic, governed by William Penn and successors, under the sovereignty of the British crown, merely lacking the independence which the war consummated, to make her a perfect, sovereign, and uncontrollable state. First, then, we have, as a fact, the complete and absolute state identical with its members - they voluntarily associated. Essential to this state is a political will. Second, we have, as a fact, the government- state or federal- the creation of the state's will. To make the former agency, the states acted severally; to make the latter, federally. The constitution, in either case, is the expression of the will of sovereignty, the law of being of the government, and the evidence of its existence and "powers."

A Misstatement exposed. It is, then, a mere subterfuge of the expounders, to assume that somebody regards the constitution as a social compact [I. Sto. Com. § 333], and proceed to show, as if in refutation, what nobody denies, to wit: that it is a fundamental law, and not a social compact. On this point, as usual, Massachusetts, their own cherishing mother, confounds them, as I shall now show, exposing, at the same time, a misquotation. Story says [Ibid.] that she declares, in the preamble to her constitution, that "government is a social compact, by which the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole government."

not that "

This is a misquotation. The true one is to be found on page 283, supra. She says "the body-politic is formed" by "a social compact" government is a social compact;" and she states the compact to be by "each citizen with the whole people" — not with the "government." He seldom, if ever, quotes correctly, or argues fairly,, on these subjects.

After stating the compact, the body, and the object in view, she continues: "It is the duty of the people [i. e. the preformed body], therefore, in framing a constitution of government, to provide for " just laws; “for an impartial interpretation and a faithful execution of them." Her idea, then, was that the preformed body was to establish the constitution of government. [See Const. of Mass.]

Nay, more, both she and Pennsylvania declare that the people [i. e. the pre-existent body-politic] have the inherent right to institute, amend, or abolish government, or constitutions of government, - thus again showing the social compact to be one thing, and the constitution of government another. And they never dreamed that abolishing the government of their creation, was abolishing society or abdicating self-government, and bringing anarchy and chaos, as some pretend to think; for they were conscious of being republics, formed indepen