dently of, and remaining above, their constitutions of government. They were themselves the real government, and hence there could be no interregnum resulting from a change of mere agencies. Indeed, lightning might strike and destroy either federal or state government, and leave the state herself uninjured, and even unjarred, to proceed, for her safety and welfare, to make another. In fine, the two ideas of a man, and his self-control, are not more separate than the two ideas of a society, and its self-government.

For the want of information, and clear and unprejudiced thought, on these subjects, in 1861, many clergymen went almost wild. Rev. Dr. Breckinridge said: "Secession is a proceeding which begins by tearing in pieces the whole fabric of government, both social and politi cal." "Its very design is . . . to annihilate the institutions of the country," etc. Rev. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton, argued similarly. Rev. Dr. Junkin filled a considerable book with such matter, and properly called it "Political Fallacies," for one more true to its title was never published.

...

Specimens of Expounding on this Subject. It is well to group here two or three of the extraordinary expoundings on this matter. It is fatal to the "school," that the original republican society must exist by the consent of the members to be, and act, as a society; and that hence the states must be independent in existence, and sovereign in will our general system being a republic of republics, or federation of republican states.

Therefore, they pretend to explode the actual social compact, and assert, in substance, that the constitution of the united states is the constitution of a state, or nation of people, in which the quondam states have become subdivisions, while their rights and powers are reserved to them, by the said nation, in the said constitution. They more than intimate that the people of all the states, "in the aggregate," formed a second social compact, doing away with all the original ones, and making themselves one state.1

John Quincy Adams goes farther back. This, in substance, is the contention of Story, Webster, and Curtis, to which I will add the surprising statement of that wiser politician, John Quincy Adams. Seeing the pre-existence and continuation of the states to be fatal to the national theory, he concluded to have them strangled at their birth by the infant Hercules of American nationality; so, at Boston,

1 Mansfield, in his Political Grammar; Brownson, in his American Republic; Jameson, in his Constitutional Convention; Draper, in his Civil War; Greeley, in his American Conflict, and others of that school-all seem to deny that the original communities or republics were formed by social compacts; and affirm that the nation was so formed. Their theories are remarkably varied and inconsistent, showing the want of facts. But to such arguers facts are trammels. They prefer figments!

on the 4th of July, 1831, in Faneuil Hall, he discordantly orated as follows: "The Declaration of Independence was a social compact, by which the whole people covenanted with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, that the united colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."

This remarkable assertion is entirely unfounded. The instrument promulgates great general principles; and, after detailing reasons therefor, simply declares the independence of the states, who, in congress, make the declaration.

"Hotchpotch." —I will, en passant, cite without comment, and as a curiosity, the statement on this subject of Professor Jameson, of the University of Chicago, in his "Constitutional Convention" (p. 29): "The people of the United States, in 1789, threw the existing constitutions of the several states into hotchpotch, and repartitioned among those bodies the powers they were thenceforward to exercise, giving a portion thereof to the states, a portion to the general government, and reserving the residue to themselves."

Hume's Explosion. The expounders, determined to show that the people were lying loose, so that the fathers could, in 1787, herd or aggregate them into a nation, assert that Hume exploded the socialcompact theory, thus depriving our states of their law of being. We have already seen that his explosive dynamics did not blow the socialcompact idea out of the Massachusetts organic law, and we will now see that he did not affect our precious social ties at all.

In his Essay No. XII., written in 1752, after exposing the fallacy of various European theories on this subject, he proceeds to say: "My intention here is not to exclude the consent of the people from being one just foundation of government. It is surely the best and most sacred of any."

Here, then, was forecasted by that great man the very law of republican being, the vitality and cohesive force of every commonwealth, the "consent or will of the persons forming it." Indeed, the whole philosophy of the republic is comprehended in that one sentence. Such, too, was the theory of Edmund Burke.

The true idea of the Declaration seems to have passed away with the fathers, there not being virtue and understanding enough in American politicians to keep it alive. The consent, which was declared to be the only just foundation to government, was the consent of the party to a contract. The consent of the people, as heretofore remarked, means the will of the people.

Think of it! "Consent of the governed " is a phrase of no value, except in the sense I mention. Poland, Venetia, and Ireland, yielding to tyranny, consent. All slaves consent. Order reigned in Warsaw

because of consent. And, finally, wherever peace has been made by desolation, the trembling wretches, hid in caves, were willing to consent to any terms.

No! no! Messrs. Politicians, when the American people, as they are organized and capacitated to act, do absolutely govern themselves, both domestically and federally, then will be restored the consent of the social compact, and of the Declaration of Independence, but never before !

The State rules in all Things. The change, by independence, from a province to a state, was necessarily a change from subordination to supremacy. Sovereignty is the very thing that distinguishes a state from a county or province. We have found that Massachusetts was formed by social compact of her people; that, as a commonwealth, she is absolutely sovereign, and that her citizens are completely her subjects. The citizens, then, being merged in, and controlled by, the state, could, by the state only, be subjected to the federal pact, government, and laws; and he obeys these solely because the state commands it.

The Germ of the Republic. - It is evident, then, that the states of America reversed the monarchical principle of indissoluble allegiance, "once a subject, always a subject," — and established the one that each individual could, of inherent right, migrate and establish new social relations at pleasure; and, consequently, that his obligations to the community rested solely on his voluntary engagements. This necessitates the social compact, and shows it to be the germinal idea of the republic, and this body to be self-organized and selfgoverning. And it is further evident that the germ of political freedom is in the member of the society.

The Society called Pennsylvania. We see, then, that Pennsylvania, composed of her voluntarily associated members, on becoming free from England, became sovereign herself, and that afterwards, with entire individuality, and with sovereignty unabated, she federalized herself in the present union.

The Polity is Self-government of Societies. - Not a line in all American history even hints at the formation of any other societies, communities, and commonwealths of persons than states, or of these bodies having any limitation whatever on their capacity or power. These states were organized and complete, were pre-existent bodies, at the time of federation. They met in the convention of 1787, planned the federal constitution of government, and by their respective sovereign wills evidenced by their respective ordinances of ratification- gave to it all the life and power it ever had or could possibly have; and they put it in operation by electing and sending their citi

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zens and subjects to exercise, as "substitutes and agents," the powers they, the said states, delegated.

Then, as each state made her home government, it is certain that the American polity was the government of states by themselves, jointly in general affairs and severally in domestic ones.

And it must strike the reader, that if these societies are still provinces or counties, or under external control in any sense or particular, they revolutionized against Britain in vain! If their only status and powers are (as "the school," through Lincoln, assert) fixed by the nation in its constitution, not only the several states are provincialized, but "the united states," the very association declared to be "the government," are subjected to the nation, and are under the arbitrary power of that nation's agency, which, according to Webster and Curtis, decides finally on all questions as to its own power. [See pp. 160, 202, supra.] Appeals to the nation, even if possible, would not be prompt and practical. It has no will and no capacity for action. Remedy should be right at the heels of wrong, especially in such matters as liberty and sovereignty. Civitas ea in libertate est posita, quæ suis stat viribus, non ex alieno arbitrio pendet.1 [Livy.]

1 "That state alone is free which stands upon its own strength, and does not depend on the arbitrary will of another."

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CHAPTER IV.

SOCIETIES ARE SOVEREIGN.

LL our history and governmental philosophy teach, as we have

seen:

1. That republican sovereignty resides in, and never leaves, the people.

2. That "the consent of the governed," referred to in the Declaration of Independence, as the only just basis of the government, is the consent, or rather will, that forms society and institutes government. The people consented, or rather willed into being, agencies, both for their federal and their state affairs.

3. That "the people of the united states " politically exist and act only as commonwealths.

4. That, as commonwealths, they "ratified," and thereby "ordained and established," the constitution.

5. That they federally associated, in the character of sovereign commonwealths, to govern themselves, conjointly in general affairs, i. e. to act as a union of republican states, or a “republic of republics ;" while each continued to govern herself in all home affairs.

All our history is consistent with this view, especially the unanimous declaration of opinion of the convention of states of 1787, that "the united states are "the government," and that the name, “the united states," means the people as states, and not the people as a state or nation. [V. Ell. Deb. 377, 382.]

Now, having seen precisely where sovereign mind or will is, having, in other words, seen the body in which it dwells, and the exclusively functional character of its action, let us note how it manifests itself in our republican government. Look at the necessary

Grades of Authority. All people agree that sovereignty made the constitution, federal as well as state, and that this instrument provides for, directs, and controls the government, which in turn rules the persons and things subject to it, i. e. the people and their belong