ple themselves.* In May, 1776, this was done by a general law. In the previous year the same thing had been done on the application of particular Colonies, as in the case of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Virginia. Thus the Colonies stood in the same relation to the Union, or national government, after the Revolution, as before. In the Declaration of Independence, our fathers expressly assume to be "ONE PEOPLE,” and that “ they have full power" to do all these things. The powers specially named in the Declaration, viz, war, peace, alliances, and commerce, are national in their character, and were then so claimed and exercised by the "Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled," and have been generally so claimed and exercised ever since. With the partial and unwise exception of Commerce for a short time, they have none of them ever been claimed or admitted properly to appertain to any of the local governments.

By the Declaration of Independence, the Union became a Nation, and the separate Colonies were made States, but not independent nations. National powers and independent sovereignty appertained exclusively to the Union; and the local gov ernments were exercised, as before, in subordination to it. Under the Confederation, which took effect at the close of the war, the last of the thirteen States, on whom it depended, not having adopted it till 1781, the same general division of national and local powers was continued, the Union was declared to be per

* Mr. Dane, speaking of the Congress of 1774 and 1775, says: "The general government was, by the sovereign acts of this people, 1st, created de novo, and de facto established; and by the same acts, the people vested in it very extensive powers, which have ever remained in it, modified and defined by the articles of Confederation, and enlarged and arranged anew by the Constitution of the United States. 2d. That the State governments, and States, as free and independent States, were, July 4, 1776, created by the General Government, empowered to do it by the people, acting on revolutionary principles, and in their original sovereign capacity; and that all the State Governments, as such, have been instituted during the existence of the General Government, and in subordination to it, and two-thirds of them since the Constitution of the United States was ordained and established by the people thereof in that sovereign capacity. These State governments have been, by the people of each State, instituted under, and expressly or impliedly in subordination to the General Government, which is expressly recognized by all to be the supreme law." 9 Dane's Abridg't, App'x, § 2, p. 10.

petual, and the articles inviolable, unless by the consent of every State. But the external pressure of the war being removed, the local governments soon began to make inroads upon the national authority. A short experience was sufficient to prove the total inadequacy of that system to the purposes in view; and in February, 1787, Congress recommended the appointment of Delegates to the Constitutional Convention, as "the most probable means of establishing in these States a firm national government," and rendering "the federal Constitution adequate to the exigencies of government and the preservation of the Union." Under this commission, the Constitution was formed for the renovation of the national authority, at a time when it had become inefficient and almost extinct, by the constant and unauthorized aggressions of the local gov

ernments.

In the Convention of its framers, it encountered a strong opposition, not merely in the arrangement of its details, but in the main idea of creating an adequate and efficient national government. Its opponents were for some time a majority in several of the State Conventions, and its adoption was, with difficulty, finally accomplished, under the influence of an expectation of future amendments, which were afterwards made.

After such an inauguration, seventy-two years ago, it commenced the practical development of its powers, under the prevailing auspices of its friends. Their administration, however, continued but twelve years, checked and thwarted, as it frequently was, by their opponents, who constituted a majority of one or both Houses of Congress, during no inconsiderable portion of the time. Sixty years ago the Constitution fell entirely into the hands of a different class of politicians, many of whom had opposed its adoption from the first; all of whom had countenanced a denial or non-user of many of its essential powers, and contested the principles of its development under the administration of its original friends; and not a few of whom had been supposed to sympathize with the first actual rebels against its authority. By the associates and successors of that school of politicians, with short and inconsiderable exceptions, the government has continued to be administered to the present time; during the last two Presidential terms of

which, under the direct agency of those who are now the leaders of the rebellion, its revenues were diminished, its expenses increased, its debts accumulated, its army and navy placed beyond its control, its officers and sworn agents corrupted and turned traitors to its interests, the materials of its power so disposed as to be available to themselves and their associate conspirators for its destruction, and several of the States, by their instigation and under their avowed leadership, placed in open, armed rebellion. In this situation, on the fourth of March last, it was handed over to the present administration to "preserve, protect, and defend." Under these circumstances, the strength of the Constitution, the virtue of the people, and the honesty and vigor of the administration, are all to be thoroughly tested. If either of them fail, the nation is ruined. Respublica damnatur. Our present business is to examine the first, and see if the Constitution itself is adequate to the exigency, in case the people and the administration fail not. In doing this, before looking at the superstructure, it becomes us to inquire well into the foundation, and see if that is deeply laid, firm and immovable.

The wrong and injustice, that, after many unavailing attempts at avoidance, at length drove the United States into the family of nations, brought at the same time the right and the will to assume the position. They proclaimed, “in the name and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies," their Unity as "one people," and their nationality as possessing all the powers, which of right pertain only to separate and independent nations. God, who gave the right and the will to make this Declaration, gave also the power to sustain it; and there it stands. It has never been revoked or abrogated; and never can be by any human power, but that which made it,-the good people of the United States; and there let it stand-esto perpetua. By it we acquired the right, as "one people," one nation, to govern ourselves, as other nations govern themselves. The institutions, under which nations govern themselves, originate in different modes. The only legitimate mode is by the voluntary choice of the people. But governments originating in fraud or violence become rightful,

by such express or silent acquiescence of the people, as proves their voluntary acceptance. Ours have always originated in the only legitimate mode, by the direct or indirect action of the people; first as a nation, and then, under their advice and approval, by the separate States. There is not at this day, and never has been, or can be, a State Government in the Union, that does not in some form recognize the existence and paramount authority of the General Government.

The present national Constitution, after the trial of other forms, was ordained and established by the people of the United States, for themselves and their posterity. This great fact is not only true, but it is formally announced and set forth on the face of the instrument itself, as the irrefragable foundation of its authority, sovereignty, and right to govern. Another fact, scarcely less important, though not patent on the face of the instrument, is, that it was ratified and confirmed by the people of each of the States individually; thus not only giving it all the authority, in each State, they could give to their own Constitution, but expressly giving it supremacy therein over their own Constitution and laws made or to be made, and putting it forever beyond their power to alter it, by making it unalterable, except by the people of three-fourths of all the States.

Such a foundation for government, so broad and deep, was never before laid by any people. If a fundamental law, so solemnly made and agreed to, will not bind the nation, and every man, woman, and child in it or any part of it, it may be safely affirmed that a voluntary free government is impossible. If obligations so incurred can be rightfully cast off at pleasure, repudiated, and nullified, so far as respects themselves and their neighbors, by any section of the people, or any number of the people short of a majority of the whole, constitutionally expressed, mankind are incapable of governing themselves, for any man, or any number of men, will have the same right in any government they may voluntarily assume. So that a government by force, and not by law, is the only possible government. The present contest, therefore, with the rebellion, is a contest for the right of selfgovernment, the right of the nation to govern themselves by

laws of their own making-the right of free government-the rights of mankind. Nothing less, and nothing different. If we have not a right to our present government, we can have no right to any.

The power of the people being the source of the Government, the foundation of right and authority on which it rests, we are next to look at their act,-what have they done? They have ordained and established a Constitution for the United States of America,-a body of fundamental principles and rules for the government of the nation. Such a Constitution is necessarily in its own nature paramount to all other laws, being the ground-work and origin of them. But even this is not left to stand only on this necessary and unavoidable inference; but is embodied in express words in the instrument. "This Constitution. . . . . shall be the supreme law of the land." Any other law, of the United States even, not made in pursuance of it-any treaty not made under its authority-and any Constitution, law, or ordinance of any State, contrary to it, are absolutely void. Such is the supremacy of the Constitution over the whole land, and every inhabitant of it. Its binding obligation is universal and perpetual. No man or number of men, individually or officially, separately or sectionally, can absolve themselves from it. They can, we have seen, rebel against it -as they may do many other things that they have no right to do. But they cannot relieve themselves from the duty, nor can any other human power do it for them, but the power that created it-the people of the United States.

Having seen the source and nature of the Constitution, it will be necessary to consider some of its details, in order to ascertain its capacity for self-preservation and defense. A Government without power to continue its own existence in the performance of its appropriate functions, can have little efficiency for any other good purpose. What is the true meaning, in a republican State, of the plain and undisputed maxim-" that every Government ought to contain in itself the means of its own preservation ?" It certainly does not mean, that every act, essential to an occasional or periodical renovation of the administration, should be performed by the Government itself. This can never