COLLOQUY XI.

THE GREAT TRUTH ESTABLISHED THAT THE CONSTITUTION IS A COMPACT BETWEEN SOVEREIGN STATES-THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS STRICTLY A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT-EACH STATE FOR ITSELF HAS THE RIGHT TO JUDGE OF INFRACTIONS AS WELL AS THE MODE AND MEASURE OF REDRESS-THE RIGHT OF A STATE TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UNION UPON BREACH OF THE COMPACT BY OTHER PARTIES TO IT SPRINGS FROM THE VERY NATURE OF THE GOVERNMENT-THE COMPACT WAS BROKEN BY THIRTEEN STATES OF THE UNION-WEBSTER, STORY, TUCKER, RAWLE, DE TOCQUEVILLE, WADE, GREELEY AND LINCOLN UPON THIS RIGHT TO WITHDRAW OR SECEDE IN SUCH CASE.

MR. STEPHENS. We are then, it seems, by the assent of all, brought to the conclusion, that the Constitution of the United States was formed by separate, distinct, and Sovereign States. This is the conclusion to which we are all, however willingly or reluctantly, compelled to come at last, not only by the testimony of witnesses of the highest order, and by the decisions of the judicial tribunal of the highest authority, the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall at its head, but by the everlasting records themselves, by all the great facts of our history, which can never be obliterated or effaced.

We have seen that the Union existing between these States, anterior to the formation of the new Constitution, was a Compact, or as Judge Marshall expressed it, nothing but "a league" between Sovereign States.

We have seen that in remodelling the Articles of the old Confederation, it was not the object, or design of any of the parties, to change the nature or character of that

Union; but only to make it more perfect, by an enlargement of the delegation of powers conferred upon the Government thereby established with such changes in its organic structure, touching the mode and manner of exercising them, as might be thought best to attain the object of their delegation.

We have also seen, both by the instrument itself, and by the understanding of all the parties at the time; that this was what was done by the adoption of the present Constitution, and nothing more. In other words we have seen, and come to the conclusion from a review of all the facts, that the Constitution, as the Articles of Confederation, is a Compact between "the Sovereign members of the Union" under it, as General Jackson styles the States.

With these essential points first settled, beyond dispute or question, we are now prepared to go a step further and approach the end of our immediate and important inquiry, touching the nature and character of the Government, so formed and constituted, and to see clearly where, under it, Paramount or ultimate Sovereignty necessarily resides.

That the Government of the United States is a Confederated Republic, or Confederacy, of some sort, and not a Consolidated Government, is now no longer a matter of investigation or question. Whatever other characteristics, peculiar or anomalous, it possesses, it is beyond doubt, cavil, or dispute, Federal in its nature and cha

racter.

That it presents, in its structure, several new features, wholly unknown in all former Confederacies of which the world's history furnishes examples, all admit. This was well understood at the time of its formation, as well as ever since. No exactly similar model is to be found

amongst all the nations of the earth, or in the annals of mankind, in the past or present. But we have seen the model which was in the minds of its authors at the time it was framed, and which formed the basis of their conceptions and designs. That was the model of a Confederated Republic given by Montesquieu. This model was not only in the minds of the Convention which framed the Constitution, but in the minds of all the Conventions. of the States which adopted it. This has been shown from the proceedings of those bodies. That model exhibited several small Republics so united into a larger one, for foreign and inter State purposes, as to present themselves in joint Combination to the world, as one Nation, while as between themselves each one retained unimpaired its own inherent, innate Sovereignty and Nationality. This was the ideal before all the States of this Union, at the time of the formation of the Constitution. According to this model, which was as far as the wisdom of men then had gone in forming Governments for the preservation of free institutions, and to prevent the principle of universal Monarchical Rule, the action of the larger and conventional State or Nation so, formed for external or foreign purposes, was confined in its internal operations exclusively to the integral members of the Union or Confederation. No power was conferred upon this joint agent of all to interfere, in any way or under any circumstances, with the individual citizens of the separate Republics.

But a new idea had for sometime been in embryo. It was then struggling into birth. Jefferson's brain had first felt the impulse of its quickening life. The framers of the Constitution saw its star, as the wise men of the

* Montesquieu, vol. i, Book ix, ch. i, p. 154.

East saw the star of Bethlehem. They did homage to it, even in the manger, where it then lay in its swaddlings, as the political Messiah just born for the regeneration of the down trodden Peoples of the Earth. That idea was to apply a new principle to the model before them, to improve upon it by a division-of its Powers, and by extending its operations, without changing the basis upon which it was formed. It was simply for these separate Republics to empower their joint agent, the artificial or conventional Nation of their own creation, to act, in the discharge of its limited functions, directly upon their citizens respectively, and to organize these functions into separate departments, Executive, Judicial and Legislative, as their own separate systems were organized. This, it is true, was a new and a grand development in the progress of the science of Government, which, of all sciences, unfortunately for mankind, is the slowest in progress.

But this was the idea-this the design, and this was just what was done.

The great object was to obviate the difficulties and the evils, so often arising in all former Federal Republics, of resorting to force against separate members, when derelict in the discharge of their obligations under the terms and covenants of their Union. Difficulties of this sort had already been felt under their own Confederation, which they were convened to remedy. Some States had failed to meet the requisitions upon them for their quota of taxes to pay the common expenses, and to sustain the common public credit. By the laws of Nations, the Confederates of States thus derelict, had the clear right to compel a fulfilment of their solemn obligations, though the very act of doing it would necessarily have put an end to the Confederation. The question of coercion in the collection of unpaid requisitions, on the part of some

of the States, had been raised during the old Confederation. Jefferson saw that this would be necessary if that system could not be amended. All, however, saw that a resort to force, in such cases, would result in war which might become general, and the loss of the liberties of all might, perhaps, ensue. This newly born idea presented an easy solution of the whole vexed question. It was adopted, by the Parties agreeing in the Compact itself, that in the collection of the taxes for the common defence and general welfare, and in some other cases, this common agent of all the members of the Confederacy, should act directly upon the individual citizens of each, within the sphere of its specific and limited powers, and with a complete machinery of functions, for this purpose, similar

It is this exceedingly simple, but entirely new feature, in Confederated Republics, which has so puzzled and bewildered so many in this as in other countries, as to the nature and character of the United States Government. It is this feature, in the American plan, which struck the learned and philosophic De Tocqueville, who, of all foreigners, seems most deeply to have studied our institutions, and to have become most thoroughly imbued with their spirit and principles.

On this point he says:

"This Constitution, which may at first be confounded with the Federal Constitutions which have preceded it, rests, in truth, upon a wholly novel theory, which may be considered as a great discovery in modern political science. In all the Confederations which preceded the American Constitution of 1789, the allied States, for a common object, agreed to obey the injunctions of a Federal Government; but they reserved to themselves the right of ordaining and enforcing the execution of the laws of the