Entered according to act of Congress, in the year eighteen hundred and

sixty-seven,

BY JOEL TIFFANY,

in the Clerk's office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of New York.

PREFACE.

THERE are two theories respecting the source of governmental authority, which may be denominated the Monarchical and the Democratic. The first, is that of the monarch, who claims authority to govern by "divine right." The second, is that of the people, who claim that all governmental authority proceeds from them; that governments derive their authority from the consent of the governed, and are amenable to them. This latter theory is denominated the American Theory; and the following treatise has been constructed upon such hypothesis.

The fundamental principles adhered to in this treatise are That the people are the source of all governmental authority in the state or nation;—that they are the authors and proprietors of government, which, at most, is an institution created for the specific purpose of exercising such public authority as the people instituting the government see fit to confer; that the public authority is the authority of society taken as a whole;-that the largest organized civil society is that of the nation;—that the nation, as an organized body, is absolutely sovereign in its authority to institute and endow its government; and, is independent of all other governments in its