The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny

the American people one political or sovereign people, existing a

vention in each State, and frame and ordain a particular government for the State individually, which, in union with the General government, constitutes the complete and supreme government within the States, as the General government, in union with al

merican people or civil society, as distinguished from the constitution of the government, which, whether general or particular, is the ordination of civil society itself. The unwritten constitution is the creation or constit

instead of being simply individuals, are States, or individuals organized into States. The body consists of many members, and is one body, because the members are all members of it, and members one of another. It does not exist as separate or distinct from the members, but exists in their solidarity or membership one of another. There is no sovereign people or existence of the United States distinguishable from the people or existence of the particular States united. The people of the United States, the state called the United States, are the people of the particula

er the American system, is primarily the Convention. The convention is the supreme political body, the concrete sovereign authority, and exercises practically the whole sovereign power of t

ays be had. The constitution of Great Britain makes no distinction between the convention and the government. Theoretically the constitution of Great Britain is feudal, and there is, properly speaking, no British state; there are only the estates, king, lords, and commons, and these three estates constitute the Parliament, which is held to be omnipotent; that is, has the plenitude of political sovereignty. The British Parliament, composed of the three estates, possesses in itself all the powers of the convention in the American constitution, and is at once the convention and the government. The imperial constitution of France recognizes no convention, but clothes the senate with certain political functions, which, in some respects, subjects theoretically the sovereign to his creature. The emperor confessedly holds his power by the grace of God and the will of the nation, which is a clear acknowledgment that th

reature of the state like the French senate, but the sovereign state itself, in a practical form. By means of the convention the government is restricted to its delegated powers, and these, if found in practice either too great or too small, can be enlarged or contracted in a regular, orderly way, without resorting to a revolution or to a plebiscitum. Whatever political grievances there may b

is one, and its powers only are divided and exercised by two sets of agents or ministries. This division of the powers of government could never have been established by the convention if the American people had not been providentially constituted one people, existing and acting through particular State organizations.

d States, but the central force of the constitution was too strong for them to succeed. The unity of the nation was too strong to be effectually broken. No doubt the reaction against secession and disintegration will strengthen the tendency to centralism, but centralism can succeed no better than disintegration has succeeded because the General government has no subsistentia, no suppositum, to borrow a theological t

per, check, or balance each other; but practically the commons estate has become supreme, and the nobility govern not in the house of lords, and can really influence public affairs only through the house of commons. The principle of the British constitution is not the division of the powers of government, but the antagonism of estates, or rather of interests, trusting to the obstructive influence of that antagonism to preserve the government from pure centralism. Hence the study of the British statesman is to manage diverse and antagonistic parties and interests so as to gain the ability to act, which he can do only by intrigue, cajolery, bribery in one form or another, and corruption of every sort. The British government cannot

nment against the State governments, and nothing is more hurtful than the attempt to explain it and work it on the principles of British constitutionalism. The convention created no antagonistic powers; it simply divided the powers of government, and gave neither to the General government nor to the State governments all the powers o

nt of the United States, or the Federal government, means, in strictness, both the General government and the particular Governments, since neither is in itself the complete government of the country. The General government has authority within each of the States, and each of the State governments has authority in the Union. The line between the Union and the States severally, is not precisely the line between the General

with the States respectively, are called State governments. The General government governs supremely all the people of the United States and Territories belonging to the Union, in all their general relations and interests, or relations and interests common alike to them all; the particular or State government governs supremely the people of a particular State, as Massachusetts, New York, or New Jersey, in all that pertains to their particular or private rights, relations, and interests. The powers of each are e

General governme

for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations; to declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water; to raise and support armies; to provide and maintain a navy; to make rules for the government of the land and naval forces; to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions; to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and of governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of th

against the United States; and to propose, or to call, on the application of the legislatures of two-thirds of all the states, a convention for proposing amendments to this constitution; and is vested with supreme judicial power, original or appellate, in all cases of law and equity arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made or to be made under their authority, in all cases affecting ambassadors, other pu

concerning private rights, whether of persons or things, the tenure of real estate, marriage, dower, inheritance, wills, the transferrence or transmission of property, real or personal; it can charter no private corporations, out of the District of Columbia, for business, literary, scientific, or eleemosynary purposes, establish no schools, found no colleges or universities, and promote science and the useful arts only by securing to authors and inventors for a time the exclusive right to their writings and discoveries. The United States Bank was manifestly unconstitutional, as probably are the present so-called national banks. The United States Bank was a private or particular corporation, and the present national banks are only corporations of the same sort, though organized under a general law. The pretence that they are established to supply a national currency, does not save their constitutionality, for the convention has not given the General government the power nor imposed on it the duty of furnishing a national currency. To coin money, and regulate the value thereof, is something very diff

tions and capitalists. Their incidental or even consequential effects do not change their direct and essential nature. So with domestic slavery. Slavery comes under the head of private rights, whether regarded on the side of the master or on the side of the slave. The right of a citizen to hold a slave, if a right at all, is the private right of property, and the right of the slave to his freedom is a

y competent to govern them. But, as in the case of all powers held ex necessitate, the power is restricted to the absolute necessity in the case. What are called Territorial governments, to distinguish them from the State governments, are only provisional governments, and can touch private rights and interests no further than

f nations, no citizen migrating from a slave State could carry his slaves with him, and hold them as slaves in the Territory. Rights enacted by local law are rights only in that locality, and slaves carried by their masters into a slave State even, are free, unless the State into which they are carried enacts to the contrary. The only persons that could be held as slaves in a Territory would be those who were slaves or the children of those who were slaves in the Territory when it passed to the United States. The whole

t the State determines these qualifications, and who do or do not possess them; that the senators shall be chosen by the State legislatures, and that the electors of President and Vice-President shall be appointed in such manner as the respective State legislatures may direct. The whole question of citizenship, what shall or shall not be the qualifications of electors, who shall or shall not be freemen, is reserved to the States, as coming under the head of personal or private rights and franchises. In practice, the exact line of demarcation may not always have been strictly observed either by the General government or by the State governments; but a careful study of the constitution cannot fail to show that the division of

or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money, emit bills of credit, make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in the payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws and the net produce of all du

its command. The subject of bankruptcies, also, might seem to be more properly within the province of the State, and so it would be if commerce between the several States had not been placed under Congress, or if trade were confined to the citizens of the State and within its boundaries; but as such is not the case, it was necessary to place it under the General government, in order that laws on the subject might be uniform throughout the Union, and that the citizens of all the States, and foreigners trading with them, should be placed on an equal footing, and have the same remedies. The subject follows naturally in the train of commerce, for bankruptcies, as understood at the time, were confined to the mercan

individuals, or abridge their private rights or personal freedom and independence, because these are not within its jurisdiction, but are placed in charge, within each State, of the State government, which, within its sphere, governs as supremely as the General government: the State governments cannot weaken the public authority of the nation or oppress the people in their general rights and interests, for these are withdrawn from State jurisdiction, and placed under charge of a General government, which, in its sphere, governs as supremely as the State government. There is no resort to a system of checks and balances; there is no restraint on power, and no systematic distrust of power, but simply a division of powers between two co-ordinate governments, distinct but inseparable, moving in distinct spheres, but in the same direction, or to a common en

ndence, against the particular State government? Universal suffrage, answers the democrat. Armed with the ballot, more powerful than the sword, each citizen is able to protect himself. But this is theory, not reality. If it were true, the division of the powers of government between two co-ordinate, governments would be of no practical importance. Experience does not sustain the theory, and the power of the ballot to protect the individual may be rendered ineffective by the tyranny of party. Experience proves that the ballot is far less effective in securing the freedom and independence of the individual citizen than is commonly pretended. The ballot of an isolated individual counts for nothing. The indiv

atic, instead of an imperial, centralism. What is to guard against this centralism? Not universal suffrage, for that tends to create it; and if the government is left to it, the government becomes practically the will of an ever shifting and irresponsible majority. Is the remedy in written or paper constitutions? Party can break through them, and by making the judges elective by party, for short t

orporations and the State government are the counties, that take charge of another class of interests, more general than those under the charge of the town, but less general than those of the State. In the great central and Northwestern States the same system obtains, though less completely carried out. In the Southern and Southwestern States, the town corporations hardly exist, and the rights and interests of the poorer classes of persons have been less well protected in them than in the Northern and Eastern States. But with the abolition of slavery, and the lessening

s a whole, and in all its parts, is the least imperfect that has ever existed, and under it individual rights, personal freedom and independence, as well as public authority or society, are better protected than under any other; and as the few barbaric elements retained from the feudal ages are