hibited to the states, is among the rights reserved. It is in vain to say, that the constructive negative contended for, only extends to such state laws as are contrary to the articles of the constitution, because that very modification of a negative power in the federal government was proposed and rejected. It would have as effectually defeated a federal and established a national government, as a negative in any other form over state laws. The mutual checks established for the security of a federal government, between the state and federal departments, are positively established, by the exclusion of a supreme negative power in either over the other, for the purpose of inspiring that mutual moderation, which is an end of a division of power, and one of the securities for a free government. And the guardianship of this desirable moderation, is deposited in three-fourths of the states. Co-ordinate and independent powers alone, can beget mutual moderation; an unchecked supremacy uniformly inspires arrogance, and causes oppression. To defeat or weaken federal checks by a substitution of constructive national checks, is therefore not less hostile to the freedom of the states, than to the sufficiency of facts and words for establishing a federal form of government.

SECTION V.

THE SUBJECT CONCLUDED.

Let us suspend the consideration of contemporaneous testi mony, and concisely review the ground we have passed over. Suppose the proceedings of the convention had been publick, and that all the panoply for the establishment of a national government, had been displayed in the newspapers. Suppose the states to have been alarmed by the exhibition, and to have remonstrated against the project. That this would have been the case, is demonstrated by the credentials to their deputies, and the opinions annexed to their ratifications. Suppose the states, after the publication of the constitution, to have retained fears inspired by the attempts to establish a national government, and that a great number of eminent men had assured them that these fears were groundless. And suppose that the states, still unsa tisfied, had, for conclusive security, insisted upon the amend ments which they added to the constitution; particularly that reserving all their rights not delegated. Had the proposals for a national government, and for negatives over state laws and judgments, been published when they were made, there is no doubt but that they would have provoked the irresistible remonstrances of every state. Now imagine, that in consequence of state oppositions, these projects had been abandoned exactly as they were, in consequence of the opposition by state deputies; that the federal constitution had been substituted for them; and that the states had, under the impression which the projects had made, subjoined to it the amendments. Could the states have been honestly told, after all this process, that the apparent re jection of a national government and its supreme negatives, was only a delusion to appease their fears, and a bait to allure them within the trap, hypocritically abandoned?

Now this very case is that under consideration. The proposals for a national government and its negative over the state

acts, were really made. They were opposed by the state depu ties, who had a knowledge of them. They were rejected. A different form of government was promulgated. It contained no such negative. The states expounded its meaning to be federal, by a positive reservation of rights not delegated. And now they are told that the devil, thus repeatedly exorcised, still remains in the church.

The notoriety of this deception is fully illustrated by recollecting, that the states, by their deputies, (and they could only do it by deputies,) had made themselves sovereign and independent; that they had already united in virtue of that character; that in virtue of that character, they had appointed deputies to frame a more perfect union; that by these deputies they voted as states; that they ratified the constitution as states; that they immediately amended it as states; that they reserved the supreme power of altering it as states; that they vote in the senate as states; and that they are represented as states in the other federal legislative branch. Further, the declaration of independence was never repealed. Its annual commemorations demonstrated, and continue to demonstrate, a publick opinion, that it still lives; and the constitution did not confer sovereignty and independence upon the federal government, as the declaration of independence had done upon the states. On the contrary, by the constitution, the states may take away all the powers of the federal government, whilst that government is prohibited from taking away a single power reserved to the states. Under all these circumstances, is it possible that any one state of the union, in ratifying the constitution, which literally conformed to previous solemn acts, to previous words and phrases, and to the settled rights of the states, entertained the most distant idea, that it was destroying itself; betraying its people; establishing a national government; and creating a supreme negative over all its acts, political and civil, or political only, with which the federal government, or one of its departments, was invested by implication.

Sovereignty is the highest degree of political power, and the establishment of a form of government, the highest proof which can be given of its existence. The states could not have re

served any rights by the articles of their union, if they had not been sovereign, because they could have no rights, unless they flowed from that source. In the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the highest, act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constituted; it is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by which it was formed. Could the states have imagined, when they entered into a union, and retained the power of diminishing, extending, or destroying the powers of the federal government, that they who "created and could destroy," might have this maxim turned upon themselves, by their own creature; and that this misapplication of words was able both to deprive them of sovereignty, and bestow it upon a union subordinate to their will, even for existence. I have no idea of a sovereignty constituted better ground than that of each state, nor of one which can be pretended to on worse, than that claimed for the federal government, or some portion of it. Conquest or force would give a much better title to sovereignty, than a limited deputation or delegation of authority. The deputations by sovereignties, far from being considered as killing the sovereignties from which they have derived limited powers, are evidences of their existence; and leagues between states demonstrate their vitality. The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.

upon

If, under all these circumstances, the states could never have conceived that they had, by their union, relinquished their sovereignties; created a supreme negative power over their laws; or established a national government; their opinion ought to be the rule for the construction of the constitution. And if the constitution has, by implication, effected all these ends without their knowledge or consent, it is certainly the most recondite speculation that was ever formed, and the states of all cullies, the most excusable.