the inviolable concurrent right of taxation, as was done in the bank case.

Yet he declares that the right of taxation would be dangerous in any other view, than as a concurrent and equal authority in the United States and the individual states. Why would it be dangerous? Because a supreme power in the federal government to construe the articles of the union, so as to defeat this concurrency, would suffice to destroy the state governments.

Mr. Hamilton invests the state governments with complete Sovereignty. Why does he abandon our principle, that complete sovereignty resides only in the people of each state? The reasons arc obvious. His prepossession in favour of the English form of government, induced him to deposit a complete sovereignty in governments. Therefore he proposed a national government in the convention, empowered, like the British parliament, to pass all laws whatsover. And the same object would be effected, if a national government assumed as established by the constitution, can pass all laws which it may deem necessary and proper. The British parliament do no more than pass laws which it deems necessary and proper, according to the British political system. Yet he admits unconstitutional laws to be void. How can their unconstitutionality be ascertained, except by uniting a concurrent right of construction with our concurrent right of legislation? In England, legislation is lodged in the king, lords, and commons, and each department has an independent concurrent power of deciding whether the law is conformable with the English political system. Here, legislation is a concurrent power, lodged in the state and federal departments, to which a concurrent power of construing our political system must also appertain, or this system must be destroyed, as that of England would be by a supreme power in one of its legislative departments to impose its own constructions upon the others. But this reasoning is provided against, first by investing the state governments with complete sovereignty, and then by transmitting all these sovereignties to the federal senate by representation. These ideas cannot be correct, if Mr. Hamilton is right in observing, that "our security against usurpations by the state governments, consists in their dependence upon the people."

Upon what people? Certainly, the people of each state. In this place, we find that the state governments are to be control led by the people; in another, that the national government, as he is pleased to denominate the federal government, is also controllable by the people; and in a third, that one government is controllable by the other. These controls refute the idea that either of these governments possess a complete sovereignty, or a supremacy over the other. The concurrency in the modes of control, sustain a concurrency of power to construe the articles of the union, and constitute the mutual check for which Mr. Ha milton contends, as the only means of inculcating that mutual moderation in the exercise of power, so indispensable for promoting the happiness of the people.

Mr. Hamilton affirms, that the individual states possess an independent and uncontrollable power to raise their own revenue for the supply of their own wants; and that an attempt on the part of the national government to abridge them in the exercise of it, would be a violent assumption of power, unwarranted by any article of the constitution. How came the states to possess this independent and uncontrollable power in the case of taxation? Undoubtedly as a portion of the sovereign power previously held by them. The illustration of state rights, by their right of taxation, includes all their other undelegated rights, as being also derived from state sovereignty. Neither the state right of taxation, nor any other reserved state right, is bestowed by the constitution. They all either flow from state sovereignty, or none of them are genuine. Therefore if the state right to tax, is independent and uncontrollable by the fede ral government or the supreme court, their other undelegated and reserved rights are also independent and uncontrollable. If an attempt on the part of the federal government to abridge the states in their right to tax, would be a violent assumption of power, an attempt to abridge them in the exercise of any other reserved right, must also be a violent assumption of power. And if an assumption of power over an undelegated and reserved state right "is unwarranted by any article or clause in the constitu"tion," no construction can justify it. The mysterious supremacy supposed to be tacitly conveyed to the federal government

:

(but in what way, the eminent men whose works we are considering, have not agreed,) or Mr. Hamilton's vindication of state rights, must be given up, as utterly incompatible. The exemplification of the independent and uncontrollable character of state rights under the constitution, by the right to tax, embraces exclusive as well as concurrent rights, as all are derived from the original sovereignty of the states, and must live or die together.

H. No. 36. "As neither the federal nor state governments, "in the objects of taxation, can control the other, each will have "an obvious and sensible interest in reciprocal forbearance." Thus we are conducted to the precise end intended to be accomplished by the division of sovereignty, supremacy, or powers, (all equivalent words,) displaying its contrariety to a concentration of sovereignty, supremacy, or powers, in a national government. Moderation was not equally to be expected from these hostile principles; and moderation in the exercise of power was thought necessary to foster social happiness. "Reciprocal for"bearance" was inculcated by the intire division of legislative powers; and not by the item of taxation alone; to compel the federal and state governments to travel kindly and sociably toge ther. Their friendship, like that of individuals, could only be supported by their mutual independence in the exercise of their own rights, and if the plain arguments of Mr. Hamilton ought to have more weight than illicit words and dark allusions with which they are sparingly, and perhaps carelessly, sprinkled, they supply us with a conclusive construction of the constitution, namely, that federal and state legislatures are co-ordinate, coequal, and independent, neither being controllable by the other; that only legal supremacy appertains to both; that their mutual independence was intended to inspire them with mutual moderation; and that if collisions occur which they cannot amicably settle, the control of the people over both, and not a dictatorial supremacy of one, or some portion of one, is an umpire.

11

SECTION X.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED.

M. No. 99. "The constitution is to be founded on the assent ❝ and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies "elected for the special purpose, not as individuals composing "one intire nation, but as composing the distinct and inde"pendent states, to which they respectively belong. It is to "be the assent and ratification of the several states, derived " from the supreme authority of each state, the authority of the "people themselves. The act therefore establishing the consti"tution, will not be a national, but a federal act.

"That it will be a federal, and not a national act, the act of the people, as forming so many independent states, not as ❝forming one aggregate nation, is obvious, from the single con"sideration, that it is to result, neither from the decision of a "majority of the people of the union, nor from that of a majo"rity of states. It must result from the unanimous assent of "the several states that are parties to it, differing no other "wise from their ordinary assent, than in its being expressed, "not by the legislative authority, but by that of the people "themselves. Were the people regarded in this transaction as " forming one nation, the will of a majority of the whole people "of the United States, would bind the minority, in the same "manner as a majority of each state would bind the minority; "and the will of the majority must be determined, either by a "comparison of individual votes, or by considering the will of "the majority of states, as evidence of the will of a majority of "the people of the United States. Neither of these rules has "been adopted. Each state, in ratifying the constitution, is “considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, " and only to be bound by its own voluntary act. In this rela❝tion then, the new constitution will be a federal and not a na "tional constitution.