thence there necessarily exists a constant warfare, bloody or bloodless, between the rulers and the ruled, the former constantly striving to secure themselves in their usurpations, and the latter always demanding an enlargement of their rights and liberties. It is absurd to talk of government originally inaugurated upon the common consent of all the people subject to its operations. And it is perfectly clear that the only security any government can have against rebellions and forcible revolutions, or that any people can have against oppression and tyranny, is in some such peaceable method of political revolution as is (imperfectly) provided and secured by our Constitutions.

No way is hence open by which to trace the sovereignty of each several body of electors to a source beyond themselves, unless we adopt the course of some with respect to the eminent domain, and trace it to concessions or grants by the British Crown. Pursuing that course, however, a grateful remembrance of George III. should arise in our breasts for his graceful acknowledgment of the sovereignty and independence of each of those bodies by the treaty of peace. Indeed, to deny that each of the original bodies of electors existed, and continued to exist, from the moment of throwing off their allegiance to the British Crown, as a self-constituted and selfincorporated body, possessed of sovereign power, that is, as a sovereign community or State, is not only to break from the bonds of truth and good faith, but also to deny the validity of each and of all our Constitutions of government. But if any one of those political communities is sovereign every other in the Union is also sovereign. No one denies the equality of the States as political bodies. A voluntary Union of republican States was never possible upon any other principle, or in any other way, than by the separate and independent exercise of sovereignty by each of such States. And the very existence of such a Union involves the existence of just

such States.

It is unnecessary to refer to the earlier decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States in which the sovereignty of "the people" was recognized as identical with the sovereignty of the States. For, notwithstanding all that was said and written in support and defense of the (not unnatural) tendency of things towards centralization during the late war, the language of that court is in perfect accord with the sovereignty of "the people" as political communities of free citizens or electors. "A State," says that court, "in the ordinary sense of the (Federal) Constitu

tion, is a political community of free citizens, occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written Constitution, and established by the consent of the governed. It is the union of such States, under a common Constitution, which forms the distinct and greater political unit which that Constitution designates as the United States, and makes of the people and States which compose it, one people and one country." (Texas vs. White, 7 Wallace's Rep., 721.) In the same case, that court declares, "that the preservation of the States and the maintenance of their governments are as much within the design and care of the (Federal) Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the national government; and that that Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." (Ibid., 725.) The States, then, are "political communities of free citizens;" that is, of electors; for the expression, "free citizens," is, in our Constitutions, synonymous with the term electors; and no one maintains that "citizens," simply as such, either of a State or of the United States, hold or ever held political power. The union of these "political communities," under a common Constitution, that Constitution designates as the United States. And the preservation of these States, and the maintenance of their governments, "are as much within the design and care of that Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the national government." This, as is evident, is just such a fundamental and all-comprehensive interpretation of the Federal Constitution as was necessary from the beginning; and the opinion of the court in the case may be unreservedly accepted, not only as a clear and conclusive exposition of the legal status of the seceded States during "the late unpleasantness," but also as foreshadowing the grounds of its later decisions of questions arising in consequence of the war. The grand and fundamental stand-point of that court is, "that the Federal Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States as political communities of free citizens, each occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written Constitution and established by the consent of the governed." "In all its provisions," therefore, the common Constitution is to be so judicially construed as to equally secure the preservation of the States and the maintenance of their governments on the one hand, and the preservation of the Union and

the maintenance of its government on the other. "The people" appear to have taken the same view. When they saw that the existence of the Union was endangered, they promptly espoused its cause and its government. When they shall see that the existence of the States is endangered, whether from the tendency to centralize all power in the government of the Union, or from any other cause, they will doubtless as promptly assert and maintain their sovereignty as "political communities of free citizens," each having its own territory, its own Constitution, its own government and its own laws. It is hardly probable that in suppressing a rebellion, the several political communities which remained true to their constitutional relations meant the creation of a power which could exist only in their downfall and ruin. If they did not, they will insist upon an interpretation and construction of the Federal Constitution which recognizes their true character and essential sovereignty as such communities.

There is doubtless a well-understood distinction between the internal and the external sovereignty of political States; a distinction analogous to that between the absolute and relative rights of persons. The internal sovereignty of a State relates to whatever peculiarly concerns itself-its preservation, self-government and domain. Its external sovereignty relates to affairs in which others with itself are equally interested. In the exercise of the one, its power is unlimited; while in the exercise of the other, it must be controlled by the law of nations and its compacts or treaties with other States. The principle of this distinction has always been recognized in our system of governments. On no other ground can be reconciled the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, involving the power of Congress to regulate commerce with foreign nations and among the several States. This power is not limited by its terms. But in its judicial construction, that Court has held and applied the rule that whatever commerce is confined, in its operation and effects, within the bounds of a particular State, is to be regulated by the government of that State; and whatever commerce extends, in its operation and effects, beyond the bounds of a particular State, so as equally to affect other States, is to be regulated by the government of the United States: Gibbons vs. Ogden, 9 Wheat., 194; Gilman vs. Philadelphia, 3 Wallace's Rep., 713; Pennsylvania vs. Wheeling Bridge Co., 13 How. U. S. R., 518; 18 How. U. S. R., 421; Wilson vs. Blackbird Creek Co., 2 Pet., 245. Here the internal sovereignty of each State is recog

nized. And consequently, from the imperial point of view, these decisions are perfectly irreconcilable. (See Pomeroy's Constitutional Law, § 371). But the Federal Constitution was neither framed nor adopted from that point of view. (See Elliot's Debates, vol 2, p. 418; The Federalist, No. 37, pp. 163–165). Each of the United States is internally sovereign, and is governed by its own Constitution, that is, by its own will. The external sovereignty of all in their relations to each other as political communities, is their common sovereignty, their common will, which is expressed (so far as at all made known) in their common Constitution; while, in their relations to foreign nations, they are one-one in peace and in war, in their treaties and all their rights, by the law of nations. The right of eminent domain has always been claimed and exercised by each of the States in virtue of its internal sovereignty. And, therefore, the confiscation of enemy's property within the domain of a State might seem to fall within its exclusive jurisdiction. (See Ware et al. vs. Hilton, 3 Dall., 199, 222-225.) But this is an exercise of the war power; a power which, so far as it relates to self-preservation, is doubtless retained by each State; so far as it relates to foreign nations, is clearly confided to the national government. The exercise of powers involving their common relations to each other, and to foreign nations, belongs to their external sovereignty, and is properly confided to their common government. And being one as to their common sovereignty and common government, and as to the law of nations, that government could rightfully apply that law to its war with States in rebellion, while looking to its own Constitution for the powers of war and for powers concerning the restoration of the constitutional relations of the rebellious States. The necessary measures for restoring their constitutional governments would involve the qualifications of electors. Because, from the necessities of the case, and the common usage of nations, persons who had wielded the power of the rebellion would be excluded from all share in the sovereignty. As the constitutional relations and governments of those States should become restored, all externally imposed restrictions would become thereby annulled, and each several body of electors would exist as a self-constituted and self-incorporated body, possessed of sovereign power, just as before the rebellion.

It can not but be evident that it is only as self-constituted and self-incorporated bodies of electors, that the States of the Union now are, or ever were, sovereign, or that they ever ordained and

established their State Constitution, or ratified the Constitution of the United States. A State Constitution, then, as between the several free citizens, or sovereign electors, composing a State, is clearly a compact between those several individual sovereigns; as to those who hold power under it, it is the Supreme law of the State, and declares itself so to be. In like manner, the Constitution of the United States, as between the several sovereign bodies of electors composing the United States, is a compact between those several sovereign bodies; while as to those who hold power under it, it is, and declares itself to be, the supreme law of the United States. If the character of the one is not changed by the fact that the State government equally affects all the people of the State, neither is the character of the other changed by the fact that the United States government equally affects all the people of the United States. Hence, the proposition that one of these States, or bodies of electors, being sovereign, could not oblige itself to permanently abide by the common will of the society of States, of which it became a member, is not more easily maintained by argument than its necessary counterpart, that one of the individual electors, one of "the people," being sovereign, could not oblige himself to permanently abide by the common will of the electoral body, or society of individuals, of which he became a member. The restrictions imposed upon the liberty of any one of the individual electors composing a State, are self-imposed. So, too, those imposed upon the sovereignty of any one of the States composing the Union, are also self-imposed. The obligation resulting, in either case, is one of natural persons, or of bodies of natural persons, and not of governments. If then, an individual elector can not annul his compact and defy his State, how can a State, a body of electors, annul its compact and defy the United States? The argument that the bond in either case is only one of plighted faith, amounts to absolutely nothing. For a child needs not to be told that a political system which rests upon common consent, rests upon nothing but plighted faith.

It follows that the sovereign power of final decision belongs no less to each individual elector of a State in relation to his confederates, than to each individual State of the Union, in relation to its confederates. If his decision upon a question of his liberty must yield to the decision of the constitutional majority of his confederates, so too the decision of a State on a question of its sovereignty must likewise yield to the decision of a constitutional majority of its confederates. In either case, however, the power of majorities is limited by the