will of the commonwealth, instead of the party platform - "the will of the majority."

"To the victors belong the spoils " is alike the plain English and the practical result of the dogma. The party is to govern, with their platform as their rule of action. It is this which unifies our tripartite government, and destroys our system of absolutely independent checks and balances. If a bad and weak president or governor is put in with corrupt men, he becomes the head of a conspiracy against liberty. The three distinct institutions become, and act as, a unit, and corruption begins. The money and power they handle not only depraves them more, but gives them the means of future success.

Under this doctrine, the simple, old-time President seems to have become like a conqueror, dividing among his generals a subjugated empire; or, to use a figure that will suit some people better, like a successful hunter, cutting up and throwing to his tired and hungry hounds the victim of the chase.

"THE CHARTER OF OUR LIBERTIES."

King John, in "the great charter," designated the rights his subjects should enjoy; and he and his successors pledged kingly faith not to take them back.

King People, in constitutions, constitute governing agencies, and designate the powers they shall use for said king. If charters at all, they are so only to the governments chartered, or, to use James Wilson's word, incorporated. In his inaugural address, Washington spoke to congress of "the great constitutional charter, under which you are assembled." The fathers all held this view, and ridiculed the idea of the federal constitution being the source, or defence, of any private blessings.

The fathers deemed the bill of rights unnecessary, and out of place, in the federal constitution; but it was finally inserted as a protestative statement and treaty guaranty of the chief institutes of freedom, which were above all constitutions, to allay the suspicions and fears of the people. [See first ten Amendments.]

But, in these later, if not better, days, the constitution has become a charter To the people. "The perpetual charter of freedom for a self-governing nation is what the old North American Review called it. Andrew Johnson, and I think James Buchanan, used similar phrases.

Last and greatest, however, Jeremiah S. Black said, in the Milligan case: "I prove my title to my estate " by a solemn deed; so with "my right to a trial by jury. There is the charter by which we claim the constitution of the united states."

to hold it,

Story, Webster, and the federal supreme court are responsible for such delusions. But that is no defence to us. If these prove to be errors, we should discard them. My right of trial by jury, and other "blessings of liberty," have a previous, higher, and more sacred sanction than the federal pact. The solid and indestructible commonwealth is their citadel; and the federal pact, with the above guaranty, and the still more important one, of the integrity and absolute authority of the commonwealth, are the outer and impregnable wall!

SOCIAL COMPACT - CONSTITUTION - BILL OF RIGHTS.

It may be well here, in order to enable our people to unmix their ideas and think more clearly on these subjects, to discriminate as follows: Firstly, the social compact is the agreement or understanding among the members to be, and obey, the society; in other words, it is the organic law of the society. [See Part IV., Chap. II.] Secondly, the constitution is the fundamental law, establishing, directing, and controlling the government. It necessarily involves a compact among the parties to it, a law, "the supreme law," laid on their subjects, and a constitution of an agency to execute the said law. It does not include the social compact, but implies it, or recognizes it as a preexistent entity. Thirdly, bills of rights are declarations of society's or the people's rights, — sacred institutes of freedom, never to be invaded by persons or governments. Hence, a constitution of government may exist, without including or referring to either the social compact or a bill of rights, though one or the other, and sometimes both of these, are either expressed or implied in some of our constitutions.

In our republican form, however, as society governs itself, establishing society is, ipso facto, establishing government, what is commonly called the constitution of government being really and necessarily the constitution of a governmental agency. It is of the nature of a republic to govern itself. Its institution of government is artificial, the making of a machine or instrumentality. The society is God's, the agency man's, design.

THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT THEORY.

Perhaps this is the most insidious, delusive, and pernicious of all the theories that relate to our institutional freedom. The idea involved is, or seems to be, that republican government can and does grow commensurately with the area, population, condition, greatness, or what not, of the nation, and that it is the duty of the governing agents to recognize, from time to time, and effectuate the changes and increments.

One would think that the vital provisions for self-government would suit San Marino, in all her stages, even if she grew to be a China; and that, if change of institutions and institutes were at different times needed, she, the sovereign, and not her agents and subjects, could alone rightfully make them.

The establishers of our federal compact, and other constitutions, contemplated the need of change, and provided for their own doing of it, in Article V. If amendments and alterations can be made by authority not their own, their self-government is over, their freedom is gone!

A moment's reflection on the sense of the primitive word "stare” (to stand) will aid us. It is the soul of numerous derivatives, such as stay, stop, steadfast, stable, status, stationary, institute, establish, constitution, etc.; and it is obvious that the vital words, "ordain and establish this constitution," necessarily carry the idea that its provisions are to stand till changed by the ordaining power, which is the people, the societies, the commonwealths, the republics, the states, especially as the amending and repealing are precisely commensurate with the ordaining or enacting power.

But it is unutterably absurd that the servants and subjects, acting under these standing orders of the people, the constitution, are to watch for some growth and development in some or all of such orders, determine when the changes are to be utilized, and finally formulate and enforce them, thus reintroducing that very discretion of rulers which constitutions were made to prevent, and which, when permitted, has never failed to overthrow free government. [See Burke's view, page 7, supra.]

The people are the be-all and end-all of government and governing action. They know and feel their evils and defects, as well as growth and development, and they can, whenever they wish, most wisely suit their institutional changes thereto. They see the questions extant, as to railroads, telegraphs, presidential elections, Mormons, etc., and they will duly deliberate and act. And their servants, whose duty it is, instead of making the changes themselves, to follow and aid the people, can only destroy confidence in their morality and wisdom, by showing their willingness to make changes in the fundamental decrees of their masters, the people, especially as in so doing they necessarily commit perjury and treason!

SECESSION.

In addition to the remarks in Part I., Chapter IV., I beg leave to note one or two errors on this subject. Secession is a natural and instinctive act of a sentient being, which, as to right, comes within

the general one of self-preservation. It would be no more absurd for a man to promise not to escape, or even flinch, from danger, than for the "moral person," the commonwealth, to bind herself not to use her mind in settling questions of "defence" and "welfare," not to judge between right and wrong, safety and danger, freedom and slavery; not to separate from what she voluntarily joined; not to repeal what she enacted or ordained; not to withdraw powers she delegated; and not to dismiss the agents she chose, even if they became enemies, and warred, with her own men and means, to subjugate and destroy her!

But now we have no party recognizing this vital truth, and no aspirant admitting its correctness. The Southern states have spurned it. The so-called democratic party condemns it—as they might digestion, sweating, the action of the nerves, or escaping from a house afire. And finally the Rosecrans "crowner's 'quest" in 1868, verdicted, "dead by lawful force!" and put copper seals on its eyes! Why Ignore Nature and Righteousness? God commands every self-formed, self-governing, self-protecting society-every society or commonwealth, possessing a mind and will of her own, to fight, if necessary, to save her children from injustice and wrong, and, a fortiori, to secede for the purpose, and avoid war. Neighborly kindness, the promotion of mutual interest, and the doing of justice among states, are positive moral forces of cohesion of the strongest character; while the admitted right of secession, or, in other words, of sundering unfriendly or hurtful relations, always potently works towards justice and peace and union! The spirit of Abraham's "Let there be no strife between us," and that of Grant's "Let us have peace," differ "by the whole heavens." To us, especially, "wisdom's ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace!" In short, if amity be cultivated, mutual interest promoted, and justice done, the union will never be saved, in any active sense, but will last forever! Men and states naturally cleave to friendship and justice!

The Late Secessions Unjustifiable. — But let us assume that the states had the right to secede; and then view the secessions of 1861 on the higher plane of morality, and international conduct. If we look at the defences and remedies within the union; the vast resources of diplomacy; the influences always working in favor of justice and peace; and, above all, the healing in the wings of Time, those acts of the seceding states should be condemned, while the provocations that caused them should be reprobated with even greater severity.

Leaders of the people are too prone to assume that right, justice, the spirit of compacts and plighted faith, will be persistently violated;

and that there is no chance for just settlement in peace and by reason; and they strive to augment every impulse of fear or anger in the masses, and ride to power on the wave. "The sober second thought," as Fisher Ames terms it, is seldom or never reached before decisive and perhaps fatal action!

All the counsels and hopes of the fathers were disregarded. Patience, forbearance, deliberation, and waiting for wise diplomacy and for the healing power of Time, should have been the policy of leaders. But only two conspicuous men in the seceding states timely gave such advice Davis and Stephens; and the very people supposed to be hot with passion, deaf to wisdom, and incapable of hastening slowly, elected them unanimously as President and Vice President of the confederate states! and unanimously readopted the constitution of our fathers! [See Appendix B.]

Among the Lessons this "Part" conveys, we should especially note, that we require leaders, who are older and wiser; less selfish, less partisan, less impulsive, and more thoughtful; firmer in principle, and more conservative in action; and finally — always endeavoring to restrain, or guide aright, the sudden impulses of the people, and trying to bring reflection THE SOBER SECOND THOUGHT."

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That we should as a duty eliminate from the exegesis of our written polity the errors exposed, which have heretofore prevailed.

That we should reprobate the teaching, that a sworn functionary of the constitution may obey his conscience, against its provisionsas substantially taught by the quondam North American Review, and William H. Seward.

That we should stamp with infamy the idea that public agents, sworn to use the powers in, and not to use those out of, the constitution, may, at their discretion, use the latter- as Henry Ward Beecher and Thaddeus Stevens have taught.

That our leading minds should try to get (and to teach) a definite conception and clear ideas of our general polity, so that all shall realize that it is a superstructure, built of facts, which are as palpable as bricks and stones; that in truth it is, as Chief Justice Law said, in the Connecticut ratifying convention, "like a vast and magnificent bridge, built on thirteen [now thirty-eight] strong and stately pillars; and that the occupants of said fabric' (i. e. the federal agency) would be foolish and wicked to knock away the pillars that support it.'" [II. Ell. Deb. 201.]

That we shall always be victimized by "fallacious exposition" on this subject till we see, and confess, and keep it in mind, that "the people" are the states, and that the states are the people, and are the only political form in which the people ever existed or acted