în such manner as the state legislatures may direct; hence, both legislative and executive branches of the government are chosen by the people, and the electors have the qualifications necessary for electors of the most numerous branch of the state legislatures; by reference to the state constitutions, we find, that the electors for the most numerous branch of the state legislature are substantially the whole body of the people; hence, the government of the United States is a democracy, and as it is, by former propositions, a federative republic, it is a democratic federative republic.

§ 511. PROPOSITION 4TH. The Democracy of the United States is a Representative Democracy.

By Art. 1, Sect. 2d, the representatives are chosen, &c. By Sect. 3d, the Senate is chosen by the legislature; and, by reference to the state constitutions it will be seen, the legislatures are chosen by the people; by Art. 2d, Sect. 1st, the executive is chosen by electors, appointed în such manner as the legislature may direct. By Art. 2d, Sect. 2d, the judiciary is appointed by the President and Senate; hence all the branches of the government are directly or indirectly chosen by the people; and hence the government is a representative democracy.

§ 512. PROPOSITION 5TH. The foundation of the government is the consent of the people.

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In the Declaration of Independence, it is laid down that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and the preamble to the Constitution asserts that it was formed by we the people." The ratifications of all the states commence with "We the delegates of the people;" hence the Constitution is, as it purports to be, founded only on the consent of the people.

§ 513. PROPOSITION 6TH. The sanction of the ernment is responsibility to the people.

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By Art. 1, Sect. 2d, of the Constitution, the representatives are chosen every second year; hence they are, at

the end of that time, directly amenable to the people; in addition to which, each individual member is liable to expulsion by the whole; by Art. 2d, Sect. 1st, the executive is chosen every four years, and is therefore likewise responsible to the people at the end of that time; by Art. 1, Sect. 3, he may be impeached, and by the votes of two-thirds of the Senate, removed from office for treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanours. He is, therefore, both directly and indirectly responsible to the people. By Art. 2d, Sect. 2d, the President, in conjunction with the Senate, has the power of appointing ambassadors, judges, and all other superior officers; and by the declaration of Congress, and the practical construction of the Constitution,' he has also the power of removing them; these officers consequently are all of them directly responsible to the President, and by Art. 1st, Sect. 2d, they may also be impeached; they are, therefore, responsible to the people through the President, and likewise by impeachment. The judiciary is the only part of the government not directly responsible to the President; but they are indirectly; for, by Art. 2d, Sect. 2d, they are appointed by the President, who is himself responsible, and by Art. 1st, Sect. 2d, they may be impeached by the representatives of the people, who hold the sole power of impeachment; all branches of the government, therefore, and all its officers, are made responsible to the people; hence, the sanction of the government is responsibility to the people.

$514. PROPOSITION 7TH. The principle of the government is the virtue of the people.

This follows from several considerations: in a despotism or monarchy, he who executes the laws also makes them; but in a popular government, he who executes the laws is also subject to them. The

Chapter 2, Section 312.

monarch, then, who by bad counsel or negligence
allows the laws to go unexecuted, may easily repair
the evil by changing his counsellors, or correcting his
negligence But when, in a popular government,1 the
laws cease to be executed, as this can happen only from
corruption, the state is already lost. Thus, when after
the death of Charles I. the English attempted to estab-
lish a republic, they could not, because those who took
part in public affairs had no virtue, and one party was
continually opposed and put down by another, till at
last, the people seeking a democracy, and finding they
had no part in it, reposed at last upon the same govern-
ment they had before proscribed. Thus also in Rome,-
when Sylla offered the people liberty, they would not
accept it because they had not virtue enough: and ever
after, when despotism became intolerable, they struck a
blow at the tyrant, but never at the tyranny. They
had not virtue enough to change the form of government.
Thus also will it be with the people of the United
States when they become corrupted.
For half a cen-
tury, the Constitution and laws have been executed and
respected, because the people have retained a portion
of the same civic virtues which preserved their country
in the Revolution, and rescued it from the hands of
hereditary corruption; but, whenever the people shall
have become so insensible to virtue as to allow men to
triumph over laws, they will be corrupt, and the republic
lost.

§ 515. PROPOSITION 8TH. The Constitution of the United States proceeds from the people in their sovereign capacity.

By the 7th Article of the Constitution it was to become valid, among the parties to it, when ratified by the conventions of nine states; accompanying the Constitution was a resolution of the convention forming it,

1 Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, book 3, chap. 3.

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that it be laid before Congress, with a recommendation that it be submitted to a convention of delegates, chosen in each state by the people thereof, for their assent and ratification." Agreeably to this recommendation and the article above cited, it was referred to conventions of the people within their several states; these conventions came from the people in their original, sovereign, social capacity; they were assembled without any other form than what they imposed upon themselves, without any limits as to the authority they should either give or take away,—and in the name of the people only gave their assent to the proposed government; all these ratifications were made in the name1 of the people, and not the states. Without these ratifications the instrument would have been invalid, and with them it received all the authority of a limited government over the people and the states. Hence, it is obvious, that the Constitution proceeded from the people in their sovereign capacity.

§ 516. PROPOSITION 9TH. The Constitution of the United States acts upon both individuals and states.

That it acts upon states imperatively is obvious enough; for every article of the Constitution refers to states, and requires something to be done by them, or prohibits them from doing something. Thus by Art. 1, Sect. 3, they are required to choose senators; by Sect. 4, to prescribe the times, places, and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives, and by Sect. 10, are prohibited every act which appertains to national sovereignty.

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It acts upon individuals thus: by the powers vested in Congress by Art. 1, Sect. 8, individuals be subjected, by the laws of the United States, directly to tax, ation, to militia service, to the rules of naturalization, to rules for the punishment of felonies on the high seas,

14 Elliott's Debates, 247, 248.

and also through the powers for the regulation of commerce, and for regulating the coinage: in all these, and in many other respects, the Constitution and laws of the United States act directly on individuals.

§ 517. PROPOSITION 10TH. The Constitutions of the states act upon individuals, but not upon the government of the United States, nor upon each other.

1. They act upon individuals, because nearly all the state legislation is municipal, and refers to individuals only. Thus, the establishment of municipal courts, the organization of juries, the division of towns, the incorporation of local societies, and local taxation, all emanate from the state laws. 2. They do not act upon each other, because, as it respects each other, the states are all precisely equal, and have no authority over one another; it is no exception to this, that the Constitution has given a judgment in one state full force and validity in another; for this is a consequence of national, not state laws; even foreign judgments are prima facie evidence in other countries. 3. They cannot exercise any power over the national government; for that would place the national government at the mercy of any one of the states, and would be inconsistent with its existence. Thus the state governments cannot tax the stocks of the United States government, nor any of the constitutional means employed by government for constitutional ends.1

§ 518. PROPOSITION 11TH. The government of the United States is not a mere league.

The proof of this may be found, 1st, in the intention of those who framed the Constitution; and 2dly, from the powers vested in the framers of it.

The evil intended to be remedied was that of a confederation, or league without a sanction, and consequently without the means of enforcing its decrees.

'M'Cullough vs. State of Maryland, 4 Wheaton, 316,