There is in its continuance the unfolding of a still grander and more imposing unity. The War of Independence, with its with its years of suffering and devotion and sacrifice, was the war of one people. It was fought from its opening to its close before the inception of the Constitution, and with no formal constitution, but they "stood all together, and they marched all together." They went forth to battle under one leader, and under him they won a common victory. The power of the whole was instituted in one Congress. The language it used in its official acts, spoke of "country and America." The names which the political power assumed, were the "Continental Congress" and "Continental Army" and "Continental money." The name "United America" was often repeated. The relation toward other political powers was that always of one people forming a nation, and the recognition by other nations was not of each community as a separate political power, but it was the recognition of the people as one nation. It was the organic people forming a nation that sent forth its ministers, and with it treaties were made and international relations were established. Thus its ministers were received by France as the ministers of the United States, and at the conclusion of the treaty made between the two governments in 1778, the King of France spoke to its ministers of "the two nations." The authority asserted was of the whole people, and the delegates in the Revolutionary Congress proclaimed its power "in the name and by the authority of THE GOOD PEOPLE of these colonies. The Declaration of Independence was the act of the whole people; it calls the Americans one people, and its salutation is to them as fellow citizens. There is in it the assumption of no separate rights, and the record of no separate wrongs. The Declaration in its conception transcends the spirit of any of these separate communities, and was beyond their separate grasp. It was by the whole people that the war was carried on, and victory was won, and peace was established for the people. There was in these events beyond argument the evidence of the divine guidance of the people. And the witness to this providential guidance of the people in the realization of the nation, was to be given by one whose words are more than those of an isolated individual. President Washington said, in his first inaugural to the people, "Every step by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency." The subsequent circumstance of the deepest significance is that the people sought to realize its purpose under the articles of a confederation. It was the assumption of a confederate principle, although in the nature of things it induced inevitable contradictions; thus, while the separate States are represented as sovereign, they are not so in reality, but the attributes of political sovereignty are withdrawn from them; then also the articles are called the Articles of Confederation, but they are also described as articles of perpetual union; the acts which were then performed under the articles were incongruous with a confederate conception, and thus the Congress of the people proceeded to enact laws as if invested with positive powers, and thus the great seal of the United States with its legend of unity was adopted; and treaties were confirmed by the Congress, in which the nation was bound by obligations to other nations, and the whole people was held by them; under these articles also, so far was the condition removed from an actual sovereignty in the separate communities, in the highest issues, and those which involved the very being of the people, the ultimate determination was with nine of the thirteen communities, and this formal political action was imperative over the whole. But the fact of the most enduring import is that these articles of confederation had no continuance; but after a very brief period of confusion and disaster they fell away, partly through their inherent weakness, and partly because they did not correspond to the real constitution, and could not embody the real spirit and purpose of the people.1 - There was formed by the people a national constitution. It was ordained and established by the people, and in the institution of a national government, "We the people of the United States, for the United States of America." It is called "the Constitution," and not, as before, "the Articles," as in a compact. The end which it places before it is a national object," to provide for the com"to mon defense, to promote the general welfare, to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." The ordination of the government is in a national legislature, whose laws are authority for the whole land; and a national judiciary, to which is referred the subject and administration of public law, and before which the separate communities in a conflict of rights appear by summons or appeal; and a national executive vested in one person in the unity of the personality of the nation. It is the enumeration of national rights and of national powers. It is ignorant of and indifferent to the very names, and the number and the extent of the separate civil communities comprehended in it. The illustration of this history is in the necessary political development of the people. The formal argument in every phase admits no other conclusion, as in its course. there can be traced no divergent event. 1 President Madison says of the character of the confederation, after describing the Amphictyonic and Achæan leagues, which he represents as in analogy with it, "The inevitable result of all was imbecility in the government, discord among the provinces, foreign influences and indignities, a precarious existence in peace, and peculiar calamities in war."— - The Federalist, No. xx. President Washington, who held the conception of the organic and moral being of the nation with a more profound sincerity and grasp of thought than any American statesman - certainly before President Lincoln — wrote to John Jay, March 10, 1787, of: "a thirst for power, and the bantling - I had liked to have said the monster sovereignty, which has taken such fast hold of the States individually." Firstly, The separate societies or commonwealths have each of itself no integral historical life, and there is no separate historical aim which may be apprehended in them. The whole historical development is of the people of the United States, and upon the people its work has been laid. Apart from the people of the United States, and apart from a relation in and to that, history is ignorant of these separate communities. They have no separate ground in history. Secondly, The object and end toward which the people has moved, has been the realization of a common end, and that the end of the being of the nation, the realization of freedom. The aim has been to place beyond all aggression the inalienable right of personality, the freedom of conscience and of thought, and to embody in more enduring institutions the rights of man; and this in the course of the people has been increasingly apparent. The end was not the false and negative conception of what is called freedom, which was to exist only in their relative independence in respect to each other, a freedom of alienation and division, but there was the unity of a moral aim, and for this the toil and conflict and sacrifice of years have been offered and this has been given to the people. The. immortal words in which Washington was called by the Continental Congress to the head of the Continental Army were, "to command all forces raised or to be raised for the defense of American liberty." Thirdly, The societies, with the interval of a brief and most significant period of transition, have existed under a positive national constitution. It is a constitution which proceeds from the political people in its unity. The supreme law is the assertion necessarily in its organic character of the sovereign political power. The constitution is the supreme law. The names of the separate societies are unknown to it, and there is no recognition of a separate sovereignty, and no assumption of a divided sovereignty. The words are not in it, and it is only a school which claims the specious pretense of a literal construction, that reads of State sovereignties between the lines. The form in which the change or amendment of the Constitution may be effected, precludes a separate sovereignty in the separate communities. While it can only be effected in a form which is established, yet the act is ultimate and the whole is subject to it, but no sovereignty can consist with this ultimate subjection, whether the conclusion in its procedure be determined as a political act, by a political majority of one, or of two thirds. Fourthly, The physical power, the organized might of the people, is formed by and in obedience to the authority of the people as a whole. It is organized as a national power. And as war is the act of the nation in its entirety, it is also beyond the capacity of a separate society to declare war or to conclude peace. The military oath, which every officer registers, is, "That he owes faith and true allegiance to the United States, and agrees to maintain its freedom, sovereignty, and independence.' Fifthly, The separate societies have no existence each as a separate society in international relations. The capacity to recognize other nations, and to be recognized by them, to form treaties and enter into the relations defined by international law with them, is the note or the crucial test of the sovereignty of a political people, and in its formal and external relations a positive test, but there is for this action no capacity in the separate societies, and this power has no existence in them. Sixthly, There have been certain of these societies, correspondent in every actual capacity, and in their character and organization to the other communities, and invested with all their powers and immunities, which have been constituted by the nation, that is, by the people as a whole. This is the condition of an increasing number of them. They have been formed by the formal act and enactment |