probability of success. If the struggle verges | toward a settlement by force, national sympathy for the state government decreases, until the distinctive federal authority is formally or actually acknowledged; and then the controlling national feeling shows itself by marking as a victim for political punishment any department or officer of the federal government that has been instrumental in thrusting upon a state the alternative of force or submission. The national will approved the federalist measures of 1798, the action of President Adams against Georgia in 1824, the nullification proclamation drawn up by Edward Livingston against South Carolina in 1832, and the forcible suppression of ku-klux disorders by the Grant administration in 1871-3; and in all these cases the national sympathy almost instantly showed itself against the authors of the acts which had been approved. Even in ordinary politics, there is no greater danger to an American administration than the well or ill founded belief that it is endeavoring to coerce the will of its own party in a state. "[American] men," said Hamilton, bitterly, "are rather reasoning than reasonable animals "; and the national devotion to a federal system must be fully taken into account by any one who would attempt to study American political history. And we can not doubt that the national feeling is justified by reason, by the events of the past, and by the probabilities of the future. It is so obviously impossible for any mere centralized government to consult wisely and well the diverse interests of California, Maine and Florida, as far apart in distance and climate as London, Teheran and Morocco, that the absolute necessity of the federal system is everywhere recognized without question. The people of each state feel that the principle on which their own happiness and comfort rest would be destoyed if they should connive at an encroachment by the federal government upon the sphere of another state. They know instinctively that in so vast a country the choice is between the federal system and disunion, for the most solidly based centralized government could not hold the nation together six months; and in the train of disunion come diplomatic relations, international wars, standing armies, and the subordination of the many to the few. Rather than admit the first appearance of such evils, they have denied to the states the power to recall their senators; rather than suffer the reality, they have surrendered the dearest prejudices of their nature, and conquered and reconstructed a portion of the states of the Union. They perceive that a federal system, so far from being in any need of state sovereignty, is injured by the first appearance of state sovereignty and the diplomatic relations implied in it; but that any abandonment or infringement of state rights is an insult and an injury to the nation, and a subtle attack upon the federal system, in which alone the nation can maintain its unity. And the lessons which the past has taught are of such a nature that the future can only add force to them. State

sovereignty, with its shifting possibilities of rearrangements of federal associations, disunions and reunions, might have been possible in a limited area, with small population, slight internal interests, and no foreign intercourse; but it was impossible even in 1775, and every doubling of population and wealth since has only made the impossibility more patent. And in exactly the reverse order, the maintenance of state rights, comparatively unimportant in 1775, has grown every year more essential to the well-being of the people, whether viewed as states or as a nation. The area of the state of New York is closely similar to that of England, and there seems to be no great reason why New York should not expect to rival England in population and in wealth. At any rate, every advance toward that point is a stronger reason not only why the welfare and happiness of the increasing population of New York should be consulted, but also why the rest of the country, with its increasing stake in the welfare of New York, should consult it by maintaining the state rights of New York. - In this essential respect, there scems at present to be little fear for the future. It is, of course, not so easy for one who is in the current of events, as for one who looks from the outside, to calculate exactly their force and direction; but so far as can be seen now, the intensity of the national predilection for state rights is increasing, not diminishing. Mr. E. A. Freeman, in his magazine article, cited below, lays stress on the general American substitution of the word "national," since 1860, for the word "federal.' "It used to be federal capital,' 'federal army,' 'federal revenue,' etc.; now, the word 'national' is almost always used instead. This surely marks a tendency to forget the federal character of the national government, or at least to forget that its federal character is its very essence. The argument would be very strong if the change had taken place in a period of peace; but the change really shows no sign of permanence, and is only one of the last waves of the tremendous exertion of national sovereignty in 1861-5, never, it is to be hoped, to be again made necessary. A stronger argument is drawn from the passage of laws by congress, such as the national banking law, the general election law, and a few other statutes, which conflict with what were long considered state rights. But these are exceptional cases, due to causes entirely outside of state rights. It is far more noteworthy that state rights, even of the conquered states, have come unscathed through the storm of a desolating war directed against a number of the states. It would be difficult to specify any point in which the theory of government by states has been seriously marred since the adoption of the constitution. Wherein do the people of New York or Virginia govern themselves less now than in 1789? The only fear to the contrary is in the encroachments of the federal judiciary; but these would punish and correct themselves by so clogging the federal courts with business as to compel their reformation by the national

"

will. And while the outlines have been maintained, the state's power has grown pari passu with that of the nation: New York is now a stronger and richer state, a more powerful government, a more valuable friend in peace, a more formidable enemy in war, than the whole United States in 1789. Under the silent but potentially omnipotent sovereignty of the nation, New York has always enjoyed a power of self-government which her own sovereignty could not have made more absolute, and might easily have made much more doubtful.

Under the shadow of the power ful commonwealths of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, the little states of Rhode Island and Delaware are living their own peculiar life, under the national ægis, with an absolute fearlessness of interference from their neighbors for which many a stronger state elsewhere might well have bartered the Philistine armor of "sovereignty." The very same cause, the steady growth of the states in population, wealth and material interests, which would have made state sovereignty yearly more dangerous and hateful to the nation, makes state rights dearer and more evidently essential. And it does not require a very close scrutiny of passing events to see that the same cause which has just been mentioned is actually developing a deeper shade of particularism than even state rights. As the state grows more populous and wealthy, a growing diversity of interests in different parts of the state develops a particularist feeling within the state itself. The germ of the feeling has always existed in some of the states. Western and eastern Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and North Carolina have quite regularly taken opposite political directions, and in one of them (Virginia) the fissure, expanding under the force of open war, has resulted in the formation of a new state. But in all the larger states, there are indications of the steady growth of the feeling; and the probability is, that, as soon as population becomes dense, the pressure of conflicting interests will be relieved by the throwing off of new states. Already New York has three fairly defined sections, the west, the north, and the southeast, any one of which is a potential state. The enormous and diversified area of Texas was never made for a single state; and only increasing density of population is needed to make the same thing evident in other cases. The silent growth of the feeling may be estimated from a single instance. In 1794 the so-called "whisky insurrection" (see that title), in western Pennsylvania, was suppressed by militia, a part of the force being drawn from New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia. In 1877 the same region was the scene of a part❘ of the railroad riots, and the attempt was made to employ militia from the eastern part of the state in restoring order. Let him who remembers the delirium of passion with which men of all classes resisted the attempt, ask himself what the result would have been if New Jersey, Maryland or Virginia militia had again been introduced, and say whether the particularist feeling is less

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strong in that region now than in 1794. It is even evident that the particularist feeling is not confined entirely to sections of states, but that the great cities which have been growing up on our soil are also developing a particularism of their own. The shibboleth of "home rule," the abandonment of state and national parties in local elections, which has of late years developed so strong a following in Philadelphia, Brooklyn and New York city, is only a phrasing of this new and deeper shade of particularism, which will come out to full view as soon and as fast as it is needed. Mr. Freeman, in the article before referred to, notes this very peculiarity: “An American city is more thoroughly a commonwealth, it has more of the feelings of a commonwealth, than an English city has." Such evident tendencies may well offset a temporary exaggeration of the word national. They seem to show that the people of the United States are justified in their abounding confidence that their political machine has the power to correct its own errors and to guard against its own dangers. — A complete definition of state rights is an impossibility. Theoretically, they consist of all the powers of government which the nation has not transferred to the federal government or forbidden the states to exercise. (See CONSTITUTION.) By leaving the states and their governments in situ at the outbreak of the revolution, the nation confirmed to them a power over their own territory practically unlimited at the time; but the rights and powers which they have since lost have gone to the general government by direct transfer. The rights of the federal government and of a state government must be ascertained by two directly opposite questions: in the case of the former we must ask what rights have been directly transferred to it by the federal constitution; but in the case of the latter, what rights and powers have been forbidden to it by the state or federal constitutions. In the case of doubtful powers the presumption is against the federal government and in favor of the state, for the nation has given the federal government a limited charter, while it has only circumscribed the state government in certain particulars. The onus probandi is upon the asserter of federal authority and the denier of state authority. The state's direct and indirect powers cover all the field of daily life and interests, while multitudes of persons live and die without once coming directly in contact with federal power or practically realizing the existence of the federal government except by participation in biennial elections. But even this does not quite express the sum total of state rights. The states still assert a power to punish for treason, though the power in offenses against the United States has been transferred to congress (see TREASON); and there are certain powers, such as the passage of insolvency laws, and the regulation of congressional elections, which they exercise in default of action by congress. And, in general, they have whatever powers their courts may define as their right, and may succeed, by

persistence or ingenuity, in maintaining against the federal courts, always provided that the controversy does not take the aspect of force: in that case the state must yield to the more direct representatives of the national will. Even in this latter case, the chances are still decidedly in favor of the state; for it has, unless it is very evidently in the wrong, the pronounced sympathy of the nation, which works in its favor in innumerable ways. Conflicts of this kind are not uncommon: one is in progress at the present writing (1883) between the federal and state courts in New Jersey. They are always compromised or evaded, and results will show that the state court, by claiming more than its right, regularly obtains all it can fairly ask. (See, in general, CONSTITUTION, Art. I., SS 4, 8-10; Art. III., §§ 2, 3; Art. IV., SS 3, 4; Art. V.; Art. VII.; and Amendments, Arts. X.-XV.)-The theory of state sovereignty is best stated in 1 Tucker's Blackstone, Appendix, note D, and in Story's Commentaries, §§ 310-318. For the arguments in favor of it see, "Centz"'s Republic of Republics; 1 Calhoun's Works; 2 ib., 197, 262; 3 ib., 140; 1 Stephens' War Between the States (see index); Fowler's Sectional Controversy, 351; Harris' Political Conflict in America, 212; Pollard's Lost Cause, 33. For the Madison theory, see Federalist (No. 39); North American Review, October, 1830, 537; 2 Curtis' History of the Constitution, 377. See also 1 Austin's Province of Jurisprudence, 226; 1 von Holst's United States (Lalor's trans.) 1-63; 5 Bancroft's United States, 500; 6 ib., 351; Greene's Historical View of the Revolution, 119; Prince's Confederation vs. Constitution; 2 Rives' Life of Madison, 371; Hurd's Law of Freedom and Bondage, cap. xi.; 3 Webster's Works, 448; 1 Benton's Thirty Years' View, 360; Brownson's American Republic, 195, 239; Mulford's The Nation, 310; Goodwin's Natural History of Secession; H. Adams' Life of Randolph, Poore's Federal and State Constitutions; Journals of Congress (under dates named); 1-3 Elliot's Debates (under dates and states named); Dillon's Notes on Historical Evidence; 2 Whig Review, 455; Freeman's Impressions of America; Harper's Magazine, June, 1880 (G. T. Curtis' article); 1 Bancroft's History of the Constitution, 146; 2 ib., 47, 332; Hurd's Theory of Our National Existence, 104, 526.

A. J.

STATE, The. Although natural, and founded on what is most imperious in our sympathies and our wants, society is not maintained and preserved without an effort. The bond which holds it together would be weak indeed and forever in jeopardy if a protective power were not established superior to individual wills to keep them within bounds and to defend the persons and the rights of each against the attacks of violence. Men may wish to see the authority here referred to invested with this form or that; they may attribute to it this or that historical origin; but all agree that it is indispensable to the maintenance of human society, and that only perfectly wise or perfectly brute creatures can do without government. But it is clear

that there is a great difference between the purely repressive authority with which the elders of a tribe are invested, and the complicated and powerful organism called the state in nations advanced in civilization. When society has reached a certain degree of development; when the cultivation of land possessed in common or appropriated by individuals requires security; when foresight inspired by offensive or defensive war has engendered the habit in a people of making certain preparations in common in view of common danger and enterprises in common; and when certain ideas, beliefs and feelings, held by all the members of a given society, have given birth to the moral unity of the nation, the nation is necessarily developed, and assumes a character of solidity, duration and permanence. It extends its sphere of action, and is completed by the addition and regular working of numerous wheels, each having a distinct existence, and all functioning in harmony. The living personification of the fatherland, the instrument of its strength at home and abroad, the author and enforcer of the law, the supreme arbiter of interests, judge of peace and war, the protector of the weak, the representative of all that is general in the wants of society, the organ of the common reason and of the collective force of society: such is the state in all its power and majesty. Superior to all it governs, the state nevertheless owes to its own citizens all that it is. But it is absolutely necessary that we should remark: what society has confided to the guardianship of the state as a precious deposit depends no more upon society than it does upon the state-the sacred deposit of justice. (See JUSTICE.) Justice does not emanate from the individuals who compose society; it imposes itself on them as their rule of action. In vain do certain publicists maintain that the state can do everything because it is above everything. Nothing is more destitute of foundation than such an assertion. Its rights would be limited by its duties even if they were not limited by positive guarantees written in the laws. The state, too, has a rule and bridle in justice. The law emanates from the state. But the power to make the law and to employ force in its service, does not imply that the state has the unlimited power to make what is unjust just, or the just unjust, at its pleasure. Human beings are subject to moral laws, against which the state has no more power than it has against the physical laws which govern matter. (See NATION, CHECKS AND BALANCES, GOVERNMENT, GOVERNMENTAL INTERFERENCE, LEGISLATION, REPRESENTATION.)

B.

year following; Tennessee (of voters only), in 1871, and each tenth year thereafter; Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, Nevada and South Carolina, ["if deemed necessary"] in 1875, and each tenth year thereafter; Colorado, in 1885, and every tenth year thereafter; Louisiana, in 1890, and every tenth year thereafter; Maine and Mississippi, once in ten years, to be fixed by the legislature. The constitutions of New Jersey and Rhode Island permit the taking of a census by act of the legislature, and this was last done in 1875. No constitutional provision on the subject exists in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia. The constitutions of Maryland, Ohio and Vermont, permit the taking of a census, but no legislative provision has been made for it. It thus appears that in less than half the states is there any provision for a general enumeration of the people which might serve at once as a check upon the national census, and a supplement to its statistics, of incalculable economic value for purposes of comparison. In several states whose constitutions formerly provided for a census, this requirement has been dropped out in new constitutions adopted within the last decade. The failure on the part of state legislatures to take an interest in a proper periodical census of their state resources, is to be attributed mainly to a spirit of false economy. Such great commonwealths as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana and Illinois, while providing for certain classes of statistical reports through state officers, have no provision whatever for the record or publication of vital statistics, or of a complete periodical census of their populations. An attempt has been made by congressional legislation to encourage the state governments in the work of taking account of their population and resources by providing (act of March 3, 1879), that any state or territory which shall complete a census in 1885, 1895, etc., according to the forms used in the census of the United States, shall be paid from the treasury 50 per cent. of the expenses of actual enumeration in such state at the United States census, increased by one-half the percentage of gain in population in such state or territory between the two United States censuses next preceding. - CITIZENSHIP. (See Suffrage.)- CONSTITUTIONS AND CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS. All the state constitutions have certain common characteristics, while there are great diversities as to political regulations and the distribution and details of legislative, executive and judicial powers. The great cardinal features found in all embody (in some form) a declaration of rights; an assertion of the sovereignty of the people through a representative system; the creation of three co-ordinate departments of government, divided into legislative, executive and judicial; a prescription of the qualifications for the right of suffrage; and a recognition of local selfgovernment. The latter, however, is usually implied rather than formally declared. Constitutions

are not the source but the result of personal and political liberty; they grant no rights to the people, but define the rights which they already possess, and provide a systematic organization of governmental powers for their protection. A written constitution is to be viewed in the light of a limitation upon the powers of government in the hands of agents delegated by the people. - How far state constitutions shall enter into the details of government is a matter determined by the public opinion of the time, as reflected in the popularly elected conventions which frame them. While the earlier constitutions, adopted at the period of the American revolution and later, were more general in the scope of their provisions, many of the more recent ones descend into the particulars of governmental control in each department. The tendency has been to restrain the legislature from passing special acts, and all measures conferring corporate rights or special privileges. It may be said, in general, that, with the fewest exceptions, the states of the Union revise their constitutions in from ten to thirty years, each new constitution growing more democratic than the preceding. The southern states have had much more frequent adoption of new constitutions, since the civil war, growing out of the temporary ascendency of influences and opinions fully treated elsewhere. It is of course a cardinal principle in the making of a constitution that it must be ratified by the people, who alone possess the power of sovereignty. The only exception is in Delaware, whose constitution may be amended by the act of two successive legislatures. The long-established usage, when a constitution is revised or superseded by a new one, is for the legislative branch of the government to submit to the qualified voters the question of calling or refusing to call a constitutional convention. The method of doing this is prescribed by the constitution itself, which is to be made the subject of revision. The provisions in the constitutions of the various states differ widely as to the proportion of the legislative body required to submit to the people the question of amendment or revision; as to the time fixed for deliberation upon the proposed changes; and, finally, as to the majority of the popular vote required to call a constitutional convention, or to amend the constitution directly. The following analysis exhibits the requirements as to the recommendation and adoption of constitutional amendments in each of the thirty-eight states. Twothirds of both houses of the legislature must concur in order to propose amendments to the constitution to the popular vote in the following states: Alabama, California, Colorado, Georgia, Illinois, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Texas and West Virginia. In Florida and South Carolina a two-thirds vote of two successive legislatures is required to submit amendments. In Massachusetts a majority of the senate and twothirds of the house of two successive legislatures are required, and in Vermont two-thirds of the senate and a majority of the house, confirmed by