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to the "union,") these states thus governing themselves, as to their federal affairs, through their federal agency.

The sophistical and quibbling priests know that by using the constitutional phrases "united states" and "union of states," they would direct the thoughts, even of the simplest mind, to moral or political persons-commonwealths self-joined for self-government and self-preservation. They know that the said mind would look into the pact, and see "the states in this union" [Art. IV.] to be the parties, the delegators, the sovereigns; and the government to be the creation, and the agent of the said states. Aye, they know that men who have merely enough brains and education to read and count, may see, in the instrument, specified powers, confided to the said. agent by the said sovereigns; can, on a tally-stick, notch the number of them; and must know that a president, whether named Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson, Grant, or Hayes, becomes a perjured usurper and traitor, and deserves to be hung, the moment he goes beyond them.

These are the Reasons why, under pretence of interpretations, commentaries, judicial decisions, etc., the so-called expounders sophisticate, misrepresent, garble, and falsify the sacred records of the country; why they found a theory on the preamble that belies the compact; why Story adds an eighth article to the constitution [Story, Com. § 1856], and why the names of the signers, who simply planned, but did not ordain, the compact, are always published with the instrument, to make the impression that they ordained, while the names and acts of the states, who did ordain and establish, are always suppressed or ignored!

These are the reasons why our deluded people are induced to look up to flags, soaring eagles, and stars- not down to what these are symbols of; to search in "the milky baldric of the skies" for the constellation of the union, rather than grovel into understand the actual system of associated states; and to keep their "eyes in fine frenzy rolling, from earth to heaven," instead of watching, with that "eternal vigilance which is the price of liberty," to see that the sacred constitution is preserved, and its duties done.

Just so the priests of idolatry divert attention from the statue of wood or stone; prohibit reasoning about it; and send the heated and fanatical imaginations of devotees, filled with fear and awe, in search of some invisible spirit, whose all-power can favor or harm them, according to their obedience and gifts to the priesthood!

Eternal Vigilance is the Price of Liberty!—The people of America must come down from stars, and eagles, and flags; and regard matters of political government as human and earthly affairs, to be arranged, in

a common-sense and judicious manner, for the benefit of all concerned. A voluntary union among neighboring states must be founded on amity and mutual interest; and these motives, as well as the voluntariness, must be preserved, or the association of states becomes an empire of provinces !

Fisher Ames likened the states to beautiful and useful structures, standing upon the naked beach, and the union to a dyke fencing out the flood; and said that without this, the next spring tide would sweep them to a common destruction. [II. Ell. Deb. 159.]

Americans must become practical-nay, vulgarly prudent, and even grovel in and among their defences, remembering that their institutional walls are to protect their precious blessings in their citadels of liberty, the commonwealths, not more from exterior force, than from their own rulers.

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CHAPTER X.

WASHINGTON'S POLITICAL FAITH.

AVING noticed the preposterous theory predicated of the constitution by Lincoln, I will show the directly opposite view taken of the same sacred words and figures by the great Washington.

I need not contrast the men, as it will be duly done by history. But their assertions and opinions should be compared. And to determine preponderance, perhaps we should contrast Lincoln's training and associates, and his sudden rise and growth from partisan and sectional antagonism, with Washington's gradual growth of intellectual stature, his exemption from sectional and partisan prejudice, and his being of that august band of patriots-primus inter pares - who made American federal liberty institutional. Nay, more, Washington's intercourse with the giants of those days, was fraternal and close through their generation; and he bore a leading part in all the discussions and ordainings which make up the recorded political history and philosophy of that sublime epoch.

It may be said, without fear of contradiction, that the statements of the fathers, contained in Part I., Chapter VII., of this work, are precisely the views of Washington. The following extracts show this beyond all doubt or cavil.

And if the American people be really possessed of the spirit of '76, they will henceforth follow the commentaries of the expounder, par excellence, George Washington! and thus preserve the commonwealths and their union!

Washington was as truly a state-rights, or rather state-sovereignty man, as Jefferson or Calhoun, and understood our institutions quite as well as they did. But he never thought of the miserable figments which Story, Webster, Lincoln, and the Philadelphia convention of 1866, foisted upon the constitution as expoundings of it; viz., that the making of the union consolidated the several commonwealths of America into one national unit; or, in other words, the people as a nation, in their national constitution, "distributed their powers be

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tween their general government and their several state governments; and that so far as the constitution went, "so far state sovereignty was effectually controlled; or, to sum up the matter in a sentence, that the states were reduced to mere fractions of the great unit, - i. e. to counties or provinces of a state.

The most of the extracts will be found in Sparks's "Writings of Washington." If they are elsewhere, proper citations will be given. The reader will please observe that this "great expounder" begins by mentioning that "the states [are] to appear in the convention;" that he speaks, all the way through, of the states adopting, ratifying, or acceding to the compact; that he calls the people "the people of these states," and the new system, "the federal government of these states" (and, by the way, this is the unanimous expression of the "convention of states" that he presided over); that he speaks of the constitution as providing for "the political relation which is to subsist" between "the states," and of "the measures, taken by the different states, for carrying the new government into execution;" and, finally, that he says it will be "an important epoch in the annals of this country," "when the states begin to act under the new form." Washington to Madison, March 31, 1787:

"I am glad to find that congress have recommended to the states to appear in the convention."

General Knox to Washington, March 19, 1787: "Your name has had great influence to induce the states to come into the measure."

Washington to Edmund Randolph, April 9, 1787 :

"I very much fear that all the states will not appear in convention."

Washington to David Stuart, July 1, 1787:

"Whilst independent sovereignty is so ardently contended for, whilst the local views and separate interests of each state will not yield to a more enlarged scale of politics," etc., "the situation of the country" must be "weak, inefficient, and disgraceful!" [See remarks on the following letter.]

The celebrated letter of Washington to "the president of congress," written by unanimous order of the convention of the deputies and subjects of the states, to accompany the constitution proposed by the said convention, for the adoption or rejection of the said states, dated September 17, 1787, contains the following:

"The friends of our country have long seen and desired that the power of making war, peace, and treaties, that of levying money and regulating commerce, and the correspondent executive and judicial authorities, should be fully and effectually vested in the general gov

ernment of the union; but the impropriety of delegating such extensive trust to one body of men is evident. Hence results the necessity of a different organization.

"It is obviously impracticable, in the federal government of these states, to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all. Individuals entering into society must give up a share of liberty to preserve the rest. . . .

"In all our deliberations on this subject, we kept steadily in our view... the consolidation of our union, in which is involved our prosperity, felicity, safety, perhaps our national existence. This important consideration . . . led each state in the convention to be less rigid, . . . and thus the Constitution . . . is the result of a spirit of amity, and of that mutual deference and concession which the peculiarity of our political situation rendered indispensable." He finally says that it may not meet "the full and entire approbation of every state;" but that "each will doubtless consider that, had her interests alone been consulted," it might have been "disagreeable or injurious to others."

We see from this letter, as well as from the one dated July 1, 1787, that Washington used the word "sovereignty," as it was frequently used in that day, in the second, subordinate, and improper sense of government. Both state and federal governments were often called sovereignties, for the reason, probably, that they occupied the same position relatively to the subjects of government that the sovereigns of Europe did, — and it was then, as it is now, sometimes forgotten that those potentates claimed to rule by Divine right, and maintained the claim by force, while our governments, being creations and having only derivative authority, must be subordinate, and not sovereign. In truth, they exist by the will, and rule by the consent of the people. A thousand evidences might be given; but Mr. Webster's admission, in 1833, will suffice: "The sovereignty of government is an idea belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. . . . With us all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign, and they erect what governments they please, and confer on them such power as they please."

And Washington, as will be seen, always recognized the truth that the "all power" in question was in the people as states, and that they were only organized and capable of political action as such; and, consistently, each state declared or implied in her organic law that all power was inherent in herself, i. e. her people. [See constitutions of Massachusetts, New York, and others.]

Another important point of the above letter must be noted here. In speaking of the legislative, executive, and judicial powers to be

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