ment, its true sovereignty. Without it the Union could not maintain itself. There would have been a constant clashing of interests and of laws, and endless interpretations by the several State courts conflicting with each other as to the meaning of clauses of the Constitution of the United States. The declaration of supremacy of the Constitution of the United States and the laws thereunder, and the organization of the Supreme Court of the United States to determine all questions arising under the Constitution of the United States, or under a United States law, or when the Constitution of the United States, or the United States statutes are invoked or called into question, has created a homogeneity of decisions and interpretation which gives stability to and respect for its laws.

A treaty is regarded as equivalent to an act of Congress, and has precisely the same validity. Congress has, therefore, the power by a subsequent law to repeal clauses in a treaty if the subsequent enactments are in necessary conflict with the treaty. It is only the foreign governments, the compact with which has been violated, which have a ground of complaint for an infraction of the treaty, not the citizens of the United States.

Although the Constitution thus places the United States government and its legislation above that

of States, it nevertheless takes from the States their power to legislate in but three cases. First, where they are expressly prohibited from legislating; second, where exclusive power is expressly vested in the United States; and third, where power vested in the United States is in its nature exclusive.

It has now been expressly held by the Supreme Court of the United States, that when a State becomes one of the United States, it enters into an indissoluble relation. The act which consummates its admission into the Union is something more than a compact; it is the incorporation of a new member into the political body; it is final. The union is as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluble as the union between the original States.

The senators and representatives, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all Executive and Judicial officers both of the United States and of the several States, are required by the Constitution to be bound by an oath or affirmation to support the Constitution; but no religious test is ever required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the United States. Shortly after the war of the rebellion a new oath was prescribed by Congress to all office-holders, known as the "iron-clad" oath, by which the

officer swore that he had not aided or abetted the rebellion in any form or manner, and abjured the heresy of secession. This oath was, after solemn argument, declared to be an unconstitutional imposition as a test for office, as the Constitution required nothing further than an oath to support the Constitution.

Shortly after the adoption of the Constitution, amendments were proposed, and by the States in due form ratified, which limited the powers of Congress; the first eleven were in their nature a sort of Declaration of Rights of the people against arbitrary interference by the federal authority, and have already been commented upon.

CHAPTER III.

THE EXECUTIVE POWER.

THE Executive power of the Federal Government under the Constitution of the United States is vested in a President, who is to hold his office for the period of four years, and who, together with the Vice-President chosen for the same term, is elected by an Electoral College composed of electors of each State equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State is at the time of such election entitled in Congress. The manner of the election of the members of the Electoral College is determinable by the Legislatures of the several States, with the limitation only that no senator or representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. Under the Constitution, Congress was vested with power to determine the time of choosing the electors and the day on which they shall give their votes; such day, however, to be the same throughout the United

States. By an amendment to the Constitution, adopted in September, 1804, these electors were constituted into electoral colleges, to meet not as one body, but in their respective States, and to vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. The ballots for President shall be separate from those for Vice-President, and after having made distinct lists of all persons voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the numbers of votes for each, the lists are required to be signed and certified and transmitted sealed to the seat of government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate then shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. person having the greatest number of votes for President shall be President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed. If no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest number of votes, not exceeding three, on the list thus voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot the President. When that contingency arises the members of the House of

The