vinced of the supremacy of each, in its particular sphere, over the several States. Without attempting anything like a detailed examination, we desire to indicate one or two important points which appear to us to establish this view.

Under the Confederation there was no separate Executive branch of Government. The executive functions were performed by the Legislative body, the Congress, which consisted of from two to seven delegates from each State; but no important act of sovereignty could be performed by it, unless at least nine of the States in Congress assembled had assented to the same; and no other question could be decided, excepting that of daily adjournment, unless a majority of all the States (not a majority of the delegates) should have agreed thereto. During the recess of the Congress, the executive functions were devolved upon "a Committee of the States," appointed by the United States in Congress assembled, consisting of one of the delegates from each State. The Committee of the States, or any nine of them, were authorized to exercise such of the powers of Congress "as the United States in Congress assembled, by the consent of nine States, should, from time to time, think it expedient to vest them with ; provided that no power be delegated to the said Committee for the exercise of which, by the Articles of Confederation, the voice of nine States in the Congress of the United States assembled is requisite." The sovereignty of the States was thus most jealously guarded.

On the other hand, under the Constitution a Presidency was established, as the Executive department of the Government. The President was directed to be chosen by a majority of the Electors appointed directly by the people for this very purpose; and in the event of a majority of these electors not being able to agree upon any one person, the President was then to be chosen (not by the Senate, which represents, to a certain extent, the States, but) by the House of Representatives of the people. Thus the executive head of the nation was elected directly by the people-the States, as States, having nothing to do with his election.

It is pretended that the old supremacy of the States has been virtually recognised and perpetuated under the Constitution, in the mode of organization of the Senate. The Senate, which did not exist under the Articles of Confederation, consists, under

the Constitution, of two persons chosen (not by the people, but) by the Legislature of each State; and the consent of the Senate is made necessary to the validity of most of the acts of the President, and of the measures passed by the House of Representatives, before these can become laws. But this plea amounts to nothing, because the members of the State Legislatures who elect the United States senators are themselves chosen directly by the people of the States. Moreover, the presiding officer of the Senate, who, in the event of a tie-vote among the senators, has a controlling vote over their deliberations, is the Vice-President of the United States, elected by the people themselves, as is the President.

The supremacy of the Constitution over the States is still farther proclaimed as follows:-"This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. The senators and representatives before mentioned (of the United States), and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all the executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution." (Art. VI.)

Amongst the various powers vested in the Constitution and delegated by it to Congress is that of "calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions." (Art. I. Sect. 8.) Now, what is Secession but insurrection against the laws of the Union? Is it not absurd, then, to pretend that a State possesses, under or from the Constitution, the right of secession, when that very Constitution imposes upon Congress the duty of "calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union and suppress insurrection"?

Moreover, it was the universal conviction, both of the friends and the enemies of this new Constitution, that it did absorb all the sovereign attributes which heretofore had been claimed and exercised by the several States of the Confederation. And such continued to be the general opinion until within the last thirty

years, at the South as well as at the North. In fact, Mr. Benton, 1 a slave-holding senator, has left on record that, until that period, "the leading language south of the Potomac was, that no State had a right to withdraw from the Union; that it required the same power to dissolve as to form the Union; and that any attempt to dissolve it, or to obstruct the action of constitutional laws, was treason."

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The Supreme Court, soon after its organization as the legal interpreter and expounder of the Constitution, held the following language in an important case which was submitted to its decision : It has been said that the States were sovereign, were completely independent, and were connected with each other by a league. This is true. But when those allied sovereignties converted their league into a Government, when they converted their Congress of Ambassadors into a Legislature empowered to enact laws, the whole character in which the States appear underwent a change." Such has been the unvarying decision of the Supreme Court, even of those branches of it which belong to Southern districts.

The public men of the South formerly entertained no doubt on this question. In the Convention of the people of Virginia, Jefferson, who was one of the framers of the Constitution, opposed its adoption on the ground that it did assume supremacy over the States. Patrick Henry, before the same Convention, opposed its adoption for the same reason, saying, "If the States be not the agents of this compact, it must be one great consolidated National Government of the people of all the States." And, again, "Have the framers of this Constitution made a proposal of compact between the States? If they had this would be a confederation; it is, otherwise, most clearly a Consolidated Government. The whole question turns on that poor little expression, We, the people,' instead of the States of America." Mr. Madison, one of the most prominent of the framers of the instrument, said of it, before the same Convention, "Should all the States adopt it, it will then be a Government established by the Thirteen States of America, not

6

4

1 See Ludlow's "History of the United States," p. 103.

2 "Causes of the American Civil War," by Mr. Motley, p. 10.

3 Wirt's "Life of Patrick Henry," quoted by Rawlins, op. cit. pp. 63, 64. 4 Rawlins, p. 65.

through the intervention of the Legislatures, but by the people at large." Mason,' in the same Convention, opposed it as follows: "Whether the Constitution be good or bad, the present clause (the preamble) clearly discovers that it is to be a National Government and no longer a Confederation of States." Mr. Pinckney, on the other hand, in the Convention of the people of South Carolina, advocated its adoption for this very reason: :-"This admirable manifesto sufficiently refutes the doctrine of the individual sovereignty and independence of the States."

2

After full discussion in conventions of the people of the several States, the Constitution was adopted by all. Judge Story declares that "there was no reservation of any right on the part of any State to dissolve its connexion, or to abrogate its assent, or to suspend, as to itself, the operation of the Constitution." It was felt and acknowledged that it was adapted to and required by the exigences of the times. All over the land the people approved of it; they felt that, to acquiesce any longer in the doctrine of the sovereignty of the several States, was to commit political suicide.

But, it is frequently said, the American people threw off the supremacy of Great Britain because it was no longer agreeable to them; should their descendants be compelled to submit to the Federal Constitution after it had ceased to subserve their interests? We reply, the Colonists rebelled against the oppressive acts of a Government and a Legislature in which they were not represented. The South has never been oppressed; it has governed the country, in virtue, partly, of its superabundant representation in the National Legislature—the slaves who, at the South, are regarded as mere chattels, being counted as men in elections for Congressional Representatives, three-fifths of the slaves being added to the number of the white population of the slave States. Moreover, the Constitution itself provides proper methods for remedying its own defects, and all grievances which may have arisen from abuse or mal-administration of its provisions. (Art. V.) The Constitution has also established a National Judiciary having jurisdiction over all "controversies to which the United States shall be a party; controversies 1 Elliott's Debates, quoted by Mr. Sumner, on Our Domestic Relations, p. 513. Quoted in Ludlow's History of the United States," p. 14.

between two or more States; between a State and citizens of another State," &c. &c. (Art. III.) The seceding States did not resort to any of the constitutional methods thus provided for the redress of their asserted grievances.

The advocates of the modern doctrine of State sovereignty lay much stress upon the declaration made by the delegates of the people of Virginia, assembled in Convocation to decide upon the adoption or rejection of the proposed Constitution, in 1788, in the following words:-"The powers under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States, may be resumed by them whenever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." We admit this declaration; and the Constitution, as we have just stated, points out the mode by which “the people of the United States" should make their desires known. But this is a very different doctrine from that of State sovereignty; indeed, it is completely subversive of the latter. Neither did the seceding States act according to this principle thus formally announced by one of themselves. Not only was the vast majority of "the people of the United States" not consulted on the subject, but they were known to be, and are still, violently opposed to secession. Secession was accomplished by a very small minority of the people of a minority of the States. The question was not submitted at all to the people of some of the seceding States; in all of them it was warmly opposed, and was carried affirmatively only by means of gross violence and intimidation. It is believed, even at the South, that a very large majority of the people were opposed to secession. At the Presidential election of 1860, Mr. Breckenridge, the Candidate of the Southern Extremists, received in all the Slave States 436,592 votes; the other candidates, who were all avowed Unionists, holding different views with regard to the extension of slavery into the territories, received 419,932 votes. If it could have been foreseen that a civil war would have followed upon that election, there is every reason to believe that an overwhelming majority of the people of the Slave States would have voted in support of the Union candidates. In Virginia the vote was 92,900 in their favour, against 74,323;

1 Speeches of Southern refugees at New York, in October, 1862, particularly those of Texans; Revue des deux Mondes, December, 1860; Annuaire des deux Mondes, 1860; &c. &c.