nobles. It is a government in which the authority is exercised by the representatives of the people. It differs from a Democracy in this, that in the latter the power is exercised by the people themselves, while in the former the people elect representatives to act for them. A pure democracy can exist only in a small territory, where all the people can meet and enact laws. A republic may be democratic or aristocratic. If suffrage is universal, if the rulers are elected by the whole people, the government is a democratic republic. In proportion as suffrage is restricted, and the number of voters diminished, the government becomes less democratic and more aristocratic.

Most existing governments are, to some extent, republican, although at the same time monarchical. Louis Napoleon, late emperor of the French, held his office by election. The people of France made him emperor by their votes. The monarchs of England rule by hereditary right: the members of the House of Lords hold their seats by virtue of their birth, but the members of the House of Commons are elected. The government is thus at the same time monarchical, aristocratic, and republican; but in its republican part, it is more aristocratic than democratic, as a large part of the people are deprived of the right of suffrage. Macaulay calls the Roman emperors republican magistrates named by the senate.

Our own government is peculiar. John Quincy Adams speaks of it as "a complicated machine. It is an anomaly in the history of the world. It is that which distinguishes us from all other nations, ancient and modern." Dr. Brownson says, "The American Constitution has no prototype in any prior constitution. The American form of government can be classed throughout with none of the forms of government described by Aristotle, or even by later authorities. Aristotle knew only four forms of government: Monarchy,

Aristocracy, Democracy, and Mixed Governments. The American form is none of these, nor any combination of them. It is original, a new contribution to political science, and seeks to attain the end of all wise and just government by means unknown or forbidden to the ancients, and which have been but imperfectly comprehended even by American political writers themselves." 1

Our government is not a simple, or consolidated republic, on the one hand, nor, on the other, is it a league of States. Many seem to suppose that there is no middle ground between these two; that the denial of the one is equivalent to the affirmation of the other. The American people constitute a nation, with a republican government. The nation has a Constitution in which the character of the government is clearly delineated. This Constitution is the supreme law of the land. But the country is divided into divisions, called States, each of which has a constitution. The people of the whole nation have made the general Constitution, while the people of each State have made a constitution for that political division. The national Constitution is operative throughout the whole domain; it is binding on all the people. The constitution of a State is confined in its operation to the State limits; beyond them it has no force. But within the State, it is the organic law, whose provisions, unless conflicting with the national Constitution or the laws enacted under it, must be carried out. Were the government a league of States, there could be no supreme national government; were the nation a consolidated republic, there could be no State constitutions. Unquestionably, the American people are a single people, a nation, in the same sense, and just as truly, as the people of France. But at the same time the national Constitution every

1 Brownson's American Republic, p. 5.

where recognizes the existence of the States, with their separate constitutions, and their various departments.

Were our government a simple republic, we should have no laws except those enacted at Washington. In that case, a county would bear to a State the same relation that a State does to the nation, as is sometimes affirmed to be the case now. But the statement is incorrect. A county can do nothing politically which it is not authorized by the State to do. A State can do any thing politically which does not contravene a law or the Constitution of the nation. The people of a county, as such, have no constitution, and have no power to form one. The people of a State have a constitution, and may alter it at pleasure, provided its provisions are in harmony with the national laws and Constitution. The county originates nothing; all its power comes to it from a political body above it. The State originates every thing; its power coming directly from the people themselves.

But although the States have constitutions, and derive their governmental authority from the people, this does not make them sovereign states, or the general government a mere confederacy. The American people are one people, yet their government is not a consolidated one. They exist in States, yet their government is not a confederated one. From the day when the Declaration of American Independence was made, they have existed as a nation, yet grouped into States. The nation and the thirteen original States began their existence together. Neither preceded, neither followed. The American people "have not, as an independent sovereign people, either established their union, or distributed themselves into distinct and mutually independent States. The union and the distribution, the unity and the distinction, are both original in their Constitution, and they were born United States, as much and as truly so as the son of a citizen is

born a citizen, or as every one born at all is born a member of society, the family, the tribe, or the nation. The Union and the States were born together, are inseparable in their Constitution, have lived and grown together; and no serious attempt till the late secession movement has been made to separate them."

1

"Say the people of the United States are one people in all respects, and under a government which is neither a consolidated nor a confederated government, nor yet a mixture of the two, but one in which the powers of government are divided between a general government and particular governments, each emanating from the same source, and you will have the simple fact." "Strictly speaking, the government is one, and its powers only are divided and exercised by two sets of agents or ministries." " To the same purpose Jameson: "And here I may remark that the Constitution of the United States is a part of the constitution of each State, whether referred to in it or not, and that the constitutions of all the States form a part of the Constitution of the United States. An aggregation of all these constitutional instruments would be precisely the same in principle as a single constitution, which, framed by the people of the Union, should define the powers of the general government, and then by specific provisions erect the separate government of the States, with all their existing attributions and limitations of power."

No other nation has such a distribution of the powers of government. Foreigners almost universally fail to comprehend it, and many of our own people find it a perplexing subject. The general government and the particular governments together constitute the government of the United States. The former is general, as its care extends to the whole Union; the

1 Am. Rep., p. 222. 2 Id., p. 231. 3 Id., p. 250. Const. Con., p. 87.

governments of the States are particular, as limited to the local interests of the individual States. The two in combination form the one supreme national government, or government of the United States. It is one government, exercising its powers in two different spheres. The authority comes from the same people, the people of the United States, in whom is the whole sovereignty. As stated above by Judge Jameson, the general Constitution and the constitutions of the States might be considered as one great instrument. There are, first, those articles which are concerned with the interests of the whole, and then, in succession, those which relate to the particular and local interests of the several States. Or we may say that the people of each State have two constitutions; one local and particular, the other general. The latter has been adopted by them in conjunction with the people of the rest of the nation; the former they have adopted by themselves, yet taking care that none of its provisions are in conflict with those of the general Constitution. The local constitution is no more the constitution of a particular State than the general Constitution is. The people of New York by their ratification of the general Constitution, and the people of Ohio by their adoption of it at their entrance into the Union, have made it their own as truly as those constitutions for the adoption of which they alone voted. Every provision of the Constitution of the United States is to be regarded as expressing the will of the people of Ohio as much as any provision of the constitution of that State. There is, thus, no legitimate place for conflict between the general government and the governments of the States, because they have all been formed by the same authority-the people of the nation. It was never intended that these should be arrayed against each other like political parties, or serve as "checks and balances," after the example of some other governments.