of the Union was not the Constitution, but the will of greater over lesser numbers. The recognition of the right to give force to laws, made in contravention of the fundamental law of the Union, concedes at once the right of the people, without reference to the States, to alter, modify, or annul the latter, at pleasure. Of course, in such case, the government is a democracy, under which minorities have no rights, and majorities are supreme.

Our career as a nation, though short, is full of evidence that however perfect may have been our theory of self-government, we have, after all, understood little of its practical philosophy. We have had a broad and a rich field; but our husbandry has been sadly defective, our labor misapplied, and our productions meagre and unsatisfactory.

Our failure, for such it is, may be accounted for, by a simple reference to one or two leading features of the national mind. Self-reliance is a great virtue when kept within reasonable bounds. It quickens invention, stimulates industry, widens the channels of enterprise, and gives energy and force to those who possess it. But like every other good quality it is liable to run into excess-to become swollen into such inordinate vanity as to reject the lessons of experience and all the counsels of history. It is folly to seek to conceal this turn of an excellent characteristic of the American people. The great evils of its existence and dominion, at the present moment, are too obvious, damaging, and pervading, to admit of either extenuation or justification. It is the dominion of self-conceit over wisdom and patriotism.

It is no answer to point to the industrial successes of the people, during the period of what we call our national existence; for these very triumphs of labor indicate far more the source of the evils referred to, than prove our capacity to maintain the government under which they were achieved. It is better at once to admit that we are indebted to exemption from trials-that our great success has resulted from the absence of political disturbances, rather than from ability, by strict adherence to fundamental principles of justice and freedom, to manage and control them, when they arise. Until recently we had been called upon only to overcome trifling disturbances. No great, disintegrating elements had

before presented themselves. We had an elective system, embracing exclusive elective remedies. This was the corner stone and foundation of the political edifice. It embraced no other principle, touching the matter of its creation, existence, or maintenance. It was indestructible, too, so long as this principle should have sovereign control in its administration. The exclusion of the ballot, in the adjustment of differences, under such a system, was the abandonment of the Constitution-the practical abdication of government by the people, and the installation of another kind of government, by irresponsible men.

In point of fact, we have signally failed, on the first great trial, to maintain free government. What is now of greatest interest, is to ascertain, if possible, the cause of this failure, which must be the source of our greatest weakness.

A review of the past and present position of the States and Union, it seems to us, discloses this striking defect:

Ignorance, on the part of the people, of the real office and what is necessary to maintain a free system of laws; or non-appreciation of the necessity, at all times, of maintaining the supremacy of the laws over individuals.

It would be difficult to find testimony more complete, in support of this suggestion, than that which the present National Administration has presented, within the short period of its rule. Starting with the open declaration that the public exigencies demanded the removal of all legal restraints, its measures, from that time to the present, have, in no material respect, been made to conform to the Federal Constitution. It is due to candor to say, however, that both Congress and the people have distinctly ap proved, and, as far as their action could do so, justified, the annulment of the organic law and the substitution of the will of the chief magistrate, as the governing power of the country. In other words, if the President violated the Constitution and the rights of persons and property, his criminality is no greater than that of the people, who either indorsed, or gave a qualified assent to, all his acts of usurpation. The offence, in this way, was compound. There was no other process so sure to ruin the President, on the one hand, and the institutions of government, on the other. No man could

withstand such temptations, and no system of laws such a terrible shock.

We deem it unnecessary to point to the public records of the country, to show that we have not drawn our conclusions from an imaginary condition of public affairs. The announcement, by the President, of the imperial power of war, under his exclusive control; his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus; his abrogation of many provisions of the Constitution, trial by jury, free speech, the press; his wilful confiscation of estates; his new law of treason; his emancipation; his assumed jurisdiction over all the people, even to their expulsion from the country by military force, are surely enough to justify what we have said.

Granting that the highest motives of patriotism governed him, it makes nothing in his favor, as a political trustee, under defined powers; for there was nothing but the Union to save, and there could be no legal agency employed in the work other than those ordained by the States.

The States had ordained a limited, but perfect government of laws, to be maintained by them, within the sphere of its authority. It was fearfully menaced, not by mere casual disobedience, but by organic, internal convulsion.

Its authority was openly set aside by large and influential States, four of which were original parties to the Union. Our duty was a plain one-to -to vindicate the laws within the scope of the authority of the Constitution, and by its appointed agencies.

There could be no other vindication; for the instant we transcended this limit, no matter with what motive, we became assailants, not defenders of the Union. If the latter provided one remedy for a certain political disease, and we failed to employ it, and substituted another, it follows that we would not trust the law nor wait till we could modify it in obedience to prescribed forms. We preferred to rely upon the discretionary power of public agents.

This is a plain proposition. The Union, based entirely upon living governments, existing purely under written laws, was incapable of admitting into it the least discretion, as it was impossible to maintain it on any other than an elective basis. Force was

as foreign to its maintenance as to its ordination. It is believed

be

by many, that it never could have been permanently ruptured without force, and by more, that it can never be restored with force. Force is personal discretion, the law of individuals, in direct antag onism to the written law. The British Constitution, as it is called, though its powers and prohibitions are sufficiently defined by various royal charters and parliamentary declarations, is what may termed a system of political common law-a sort of prescriptive government—the result of a most protracted effort on the part of the people to secure their rights as freemen. There is no pretence of equality, as that word is now understood, in it. The people are not born equal, unless we mean that they have an equal right to breathe the air, to speak their sentiments, and enjoy the blessings of liberty. The foundations of the British Government were all laid in absolutism, from which has been raised its superstructure of laws. From one man it has grown up to be every freeman of the kingdom. From allegiance to that one man, it is now allegiance to laws. So it is in the United States. Yet the two systems widely differ in structure and administration. It took many centuries, involving vast sacrifices of persons and property, to achieve the present Constitution of England, while that of the United States was the work of a few days-the work of States, as free as the Empire of England. We have been parties to both systems. When we separated from our great ancestors, we dissolved all the political relations subsisting between us, but retained everything else. Their experience was ours. Their knowledge was ours. Their martyrs to liberty, all their lessons of adversity in struggling for a free system of laws, their hostility to military power, their language, their literature, their ancient love of freedom and independence, were ours. The States combined to effect their separation. When this was achieved they stood before the world as thirteen nationalities. They subsequently ordained the Union, not by sinking their nationalities, but by creating a government of States-a government of independent authority over individuals within the scope of the powers delegated to it by the States, but in nothing else. This is seen in the act of confederation, and in the fact that it is a government of States. It contains not one dynastic element, not one grant of discretionary authority to its representatives. This was the

principle and the policy of its creation, for the obvious reason that its constituent parties maintained, respectively, perfect civil institutions. The latter embrace quite all the concerns of life. The relations of husband and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, the collection of debts, the settlement of estates of deceased persons, the tenures of real property, the punishment of crime, the maintenance of the poor, education, charitable institutions, the authorization of corporate bodies, local municipal police, and a hundred other matters of familiar life, come within the scope of the State govern

ments.

It is illogical to claim that these living governments, which created the Union, which confer upon it all the machinery of administration and all means for its maintenance and support, are in any sense subject to the discretionary power of individuals. Such a conclusion might, possibly, be admissible under a concrete system, but it is clearly inadmissible under that of the Union. Its agents are all elected, directly or indirectly, by the people of the States, in obedience to their respective laws. There is not one approach to it, except through the States. They make its president, its legisla ture, and, indirectly, its judiciary. They give up their citizens to constitute its army and navy. Without them, it is nothing. It is the law, and the only law, of their being. They are its constituents, not as a people, but as so many independent nationalities.

It requires but a moment's reflection to see that, under such a system, the laws must, at all times, be supreme over individuals. It is unquestionably better that it should be so in every government, but absolutely necessary under this, for the obvious reason, as we have stated, that the Union is the law of the States and not of the people.

Exactly the opposite of this theory of the Union has been its administration during the last three years. Its law has been treated as a cumbrous, heavy weight, and its strict maintenance punished as treason to the Government. Patriotism has been made to consist in upholding the action of persons in direct opposition to it. Those who would show the least regard for its obligations and the greatest contempt for its solemn injunctions, have been most honored and trusted.