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without a single exception, maintain the exact forms of administration to-day that they then did. This fact is positive proof of two things:

First, that the Union was not intended to be a free civil polity, in any just sense, but a compact of States of a political nature, for certain economical purposes; second, that the States intended to retain their right to continue to exercise sovereign authority over all those interests which they had not delegated to the Union.

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It makes nothing against this theory, that, in ordaining the Union, they minutely defined its powers, and, in so many cases, forbade the exercise of others. There was, unquestionably, sufficient power conveyed to render this precaution necessary. men of the Revolution were no believers that the wisdom and integrity of mankind were sufficient guarantees to assure the freedom of the people, in the absence of positive restraints and prohibitions. They knew that power was inclined to strengthen itself by exercise. They had authorized the creation of an army and navy, for purposes of defence and security; and they accompanied this authorization by every conceivable guarantee, that neither should ever be wielded except against the enemies of the people.

A free system of laws, and all the details of practical government, they had enjoyed from the very origin of society in America. They were indebted, in point of fact, to their isolation, and to the perils of frontier life, for this. So that, in ordaining the Union, it was their settled purpose, not to create a new system, but to extend the old one, on such terms, limitations, and restrictions, as would preserve the freedom and independence of the people. They proceeded upon the theory that the surrender of free speech, a free press, and the least measure of personal rights and property, was in no contingency necessary to the maintenance of good government; that, on the other hand, such surrender, by removing an effective restraint, would be justly construed as a license for the commission of the gravest crimes on the part of the public administration. It would change, at once, the very character of the whole scheme, make the agent the principal, the States subject parties, and the Union an imperial power. That such a polity is not what was designed to be created, that it is utterly incompatible with a free system of

government, and that it would be impossible to maintain it in this

And if this is true of the We are entitled to absolute

country, we hold to be equally clear. whole, it is true of every part of it. freedom, in respect to all the interests referred to, or we are entitled to none. The people are supreme, under the forms of their own established government, or the government is supreme over them. There is no middle ground to be occupied in this matter.

There is, we are aware, a wide distinction between a free people and a free system of laws. We are discussing the latter on the bases of the existing institutions of the States and of the Union, neither embracing, by any fair construction, the least jurisdiction or legal control over the liberties or property of the citizen. All that was sought to be accomplished was the establishment of rules regulating and governing the ordinary relations of the people, so that each individual member of the body politic might be protected in person and property. We have passed from a mere democracy to a government of laws. We have surfendered the control of majorities to the domination of an agreement, by which all matters of state are to be determined. This agreement was not entered into for the purpose of protecting majorities, for they can take care of themselves, but for the purpose of protecting minorities, even down to the least worthy citizen of the commonwealth.

The former, in the absence of legal restraint, are absolute, or, rather, their action is itself law. It is so simply because, in such case, majorities can be held to no account-they are the state. There are neither moral nor logical elements in such a system of government. Personal liberty and popular tyranny, absolute freedom and the most degrading bondage, unrestrained dominion and hopeless subjection, are rudely blended into one scheme of administration.

A government of laws, whether free or otherwise, is impossible on any other basis than the protection of minorities. That of the States and the Union exhibits this principle perhaps more perfectly than any other known to history. We speak, of course, of the theory and philosophy of the polity, and not of its practical workings; for in the latter we find far more acts tending to its subver

sion than its maintenance. Judged by what we have done since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, it would seem that, instead of a government of States, bound together for certain specified general purposes, we have a government of majorities; instead of a free system of laws, carefully guarding the rights of minorities, and limiting the power of majorities, we have a government of majorities. Their actual control of the administration, at least, is incontestable. Their right to govern is also widely asserted. This right can be contested only by showing that the Union was adopted on another basis-that the voice of a majority is entitled to no more weight than that of the smallest minority, in support of any measure which violates the Constitution of the United States, or the rights of the people of the States which have been reserved. The controlling power is in the compact of union. Majorities can legally govern only within the scope of that compact.

It must not be assumed that we regard majorities as always in the wrong, or disposed to act in opposition to the public welfare. Far from it, especially in a country like this, where the people have the amplest means of acquiring information of public affairs. It is, perhaps, the misfortune of an elective republic, that when the majority-rule once gets control of the government, in opposition to its organic law, it is capable of tainting the whole scheme. And justly so, because it shows not only a determination not to abide by the agreement, but a spirit of shameless persecution of those who insist upon its fulfilment. It may be that the majority is quite in the right, judged by any other standard than that of the compact. It would be great folly to maintain the perfection of any system of government. But if errors exist in the system, it is far better to effect its modification in a legal way, than to overthrow it by the despotic will of majorities.

A complete illustration of these reflections is found in the career of the States and the Union touching the slavery question.

It must be admitted that a majority of the people of the States are hostile to slavery; but it is equally true, that under the Constitution of the United States, the Government of the Union could, in no manner and in no place, except in the District of Columbia, gain jurisdiction of slavery. There is not one provision of the

compact of Union which, directly or by implication, confers such jurisdiction.

Nevertheless, it is a historical fact, that the slavery question has occupied a large portion of the time of Congress for the last fifty years. Nor has it been a mere idle debate in that body, upon the moral attributes and character of this relation. Congress, by the sole agency of majorities, by the instructing power of majorities, by the mad will, command and imperious dictation of majorities, has not only assumed jurisdiction of the subject, but legislated upon it, abolished it where it existed, prohibited its introduction where it did not exist; and finally, in the ordinary course of usurpation, assumed to exercise unlimited control of it in every part of the Union.

No well-informed and we'l-disposed man will maintain that this action of Congress is authorized by the States or the compact of Union. And no student of government will venture to say, that such action was consistent with the maintenance of a free system of laws. It was neither. Laws must, under our scheme, be supreme over individuals and majorities, or they are nothing. Whatever might be the result of a radical violation of the laws under other governments, their complete maintenance in this country, since the adoption of the Federal Constitution, is absolutely necessary. The more so here, because the structure of our institutions is of a compound nature, embracing many separate and distinct nationalities in one General Government, created by compact, by and between those nationalities. It is not, then, purely a scheme of laws, but a compact of States also, leaving no discretionary authority to alter or suspend either, and making the life of both to depend entirely upon their rigid and complete enforcement, in every essential particular.

Whether the existence of slavery was compatible or not with the establishment of such a system, is another and utterly foreign question. It is to be observed that in ordaining the Union, slavery was an institution already legalized, extending to quite all the States of the original confederation. It is manifest, then, that those who maintain the incompatibility of slavery with free institutions, are bound to go farther, and show that the States of 1789 were incapable, by

reason of the existence of slavery, of ordaining such institutions. This argument, we apprehend, followed to its legitimate end, accomplishes more than the enemies of slavery, at the present time, desire. It was one of their weapons, used in demolishing the bulwarks of the Constitution, but now that they have removed the obstacles in the way of federal jurisdiction and are wielding the powers of the Union to override the States and slavery together, it is no longer necessary to impeach the legal authority of the old Union, on the ground of its incompatibility with slavery. This authority was the legitimate subject of overthrow by majorities, until those majorities got control of it. It was illegal and void so long as it refused to recognize the mission of anti-slavery. It is legal, binding and sacred, in the exclusive execution of such mission.

We bring up this subject, not with a view of the least examination of the abstract question of slavery. Right or wrong, it is a purely domestic interest, which those who maintain must defend. It was so regarded by all the States when they ordained the Union. It was so left by the compact of Union. Whatever has been done since, by the President or Congress, to change its status, we hold to be evidence of the ignorance of the people of what was required to maintain a free system of laws. In this work the laws have been subordinated to the dominion of individuals.

Whatever may be the public judgment on the subject of slavery, we are bound, at least, to acknowledge its existence in this country. This simple fact brings before us more than four millions of people of an inferior race. To release them from bondage and make them coequal inhabitants with a dominant superior race, would be a fearful experiment indeed. We have no right to disturb the present order of things, except on the basis of the improvement of the condition of the blacks. The naked assertion of their right to freedom goes for nothing, unless by freedom we mean to assure their improvement. Freedom to a people disqualified to maintain their rights, is of no possible advantage. The recent establishment of republican government, in France, did not actually enfranchise that people. Invention is valueless to those who know nothing of its uses or the process of its operation. The daily experience of the

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