States may be compared to the primordial particles of matter, indivisible, indestructible, impenetrable, and exist in their independent identity, while the Union is an artificial aggregation of such particles." Chief Justice Chase's glittering epigram of an "indestructible Union of indestructible States" seems to have been plagiarized from Webster's "liberty and union one and indivisible, now and forever," and from Choate's brilliant comparison.

What were the opinions in subsequent days?

Josiah Quincy, in 1811, seemed to think peaceful separation could be accomplished. On the question of admitting Louisiana, Mr. Quincy, member of Congress from Massachusetts, said: "If this bill passes, it is my deliberate opinion that it is virtually a dissolution of the Union; that it will free the States from their moral obligation, and as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, definitely to prepare for a separation—amicably if they can, violently if they

must."

In December, 1814, the Hartford convention reported: "If the Union be destined to dissolution by reason of the multiplied abuses of bad administration, it should, if possible, be the work of peaceable times and deliberate consent.

Wherever it shall appear that the causes are radical and permanent, a separation by an equitable arrangement will be preferable to an alliance by constraint among nominal friends, but real enemies." In 1844 the legislature of Massachusetts adopted a resolution declaring: "The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, faithful to a compact between the people of the United States, according to the plain meaning and intent in which it was understood by them, is sincerely for its preservation, but that it is determined, as it doubts not the other States are, to submit to undelegated power in no body of men on earth;" and that "the project of the annexation of Texas, unless arrested on the threshold, may tend to drive these States into a dissolution of the Union."

Mr. Madison, the principal draftsman of the treaty between the States, lays down this rule: "It is an established doctrine on the subject of treaties that all articles are mutual conditions of each other; that a breach of any article is a breach of the whole treaty; and that a breach committed by either of the parties absolves the others, and authorizes them, if they please, to pronounce the compact violated and void. Should it unhappily be necessary to appeal to those delicate truths for a justification for dispensing with the consent of particular States to a

dissolution of the Federal pact, will not the complaining parties find it a difficult task to answer the multiplied and important infractions with which they may be confronted?"

What say the famous Virginia and Kentucky resolutions?

The Virginia resolutions were drawn up by James Madison, and the Kentucky resolutions by Thomas Jefferson. They were aimed at the Alien and Sedition law, as before stated. The. following is the first Kentucky resolution:

"Resolved, that the several States comprising the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government, but that, by compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government, for special purposes, delegated to that government certain definite powers, reserving each State to itself, the residuary mass of right to their own self-government, and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force; that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and is an integral party, that this government created by this compact, was not made the exclusive or

final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress."

What is meant by "no common judge"?

The Articles of Confederation provided for a "perpetual union." The new Constitution simply for a "more perfect union "—that is, a union of consent, not of force. The Articles of Confederation provided that no change should be made in the Confederation "unless such alterations be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State." The new Constitution provides for amendments to it by three-fourths of the legislatures of the States, or by State conventions, in either case to ratify alterations proposed by Congress.

Under the Confederation the Articles precluded " a common judge." The new Constitution does not. The framers failed to make provision for an umpire in case of a conflict of States. such as occurred in 1861-65.

Should there be an umpire?

The foregoing quoted opinions of Madison, Quincy, and Jefferson, of the Hartford convention and legislature of Massachusetts, show the necessity of a "common judge."

66

Defect.-Three-fourths of the States alter and amend the Constitution. Why should not threefourths in convention of the whole be a common judge "? It is a curable defect. The longevity of the Union would be indefinitely promoted by such an amendment.

What are the United States governmentally?

An extension of the governments of the several States. That is all. In December, 1825, only six months before his death, Thomas Jefferson gave, as the result of his great experience, study, and reflection, the following exposition of the origin, limitation, and intent of the government of the United States, which was a protest to the Virginia legislature:

"The States in North America which confederated to establish their independence of the government of Great Britain, of which Virginia was one, became, on that acquisition, free and independent States, and, as such, authorized to constitute governments, each for itself, in such form as it thought best.