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found sympathy or reprobation, according to the natural tendencies, the previous associations, and the political sentiments of individuals. But in the United States there was a peculiar and predisposing cause for the liveliest interest in the success of the principles that were believed, by large masses of the people, to be involved in the French Revolution. Our own struggles for liberty, our bold and successful assertion of the rights of man, and our achievement of the means and opportunity of self-government, had evidently and strikingly acted upon France. The people of the United States were fully sensible of this; and transferring to the French nation the debt of gratitude for the aid which had flowed to us in the first instance from their government without any special influence of their own, large numbers of our people became warmly enlisted in the cause of that Revolution, of which the early promise seemed so encouraging to the best hopes of mankind, and the full development of which first ruined the interests of liberty, in the wanton excesses of anarchy and national ambition, and finally crushed them beneath the usurpations and necessities of military despotism. On the other hand, the more cautious —who, if they had not from the first looked with distrust upon the whole movement of the Revolutionary party in France, very soon believed that it could result in no real benefit to France or to the worldtended strongly and naturally to the side of those governments with which the leaders of the Revolution had to contend. In consequence of this

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state of feeling among different portions of the people of the United States, with reference to French affairs, and of the conduct of France and England towards ourselves, the administration of Washington had great difficulty both in preserving the neutrality of the country, and in excluding foreign influence and interference in our domestic affairs.

Had this state of things, which followed immediately after the inauguration of our new government, found us still under the Confederation, there can be no doubt that our condition would have afforded to the Revolutionary party in France the means not only of disseminating their principles among us, but also of overturning any of the institutions of the weaker States which might have stood in the way of their acquiring an influence in America. Yet what form or principle of government is there in the world, that more imperatively requires all foreign or external influence to be repelled, than our own republican system, of which it is a cardinal doctrine that every institution and every law must express the uncontrolled and spontaneous will of a majority of the people who constitute the political society? Other governments may be upheld by the interference of their neighbors; other systems may require, and perhaps rightfully admit, foreign influence. Ours demand an absolute immunity from foreign control, and can exist only when the authority of the people is made absolutely free. That their authority should be made and kept free to act upon the principles that enable it to operate with certainty and safety, it re

quires the guaranty of a system that rests upon the same principles, is committed to the same destiny, is itself constituted by American power, and is created for the express purpose of preserving the republican form, the theory and the right of self-government.

Such was the purpose of the framers of the Constitution, when, in this early stage of their deliberations, they determined that a republican constitution should be guaranteed by the United States to each of the States.1 The object of this provision was, to secure to the people of each State the power of governing their own community, through the action of a majority, according to the fundamental rules which they might prescribe for ascertaining the public will. The insurrection in Massachusetts, then just suppressed, had made the dangers that surround this theory of government painfully apparent. It had demonstrated the possibility that a minority might become in reality the ruling power. Fortunately, no foreign interference had then intervened; but a very few years only elapsed, before a crisis occurred, in which the institutions of the States would have been quite unable to withstand the shocks proceeding from the French Revolution, if the government of the Union had not been

1 As the resolution was originally passed, it declared that "a republican constitution, and its existing laws, ought to be guaranteed to each State by the United States." On account of the ambiguity of the expression "existing laws," and the controversies to which it might give

rise, the provision was subsequently changed to a guaranty of " a republican form of government," and of protection against "invasion" and "domestic violence," as it now stands in Art. IV. Sect. 4 of the Constitution.

armed with the power of protecting and upholding them.

The committee also added another new feature to their plan of government, which was a capacity of being amended. The Articles of Confederation admitted of changes only when they had been agreed upon in Congress, and had afterwards been confirmed by the legislatures of all the States. Indeed, it resulted necessarily from the nature of that government, that it could only be altered by the consent of all the parties to it. It was now proposed and declared, that provision ought to be made for the amendment of the Articles of Union, whenever it should seem necessary. This declaration looked to the establishment of some new method of originating improvements in the system of government, and a new rule for their adoption.

It was also determined that the members of the State governments should be bound by oath to support the Articles of Union. The purpose of this provision was to secure the supremacy of the national government, in cases of collision between its authority and the authority of the States. It was a new feature in the national system, and received at first the support of only a bare majority of the States.1

Finally, it was provided that the new system, after its approbation by Congress, should be submitted to

1 Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia voted for

it (6); Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Delaware, and Maryland voted against it (5).

representative assemblies recommended by the State legislatures, to be expressly chosen by the people to consider and decide thereon. The question has often been discussed, whether this mode of ratification marks in any way the character of the government established by the Constitution. At present it is only necessary to observe, that the design of the committee was to substitute the authority of the people of the States in the place of that of the State legislatures, for a threefold purpose. First, it was deemed desirable to resort to the supreme authority of the people, in order to give the new system a higher sanction than could be given to it by the State governments. Secondly, it was thought expedient to get rid of the doctrine often asserted under the Confederation, that the Union was a mere compact or treaty between independent States, and that therefore a breach of its articles by any one State absolved the rest from its obligations. In the third place, it was intended, by this mode of ratification, to enable the people of a less number of the States than the whole to form a new Union, if all should not be willing to adopt the new system.1 The votes of the States in committee, upon this new mode of ratification, show that on one side were ranged the States that were aiming to change the principle of the government, and on the other the States that sought to preserve the principle of the Confederation.2

1 See Madison, Elliot, V. 157, 158, 183.

2 Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South

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