each State, in their separate State organizations, to be referred by them to a Convention, in each State, of the people thereof, that they, in their Sovereign majesty, might approve or reject each, separately, for themselves, as States, and that it was to be established between such States only as should ratify it, and then only in case as many as nine should ratify it.

We have seen that the State Conventions did so act upon it separately and severally, and adopt it as a Constitution for the States, so to be united thereby, each believing it to be a Federal Constitution, and that all powers not delegated were reserved to the States; but, to quiet apprehensions on this point, a majority of them, in their acts of ratification, demanded an amendment which should make this express declaration, and it was in confidence that this should be done, that they assented to it. Which we shall see was immediately afterwards done.

We have further gone into the debates in the several State Conventions, and seen what were the leading ideas of both friends and opponents as to the nature and character of the Constitution. While many apprehended danger to the Sovereignty of the separate States from constructions and implications, yet on all hands it was universally admitted that it purported to be a Federal Constitution; and it was with this avowed understanding of its nature, by every advocate and supporter it had in every State in the Union, even by Hamilton, Morris, Wilson, King, Madison, and Randolph, who had favored a National Government proper, in the Federal Convention, instead of the plan embodied in the Constitution. The leading idea in all the Conventions was that a Confederate Republic was to be established by it upon the model set forth in Montesquieu. According to that model an artificial State is created for Foreign or National, as well as inter State

purposes, and these only, by several small Republics, thus Confederating, for their common defence and happiness; each retaining its separate Sovereignty, and the artificial State so created by them being, at all times, subject to their will and power. That this artificial State so created may be dissolved, and yet the separate Republic survive, retaining, at all times, their State organization and Sovereignty. This model of a Confederate Republic, by Montesquieu, was the leading idea with the advocates of the system, as appears from their debates, in every State where we have access to them.

Now, then, after this review, is it not clear that the United States are, or constitute, a Confederated Republic (as Washington styled it), bound together by the solemn Compact of Union, entered into by the several members thereof, under the Constitution? The legitimate consequences flowing from this great truth, if it be a truth, will be the subject of a farther talk when I hear what you have to say in reply to the premises. I am now through for the present.

Is not the Constitution, as appears not only from the history of its formation thus given, but from its face, a Compact between Sovereign States?

COLLOQUY VII.

WEBSTER ON THE CONSTITUTION-COMMENTS.

PROF. NORTON. When I declined replying to your ques tion, I preferred to wait until you got through with all you had to say or offer in reference to the action of the several States upon the adoption of the Constitution. My object was to reply to all together. This I will now endeavor to do, and as my opinions upon the whole subject have been so much better expressed by Mr. Webster, the great recognized Expounder of the Constitution, you will allow me to let him reply to you instead of my undertaking to do it myself. This whole subject was thoroughly and ably discussed in the United States Senate, in 1833, I think, upon a set of Resolutions presented to that body by Mr. Calhoun, in the days of Nullification. Have you these Resolutions and Mr. Webster's speech upon them?

MR. STEPHENS. Yes. Here are Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions you refer to. They were offered by him on the 22d January, 1833, the day after what was called the Force Bill, against South Carolina, was introduced into the Senate.* The Force Bill was taken up first. Mr. Calhoun spoke against that. But Mr. Webster, in rising to speak, when that measure was before the Senate, did not reply to Mr. Calhoun upon it, but called for the reading of these Resolutions, and directed his whole

*Niles's Register, vol. xliii, Appendix, p. 170.

argument against them. This was on the 16th February, 1833.* Here is his speech. The Resolutions are in these words:

"Resolved, That the people of the several States, composing these United States, are united as Parties to a Constitutional Compact, to which the people of each State acceded as a separate Sovereign community, each binding itself by its own particular ratification; and that the Union, of which the said Compact is the bond, is a Union between the States ratifying the same.

"Resolved, That the people of the several States, thus united by the Constitutional Compact, in forming that instrument, and in creating a General Government to carry into effect the objects for which they were formed, delegated to that Government, for that purpose, certain definite powers, to be exercised jointly, reserving, at the saine time, each State to itself, the residuary mass of powers, to be exercised by its own separate Government; and that whenever the General Government assumes the exercise of powers not delegated by the Compact, its acts are unauthorized, and are of no effect; and that the same Government is not made the final judge of the powers delegated to it, since that would make its discretion, and not the Constitution, the measure of its powers; but that, as in all other cases of Compact among Sovereign parties, without any common judge, each has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of the infraction as of the mode and measure of redress.

"Resolved, That the assertions, that the people of these United States, taken collectively as individuals, are now, or ever have been, united on the principle of the social Compact, and, as such, are now formed into one

* Niles's Register, voì. xliii, Appendix, p. 170.

nation or people, or that they have ever been so united in any one stage of their political existence; that the people of the several States composing the Union have not, as members thereof, retained their Sovereignty; that the allegiance of their citizens has been transferred to the General Government; that they have parted with the right of punishing treason through their respective State Governments; and that they have not the right of judg ing in the last resort as to the extent of the powers reserved, and of consequence of those delegated,—are not only without foundation in truth, but are contrary to the most certain and plain historical facts, and the clearest deductions of reason; and that all exercise of power on the part of the General Government, or any of its departments, claiming authority from such erroneous assumptions, must of necessity be unconstitutional,-must tend, directly and inevitably, to subvert the Sovereignty of the States, to destroy the Federal character of the Union, and to rear on its ruins a consolidated Government, without Constitutional check or limitation, and which must necessarily terminate in the loss of liberty itself."

PROF. NORTON. Yes, these are the Resolutions I refer to, and now let me read such parts of Mr. Webster's speech against them as I think utterly demolish them and the whole superstructure of your argument, which is but an attempt to sustain the principles set forth in these Resolutions.

MR. STEPHENS. Only so far as they maintain the proposition that the Constitution of the United States is a Compact between the States, and that the Government instituted by it is a Federal or Confederated Republic. This is the position which I maintain that I have established.

PROF. NORTON. Well, then, only to the extent of utterly