one evil example will lead to other measures still more mischievous; and if the principle of constructive powers, or supposed advantages, or temporary circumstances, shall ever be permitted to justify the assumption of a power not given by the Constitution, the General Government will, before long, absorb all the powers of Legislation, and you will have, in effect, but one Consolidated Government. From the extent of our country, its diversified interests, different pursuits, and different habits, it is too obvious for argument, that a single Consolidated Government would be wholly inadequate to watch over and protect its interests; and every friend of our free institutions should be always prepared to maintain unimpaired, and in full vigor, the rights and Sovereignty of the States, and to confine the action of the General Government strictly to the sphere of its appropriate duties."*

How wise, patriotic, and even prophetic, were these admonitions of the Hero of New Orleans, and the Sage of the Hermitage! He was, indeed, both hero and sage! In him was presented the rare combination of both military and civic attainments of a very high order. Highest in eminence above all others of this class in the annals of the world stands Washington! Jackson approached as near this great unapproachable model of the general and statesman combined, as perhaps any ever will or can. He left the impress of his ideas deeply fixed upon the times in which he lived. And no more. important admonition did he ever give his countrymen than that in the closing part of the extract from his Farewell Address I have just read. This, with all the solemnity of dying declarations, may be received as the strongest evidence of his opinions that ours is a Confede

* Statesman's Manual, vol. ii, p. 952.

racy of Sovereign States, and that our liberties, as well as the preservation of the Union, which was so dear to him, depend upon their preservation as such! His last parting words to his countrymen were, to be prepared to maintain unimpaired, and in full vigor, the Sovereignty of the States!

May I not, then, upon his authority, again ask if the conclusion, before stated, that the Constitution is a Compact between Sovereign States, is not indisputably esta blished?

MAJOR HEISTER. Waiving that point, I do not yet see that the right of a State to secede from the Union, in disregard of her obligations under the Compact, follows that conclusion.

MR. STEPHENS. That is another question. We must settle one thing at a time. Do you all now give it up that the Constitution is a Compact between Sovereign States? All being silent we will then take that to be an established truth, and proceed a step further.

COLLOQUY XI.

THE GREAT TRUTH ESTABLISHED THAT THE CONSTITUTION IS A COMPACT BETWEEN SOVEREIGN STATES-THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES IS STRICTLY A FEDERAL GOVERNMENT-EACH STATE FOR ITSELF HAS THE RIGHT TO JUDGE OF INFRACTIONS AS WELL AS THE MODE AND MEASURE OF REDRESS-THE RIGHT OF A STATE TO WITHDRAW FROM THE UNION UPON BREACH OF THE COMPACT BY OTHER PARTIES TO IT SPRINGS FROM THE VERY NATURE OF THE GOVERNMENT-THE COMPACT WAS BROKEN BY THIRTEEN STATES OF THE UNION-WEBSTER, STORY, TUCKER, RAWLE, DE TOCQUEVILLE, WADE, GREELEY AND LINCOLN UPON THIS RIGHT TO WITH DRAW OR SECEDE IN SUCH CASE.

MR. STEPHENS. We are then, it seems, by the assent of all, brought to the conclusion, that the Constitution of the United States was formed by separate, distinct, and Sovereign States. This is the conclusion to which we are all, however willingly or reluctantly, compelled to come at last, not only by the testimony of witnesses of the highest order, and by the decisions of the judicial tribunal of the highest authority, the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Marshall at its head, but by the everlasting records themselves, by all the great facts of our history, which can never be obliterated or effaced.

We have seen that the Union existing between these States, anterior to the formation of the new Constitution, was a Compact, or as Judge Marshall expressed it, nothing but "a league" between Sovereign States.

We have seen that in remodelling the Articles of the old Confederation, it was not the object, or design of any of the parties, to change the nature or character of that

Union; but only to make it more perfect, by an enlargement of the delegation of powers conferred upon the Government thereby established with such changes in its organic structure, touching the mode and manner of exercising them, as might be thought best to attain the object of their delegation.

We have also seen, both by the instrument itself, and by the understanding of all the parties at the time; that this was what was done by the adoption of the present Constitution, and nothing more. In other words we have seen, and come to the conclusion from a review of all the facts, that the Constitution, as the Articles of Confederation, is a Compact between "the Sovereign members of the Union" under it, as General Jackson styles the States.

With these essential points first settled, beyond dispute or question, we are now prepared to go a step further and approach the end of our immediate and important inquiry, touching the nature and character of the Government, so formed and constituted, and to see clearly where, under it, Paramount or ultimate Sovereignty necessarily resides.

That the Government of the United States is a Confederated Republic, or Confederacy, of some sort, and not a Consolidated Government, is now no longer a matter of investigation or question. Whatever other characteristics, peculiar or anomalous, it possesses, it is beyond doubt, cavil, or dispute, Federal in its nature and cha

racter.

That it presents, in its structure, several new features, wholly unknown in all former Confederacies of which the world's history furnishes examples, all admit. This was well understood at the time of its formation, as well as ever since. No exactly similar model is to be found

amongst all the nations of the earth, or in the annals of mankind, in the past or present. But we have seen the model which was in the minds of its authors at the time it was framed, and which formed the basis of their conceptions and designs. That was the model of a Confederated Republic given by Montesquieu. This model was not only in the minds of the Convention which framed the Constitution, but in the minds of all the Conventions of the States which adopted it. This has been shown from the proceedings of those bodies. That model exhibited several small Republics so united into a larger one, for foreign and inter State purposes, as to present themselves in joint Combination to the world, as one Nation, while as between themselves each one retained unimpaired its own inherent, innate Sovereignty and Nationality. This was the ideal before all the States of this Union, at the time of the formation of the Constitution. According to this model, which was as far as the wisdom of men then had gone in forming Governments for the preservation of free institutions, and to prevent the principle of universal Monarchical Rule, the action of the larger and conventional State or Nation so, formed for external or foreign purposes, was confined in its internal operations exclusively to the integral members of the Union or Confederation. No power was conferred upon this joint agent of all to interfere, in any way or under any circumstances, with the individual citizens of the separate Republics.

But a new idea had for sometime been in embryo. It was then struggling into birth. Jefferson's brain had first felt the impulse of its quickening life. The framers of the Constitution saw its star, as the wise men of the

* Montesquieu, vol. i, Book ix, ch. i, p. 154.