one way, and to give to this Union the strength of law. In the stern resolves of the people before the Congress met, in the Association it matured, and in the ratification of it by the people, ideas and principles were marshalled into political order. It was made certain that the construction of a new foundation for Liberty and Law would go side by side with the dissolution of old ties. Anarchy was rendered impossible. It is not easy to overrate the importance of this result. It is safe to say that it influenced the whole future course of American history.

The Congress shrunk from the question of Sovereignty. The hour to deal with this profound question had not come, and this body stood in the attitude of loyal subjects petitioning the crown for a redress of grievances.

Six months of war passed, when the king by procclamation declared the parties in arms to be in rebellion. This forced on the popular leaders the question of Sovereignty. It was held to reside in king, lords, and commons. To question this, was the unpardonable offence. The definition of sovereignty by the jurists of the Old World was colored by customs, ideas, and prejudices which time had rendered venerable. It had sometimes been viewed as a star, which eluded our investigation by its immeasurable height; sometimes it had been considered as a sun, that could not be distinctly seen by reason of its in

sufferable splendor." It was regarded as something more than human, and held in mysterious and profound awe. As such, it had been the dispenser of political rights, and especially when a nation, however diversified as to race, was regarded as one community, and was ruled from a single central point. It was the tory theory, that the colonies, as bodies politic, held their privileges as a special grace from the sovereign. This view was substantially questioned in the discussions during the period from 1764 to 1776, and the "happy effects" of independence cannot be accounted for without taking into account these discussions. By them the people became familiar with the greatest questions in politics. In this way the public mind reached certain convictions as to what should be made fundamentals in an American system. Then there was the training, in the municipality and in the general assembly, of the exercise of self-government. In this way, the people became qualified for the practical solution of the problem of Sovereignty. When they were obliged to grapple with it, "to trace the dread and redoubtable Sovereign to his ultimate and genuine source, he was found, as he ought to have been found, in the Free and Independent Man." Sovereignty is in the people. In them are "those inherent powers of society, which no climate, no time, no constitution, no contract, can ever destroy or diminish." In them, as the

supreme power, resides the right of command, or the right to institute organic law, - to establish public authority, and to compel obedience to it. On this foundation rose the American superstructure of gov

ernment.

The architects of this superstructure, however, did not feel themselves called upon to cut loose from the past, or to deal with man according to any untried theory of natural rights; but, regarding him as a political being, they dealt with him as he stood related, by the cumulative law of ages, to the institutions of family and society, and as related to the commonwealth by a polity which he had moulded. They regarded him as thus entitled to a great inheritance of order, but subject to correlative obligations of duty. Hence, instead of yielding to the demands of amiable enthusiasts, or of confident theorists, or of merciless iconoclasts, and trying to cast society into a new mould, on the flattering but deceitful promise that in the process every wrong should disappear, they dealt with man on the basis of existing facts. They concentrated their efforts to preserve what had been gained, in the faith that time would bring whatever was wrong in existing law nearer to that justice which is "the only true sovereign and supreme majesty on earth.”

Thus, throughout their work, the founders of the republic recognized the fact that the people had not

been ruled from a single central point, but were divided into communities, or bodies politic, each of which had exercised a share of political power. Each community occupied a territory of definite boundaries; each had a regular government and a distinct code of laws; each was a unit. In changing the base of the sovereignty, or in effecting a revolution, they used, in each, so far as it was practicable, existing forms of law. Hence the political action which brought about this change was determined by those qualified under the law to vote in elections. They were summoned to act on test questions through the regular forms of proceeding in the municipalities, and transmitted their views by representation to the larger bodies, expressing the voice of the unit, called the Colony or State. The will of the majority, collected and declared in this manner, was held to be binding as the law, whether it related to the domestic concerns of the Colony or State, or to the general welfare of the Colonies or States in union, or the Nation. This fidelity to a vital principle in republics — submission to the regularly collected will of the majority-may be traced through all the confusion and turmoil unavoidable in the transition from the old to the new, during which influence had necessarily to supply the place of established public authority. The period of transition was brief in the case of the local governments, which, in each community, were developments

gradually adjusted to their circumstances and wants; but to adjust the powers of a general government adequate to the needs of a nation composed of independent States, required the experience and deliberations of several years. The basis of both governments was the same, the people. The qualified voters, it was assumed, expressed the will of the whole people. This will was embodied in written constitutions, or organic laws. These were acts by which the Sovereignty prescribed the spheres and degrees of the power which officers chosen periodically should exercise in the unit of the State, or of the States in union, or United States, in other words, the rules that should govern the conduct of the executive, legislative, and judicial agencies in the functions of government. The formative process was termed taking up, ordaining, instituting, government. In doing this, the qualified voters were, practically, the sovereigns. The result which they reached — a republican government - was a solution, practically, of the profound question of Sovereignty; and the infant nation was saved from being offered up by enthusiasts as a sacrifice on the unsettled shrine of political ideas.

In this way the founders of the republic wrought out the American system of government. In their creative acts, the people simply exercised the sovereign power. They limited their own action, as well