And the sublime declaration of the Constitution is: "We, the People of the United States * * * do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Supreme Court of the United States, said:3

*

"The government of the Union, then ✶✶is, emphatically, and truly, a government of the people. In form and in substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit."

Ours is a dual government and if, in our conception of it, we draw a horizontal line and place above it all sovereign powers regulating international relations and conduct, and interstate relations and conduct, and below the line local and purely domestic-other than interstate-relations and conduct, we have above the line the general field of national or federal sovereignty and below it the sovereignty exercised by the state governments; the whole representing a dual government created by a single sovereign, the "People of the United States." As to the state governments, the people of each state respectively are the sovereign and each state government is the agency through which a state's sovereignty functions; while, as to the federal government, all the people of the United States "in their political capacity only," are the sovereign and the federal government is the agency through which the great and paramount sovereignty is exercised. In each field of political action the people are the sovereign and the governments are agencies. The people of the United States "guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government," protection against invasion, and against domestic violence. The Constitution and laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof and all treaties are "the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding." The people of the United States, as a political entity, constitute the independent sovereign. Whatever this sovereignty ordains by constitutional amendments becomes the supreme law of the land from which there is no appeal because there is no higher power. The people of the states, respectively, constitute parts of the greater sovereignty; they are dependent sovereignties, represented in all international and interstate affairs and in war by the paramount government of the whole

3 McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 404.

Penhallow v. Doane's Admr's, 3 Dallas 54.
Article IV., Section 4.

Article VI., Paragraph 2.

people of the United States. Mr. Chief Justice Taney, speaking for the Supreme Court,' said:

"When the present United States came into existence, under the new Government, it was a new political body, a new Nation, then for the first time taking its place in the family of nations."

Mr. Justice Miller, speaking of the establishment of the Federal Constitution, said: "It was then that a Nation was born."

"The whole is greater than its parts" is a truism which applies with full force to the sovereignty of the United States. Speaking through that learned jurist, Mr. Justice Story, the Supreme Court9 said:

"The Constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the Constitution declares, by the people of the United States. There can be no doubt that it was competent to the people to invest the general government with all the powers which they deem proper and necessary; to extend or restrain these powers according to their own good pleasure, and to give them a paramount and supreme authority. As little doubt can there be that the people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation, or to reserve to themselves those sovereign authorities which they might not choose to delegate to either. The Constitution was not, therefore, necessarily carved out of existing state sovereignties, nor a surrender of powers already existing in state institutions, for the powers of the states depend upon their own constitutions; and the people of every state had the right to modify and restrain them, according to their own views of policy or principle.”

This scheme of a consolidated government was recognized by Mr. Patrick Henry, perhaps the ablest, certainly the most eloquent, opponent to the adoption of the preamble of the Constitution. In the constitutional convention of Virginia he said:

"And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated government, instead of a confederation. That this is a consolidated government is demonstrably clear; and the danger of such a government is, to my mind, very striking. I have the

7 Scott v. Sanford, 19 How. 293, 441.

8 Miller on the Constitution, p. 83.

"Martin v. Hunter's Lessee, 1 Wheaton 304, 324.

highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, sir, give me leave to demand, what right they had to say, We the people? My political curiosity, exclusive of my anxious solicitude for the public welfare, leads me to ask, who authorized them to speak the language of, We the people, instead of, We the States?"'10

In view of the plenary sovereignty of the people of the United States, it is vital to the permanency of our dual form of government that this unlimited sovereignty may not unwittingly, or through ignorance of the issue, by constitutional amendments, disturb the true balance of power by vesting in the Federal Government powers which, under the general scheme of the dual government, belong to the state governments. To say the least, the supreme sovereignty should not draw to itself the local or domestic powers without having full knowledge of, and acting intelligently upon, such proposals.

Constitutions are legislation by the sovereign, not by the legislatures created by the sovereign to legislate upon municipal affairs. Mr. Justice Patterson answers the question "what is a constitution," in striking language:11

"It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it. The lifegiving principle and the death-doing stroke must proceed from the same hand."

Mr. Bryce says:12

"When we talk of a Constitution, of a State or Nation, we mean those of its rules or laws which determine the form of its government and the respective rights and duties of the government towards the citizens, and of the citizens towards the government."

Mr. Cooley says:13

"A Constitution is 'that body of rules and maxims in accordance with which the powers of sovereignty are habitually exercised'." Mr. Jameson says:14

"By the Constitution of a commonwealth is meant primarily its makeup as a political organization, that special adjustment of in

10 Elliott's Deb., Vol. 3, p. 22; Jameson, p. 44.

11 Vanhorne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 U. S. (Dallas) 304, 308.

12 American Commonwealth, p. 350.

13 Constitutional Limitations, 7th ed., p. 4.

14 Constitutional Conventions, Sec. 63.

strumentalities, powers, and functions by which its form and operation are determined."

The people of the United States, therefore, acting for the entire territory of the United States, may prescribe by their Constitution. the form and jurisdiction of every government within the territory. The governments are the creatures of the sovereign. Mr. Justice Patterson, in the case cited, says:

"What are Legislatures?

Creatures of the Constitution; they owe their existence to the Constitution; they derive their powers from the Constitution; it is their commission; and, therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The Constitution is the work of the People themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited capacity. Law is the work of the legislature in their derivative and subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the Creator, and the other of the Creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative authority, and prescribes the orbit within which it must move."

If we may quote again from Mr. Justice Story in the case cited, where it is said:

"As little doubt can there be that the people had a right to prohibit to the states the exercise of any powers which were, in their judgment, incompatible with the objects of the general compact; to make the powers of the state governments, in given cases, subordinate to those of the nation, or to reserve to themselves those sovereign authorities which they might not choose to delegate to either." The Federal Government guarantees to the states a "republican form of government," and the "form" is a political question "solely committed by the Constitution to Congress."15

Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, speaking for the Supreme Court, said:16

"That the people have an original right to establish for their future government such principles as in their opinion shall most conduce to their own happiness is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected."

DUAL NATURE OF THE GOVERNMENT

"We have in this republic a dual system of government, national and state, each operating within the same territory and upon the same persons; and yet working without collision, because their functions are different." South Carolina v. United States, 199

U. S., 437; 50 L. Ed. 261. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep. 91.

15 Pacific Telephone Co. v. Oregon, 223 U. S. 118, 133.

16 Marbury v. Madison, 1 Cranch 137, 176.

1

"In this country, every man sustains a two-fold political capacity; one in relation to the state, and another in relation to the United States. In relation to the state, he is subject to various municipal regulations, founded upon the state constitution and policy, which do not affect him in his relation to the United States." United States v. Worrall, 2 Dall., 384, 393; 1 L. Ed., 426. Houston v. Moore, 5 Wheat., 1, 31; 5 L. Ed. 19. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 91.

"The people of this country are citizens of the United States, as well as of the individual states, and they have some rights under the Constitution and laws of the former independent of the latter, and free from any interference or restraint from them." Stockard v. Morgan, 185 U. S., 27, 33; 46 L. Ed., 785. Robbins v. Shelby County Taxing District, 120 U. S., 489, 496; 30 L. Ed. 694. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 91.

"The people of each state compose a state, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence." Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall., 71; 19 L. Ed., 101. Texas v. White, 7 Wall., 700, 725; 19 L. Ed., 227. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Etc. Co., 157 U. S., 429, 560; 39 L. Ed. 759. Northern Securities Co., 193 U. S., 197, 348; 48 L. Ed. 679. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 91.

"The general government and the states, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres." United States v. Railroad Co., 17 Wall., 322; 21 L. Ed. 597. Van Brocklin v. Tennessee, 117 U. S., 151, 178; 29 L. Ed. 845. Pollock v. Farmers' Loan Etc. Co., 157 U. S., 429, 484; 39 L. Ed. 759. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 91.

"For local interests the several states of the union exist, but for national purposes, embracing our relations with foreign nations, we are but one people, one nation, one power." Legal Tender Cases, 12 Wall., 457, 555; 20 L. Ed. 1068. Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U. S., 698, 706; 37 L. Ed. 905. 4 Encyc. U. S. Sup. Ct. Rep., 92.