troys the liberty of a nation. The machine called inference can act as extensively in one case as in the other. A government, by an unlimited power of construction, may stretch constitutions as Jeffries did laws, or interpret them as synods do scripture, according to the temporal interest of the predominant sect. Yet it often happens, that whilst our hearts glow on recollecting the political and religious martyrs, who have fallen by the edge of this destructive weapon; our heads freeze when it is applied to our constitutions, by forgetting its ability to destroy the political as well as the natural body.

The Stuart family, in three successive reigns, pertinaciously adhered to the ingenuity of conceding principles, and then construing them away. Thus they craftily endeavoured to extend their powers; and two of them paid the forfeits of the experiment. An admission of a line of separation between the powers of the state and federal governments, followed with its obliteration with the sponge of inference, would bear a close resemblance to many of the stratagems practised by this construing family.

SECTION 3.

SOVEREIGNTY.

I Do not know how it has happened, that this word has crept into our political dialect, unless it be that mankind prefer mystery to knowledge; and that governments love obscurity better than specification. The unknown powers of sovereignty and supremacy may be relished, because they tickle the mind with hopes and fears; just as we indulge the taste with Cayenne pepper, though it disorders the health, and finally destroys the body. Governments delight in a power to administer the palatable drugs of exclusive privileges and pecuniary gifts; and selfishness is willing enough to receive them; and this mutual pleasure may possibly have suggested the ingenious stratagem, for neutralizing constitutional restrictions by a single word, as a new chymical ingredient will often change the effects of a great mass of other matters.

Neither the declaration of independence, nor the federal constitution, nor the constitution of any single state, uses this equivocal and illimitable word. The first declares the colonies "to be free and independent states." The second is ordained to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity:" And the rest recognize governments as "the servants of the people." In none, is there the least intimation of a sovereign power; and in all, conventional powers are divided, limited and restrained. There is, I believe, an instance in a bill of rights, in which a state is declared "to be free, sovereign and independent." But it was the state and not its government which was the object of this declaration; and the reference was to other nations. The language of all these sacred, civil authorities, is carefully chastened of a word, at discord with their purpose of imposing restrictions upon governments, by the natural right of mankind to establish societies for themselves. It could not be correctly used as a vehicle of power,

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either external or internal. The idea of investing servants with sovereignty, and that of investing ourselves with a sovereignty over other nations, were equally preposterous. Sovereignty implies superiority and subordination. It was therefore inapplicable to a case of equality, and more so to the subordinate power in reference to its creator. The word being rejected by our constitutions, cannot be correctly adopted for their construction; because, if this unanimous rejection arose from its unfitness for their design of defining and limiting powers, its interpolation by construction for the purpose of extending these same powers, would be an evident inconsistency. It would produce several very obvious contradictions in our political principles. It would transfer sovereignty from the people, (confining it to mean the right of self-government only,) to their own servants. It would invest governments and departments, invested with limited powers only, with unspecified powers. It would create many sovereignties, each having a right to determine the extent of its sovereignty by its own will. And if two sovereignties over the same subjects could never agree, it would propose for our consideration what was to be expected from an army of sovereignties. Our constitutions, therefore, wisely rejected this indefinite word as a traitor of civil rights, and endeavored to kill it dead by specifications and restrictions of power, that it might never again be used in political disquisitions.

In fact, the term "sovereignty," was sacrilegiously stolen from the attributes of God, and impiously assumed by kings. Though they committed the theft, aristocracies and republicks have claimed the spoil. Imitation and ignorance even seduced the English puritans and the long parliament to adopt the despotism they resisted; and caused them to fail in accomplishing a reformation for which they had suffered the evils of a long war. By assuming divine rights, because they had been claimed by kings and popes, and drawing powers from an inexhaustible store-house, they aggravated the tyranny they intended to destroy, and merited the fate which they finally experienced. Presbyteries and synods snatched the keys of Heaven from popes and bishops, and the long parliament, those of property from the king; and both demonstrated what man would do with the powers of Providence. By our constitutions, we re

jected the errors upon which our forefathers had been wrecked, and withheld from our governments the keys of temporal and eternal rights, by usurping which, their patriots had been converted into tyrants; and invested them only with powers to restrain internal wrongs, and to resist foreign hostility; without designing to establish a sovereign power of robbing one citizen to enrich another.

Sovereignty is neither fiduciary nor capable of limitation. Accordingly, the long parliament asserted, that "there were two sovereignties in England, their's and the king's," and left us a specimen of what may be expected from two sovereignties here, state and federal. Two sovereignties or supremacies over the same subjects have often appeared. Two or more emperors frequently existed in the Roman empire, each claiming the absolute powers of sovereignty. Several popes have existed at the same time, each claiming the absolute powers of supremacy, and both pretending to keep the keys of Heaven. But sovereignty being by its nature a unit, its division implied usurpation, and therefore the king, the parliament, the emperors and the popes, in exercising it, were all usurpers; and hence an allotment or division of the powers of sovereignty by our governments among themselves, would also be an usurpation. If we must use terms, taken from the deity to adorn the brows of men, we cannot still divest them of their meaning; and as sovereignty implies individuality, we are reduced to the necessity, to satisfy its meaning, of looking for this essential quality. I admit that it may be found among us, either in congress or in the people; but I deny that it can exist in both. Chastened down to the signification of a natural right in nations to institute and limit their own governments, it only embraces the principle by which alone social liberty can be established; extended to the idea of a power in governments to regulate conscience or to distribute property at its pleasure, it includes the principle by which social liberty is destroyed.

Oppression is universally caused by pecuniary fanaticism. If the proposition be true, the remedy is indicated. Does the indication point to a sovereignty in governments over property, or to its security against a power so despotick? As the evil has eluded and corrupted all political theories hitherto, it required a remedy at its root. Sovereignty was its root, and we