versity. But while diversities and jealousies made union difficult, two dangers were absent which have beset the framers of constitutions for other nations. There were no reactionary conspirators to be feared, for every one prized liberty and equality. There were no questions between classes, no animosities against rank and wealth, for rank and wealth did not exist.

It was inevitable under such circumstances that the Constitution, while aiming at the establishment of a durable central power, should pay great regard to the existing centrifugal forces. It was, and remains what its authors styled it, eminently an instrument of compromises; it is perhaps the most successful instance in history of what a judicious spirit of compromise may effect.

The draft Constitution was submitted, as its last article provided, to conventions of the several States (i e., bodies specially chosen by the people for the purpose) for ratification. It was to come into effect as soon as nine States had ratified, and eventually it was ratified by all the States.

There was a struggle everywhere over the adoption of the Constitution, a struggle which gave birth to the two great parties that for many years divided the American people. The chief source of hostility was the belief that strong central government endangered both the rights of the States and the liberties of the individual citizen. Freedom, it was declared, would perish at the hands of her own children. Consolidation (for the word centralization had not yet been invented) would extinguish the state governments and the local institutions they protected. But the fear of foreign interference, the sense of weakness, both at sea and on land, against the military monarchies of Europe, was constantly before the mind of American statesmen, and made

them anxious to secure at all hazards a national government capable of raising an army and navy, and of speaking with authority on behalf of the new Republic.

Several of the conventions which ratified the Constitution accompanied their acceptance with an earnest recommendation of various amendments to it, amendments designed to meet the fears of those who thought that it encroached too far upon the liberties of the people. Some of these were adopted, immediately after the original instrument had come into force, by the method it prescribes, viz., a two-thirds majority in Congress and a majority in three fourths of the States. They are the amendments of 1791, ten in number, and they constitute what the Americans, following a venerable English precedent, call a Bill or Declaration of Rights.

The Constitution of 1789 deserves the veneration with which Americans have been accustomed to regard it. It is true that many criticisms have been passed upon its arrangement, upon its omissions, upon the artificial character of some of the institutions it creates. And whatever success it has attained must be in large measure ascribed to the political genius, ripened by long experience, of the AngloAmerican race, by whom it has been worked, and who might have managed to work even a worse drawn instrument. Yet, after all deductions, it ranks above every other written constitution for the intrinsic excellence of its scheme, its adaptation to the circumstances of the people, the simplicity, brevity, and precision of its language, its judicious mixture of definiteness in principle with elasticity in details.

The American Constitution is no exception to the rule that everything which has power to win the obedience and respect of men must have its roots

deep in the past, and that the more slowly every institution has grown, so much the more enduring is it likely to prove. There is little in that Constitution that is absolutely new. There is much that is as old as Magna Charta. The men of the Convention had the experience of the English Constitution. That Constitution was very different then from what it is now. The powers and functions of the Cabinet, the overmastering force of the House of Commons, the intimate connection between legislation and administration, these which are to us now the main characteristics of the English Constitution were still far from fully developed. But in other points of fundamental importance of the Americans appreciated and turned to excellent account its spirit and methods.

Further, they had the experience of their colonial and state governments, and especially, for this was freshest and most in point, the experience of the working of the state constitutions, framed at or since the date when the colonies threw off their English allegiance. This experience taught them how much might safely be included in such a document and how far room must be left under it for unpredictable emergencies and unavoidable development.

Lastly, they had one principle of the English common law whose importance deserves special mention, the principle that an act done by any official person or law-making body in excess of his or its legal competence is simply void. Here lay the key to the difficulties which the establishment of a variety of authorities not subordinate to one another, but each supreme in its own defined sphere, necessarily involved. The application of this principle made it possible not only to create a national government which should leave free scope for the working of the State governments, but also so to divide the powers

of the national government among various persons and bodies as that none should absorb or overbear the others.

CHAPTER III.

THE NATURE OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The acceptance of the Constitution of 1789 made the American people a nation. It turned what had been a League of States into a Federal State, by giving it a national government with a direct authority over all citizens. But as this national government was not to supersede the governments of the States, the problem which the Constitution-makers had to solve was two-fold. They had to create a central government to the States as well as to the individual citizens.

It must, however, be remembered that the Constitution does not profess to be a complete scheme of government, creating organs for the discharge of all the functions and duties which a civilized community undertakes. It presupposes the state governments. It assumes their existence, their wide and constant activity. It is a scheme designed to provide for the discharge of such and so many functions of government as the States do not already possess and discharge. It is, therefore, so to speak, the complement and crown of the State constitutions.

The administrative, legislative, and judicial functions for which the Federal Constitution provides are those relating to matters which must be deemed common to the whole nation, either because all the parts of the nation are alike interested in them, or because it is only by the nation as a whole that they can be satisfactorily undertaken. The chief of these common or national matters are:

War and peace: treaties and foreign relations gen

erally.

Army and navy.

Federal courts of justice.

Commerce, foreign and domestic.

Currency.

Copyright and patents.

The post-office and post roads.

Taxation for the foregoing purposes, and for the general support of the Government.

The protection of citizens against unjust or discriminating legislation by any State.

This list includes the subjects upon which the national legislature has the right to legislate, the national executive to enforce the Federal laws and generally to act in defense of national interests, the national judiciary to adjudicate. All other legislation and administration is left to the several States, without power of interference by the Federal Legislature or Federal Executive.

The framers of this government set before themselves four objects as essential to its excellence, viz., Its vigor and efficiency.

The independence of each of its departments (as being essential to the permanency of its form). Its dependence on the people.

The security under it of the freedom of the individual.

The first of these objects they sought by creating a strong executive; the second by separating the legislative, executive, and judicial powers from one another, and by the contrivance of various checks and balances; the third by making all authorities elective and elections frequent; the fourth both by the checks and balances aforesaid, so arranged as to restrain any one department from tyranny, and by