their dependence on Great Britain was not without control for in all the colonies, except Maryland, Connecticut and Rhode Island, the king possessed the power of abrogating the laws, and they were not final in their authority until they had passed under his review. (1 Story 158.) The colonies indeed were looked upon as dependencies of the British crown and owing allegiance thereto; the king being their supreme and sovereign lord. (1 Vez. 444; Vaugh. R. 300, 400; Shower's Parl. Ca. 30, &c.) From him the colonial assemblies were considered as deriving their energies, and it was in his power to assent or dissent to all their proceedings. In regard to the authority of parliament, the government of Great Britain maintained the right of that body to bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever; though it was admitted that they were bound by no act of parliament in which they were not expressly named. In America different opinions were entertained on the subject at different times and in different colonies. The power of taxation however was resisted from a very early period; (1 Story 172, 3, 4,) and the allegiance to the crown on the one hand, and the right of exemption from taxes unless imposed by themselves on the other, are equally asserted in a declaration of the colonies assembled at New York in October 1765. (1 Story 175.) And although in the same paper, the power of parliament to bind the colonies by legislation was admitted, yet upon the same principles on which the right of taxation was denied, the people of the colonies at length settled down upon the broad principle, that parliament had no power to bind them by its laws, except by such as might be enacted for the regulation of commerce and of the general concerns of the empire. While allegiance to the crown was thus admitted, the authority of parliament to legislate in matters of taxa d mer al policy was denied; and even the declaration independence distinctly evinces by its silence as to parliament, that the authority to which they traced their wrongs, and whose action upon them was recognized was the king alone, until the power of taxation was asserted by parlia ment. This assertion and the wrongs of the crown at length brought revolution, and as soon as its first steps were taken, and even before a final separation was in contemplation, a close union and co-operation of all the co

lonies were perceived to be essential to the successful vindication of their rights and liberties as British subjects. A congress of delegates from the several colonies accordingly assembled first in 1774, and afterwards in 1775, and by them the necessary measures were adopted for the general defence. We shall hereafter have occasion to consider whether this body was to looked upon as representing one people or thirteen distinct communities. But in this hasty sketch of the progress of the states to their present condition, it seems only necessary to say, that the congress of 1774 considered itself as invested with power to concert measures for redress of grievances, and that those of 1775 and 1776 were clothed with yet more ample powers; their commissions being sufficiently broad to embrace the right to pass measures of a national character and obligation. Anticipating the eager spirit of the people in resistance of British oppression and claims of dominion, they took measures of national defence; prohibited intercourse and trade with Great Britain, and raised an army and navy and authorized hostilities. They also raised and borrowed money; emitted bills of credit; established a post office, and authorized captures and condemnations of prizes in prize courts, with a reserve of appellate jurisdiction to themselves. At length, by the same body, the United States were declared independent in the most gloomy moments of the contest, and they continued to exercise the powers of a general government under a loose and irregular authority, until the adoption of the articles of confederation by some of the states in 1778. Those articles gave indeed a more firm and decided character to the government, and sustained by patriotism and the ardour of the conflict, bore us at length safely through our arduous struggle with one of the most powerful nations of the globe. On the termination of the war, the pressure of which, like the pressure of the superincumbent atmosphere, gave a principle of solidity to our institutions which did not properly belong to them, every thing became relaxed. The bands which united us seemed loosened, and all perceived how important it was they should be tightened. Years however passed away before the submission of the plan of a new constitution to the people, and the adoption of it by them. No sooner did it go into operation than it

placed the states of the Union upon an elevation which even the most sanguine could scarcely have anticipated. We may reiterate the exclamation which Mr. Blackstone has borrowed from father Paul, and terminate our grateful acknowledgments to the giver of all good for our blessed constitution, by the fervent ejaculation "Esto perpetua."

After this rapid sketon let us now proceed to look more closely into the nature and character, not only of our institutions, but of the relation which the several states have borne to each other, whether considered as colonies, or as brethren fighting shoulder to shoulder under the same irregular government, or as members of a great and organized confederacy, or finally as constituting the great and happy Union under which we live, protected against enemies abroad, and carefully secured from the danger of tyranny at home.

In the history of the two great parties which have divided the people of the United States ever since the adoption of the present constitution, a constant struggle is observable in relation to the character of the government. The federal party (d) (so called by a strange perversion

(d) Judge Story tells us: § 286. In this state of things the embarrassments of the country in its financial concerns, the general pecuniary distress among the people from the exhausting operations of the war, the total prostration of commerce, and the languishing unthriftiness of agriculture, gave new impulses to the already marked political divisions in the legislative councils. Efforts were made, on one side, to relieve the pressure of the public calamities by a resort to the issue of paper money, to tender laws, and instalment and other laws, having for their object the postponement of the payment of private debts, and a diminution of the public taxes. On the other side, public as well as private creditors became alarmed from the increased dangers to property, and the increased facility of perpetrating frauds to the destruction of all private faith and credit. And they insisted strenuously upon the establishment of a government, and system of laws, which should preserve the public faith, and redeem the country from that ruin, which always follows upon the violation of the principles of justice, and the moral obligation of contracts. "At length," we are told, two great parties were formed in every state, which were distinctly marked, and which pursued distinct objects with systematic arrangement. The one struggled with unabated zeal for the exact observance of public and private engagements. The distresses

*

*5 Marshall's Life of Washington, 83.

of the use of the terms) have always been inclined to represent the United States as constituting one people, instead of a confederacy of states; while their opponents (formerly called anti-federalists, but more recently known as the democratic or republican party) have ever strenuously contended that the constitution was a compact, or the result of a compact between the states; who retain their sovereignty, and all the rights of sovereignty, which they have not expressly transferred to the federal government. Thus we find Mr. Webster, the great champion of the federal party, pronouncing, (and judge Story once, but no longer, supposed to be of the states right party, quotes him with approbation) that "the doctrine that the states are parties to the constitution is refuted by the constitution itself in its very front. It declares that it is ordained and established by the PEOPLE of the United States. So far from saying that it is established by the governments of the several states, it does not even say that it is established by the people of the several states. But it pronounces that it is established by the people of the United States in the AGGREGATE!! Doubtless the people of the several states taken collectively constitute the people of the United

of individuals were, they thought, to be alleviated by industry and frugality, and not by a relaxation of the laws, or by a sacrifice of the rights of others. They were consequently uniform friends of a regular administration of justice, and of a vigorous course of taxation, which would enable the state to comply with its engagements. By a natural association of ideas, they were also, with very few exceptions, in favour of enlarging the powers of the federal government, and of enabling it to protect the dignity and character of the nation abroad, and its interests at home. The other party marked out for itself a more indulgent course. They were uniformly in favour of relaxing the administration of justice, of affording facilities for the payment of debts, or of suspending their collection, and of remitting taxes. The same course of opinion led them to resist every attempt to transfer from their own hands into those of congress, powers, which were by others deemed essential to the preservation of the Union. In many of the states the party last mentioned constituted a decided majority of the people; and in all of them it was very powerful." Such is the language of one of our best historians in treating of the period immediately preceding the formation of the constitution of the United States.*

* See also 5 Marshall's Life of Washington, 130, 131

States. But it is in this their collective capacity, it is, as all the people of the United States that they establish the constitution." (Webster's Speeches, pa. 430, cited 1 Story 331, 2.) Similar opinions are delivered in Martin v. Hunter, 1 Wheat. 324.

The foregoing passage is cited here, not for the purpose of exposing its disingenuous sophisms, but merely to present the views of one of the great parties of the country in relation to our federal constitution. It is their favourite position that the constitution of the United States was ordained and adopted, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble declares by the people of the United States, and it is this position which it behoves every lover of truth and of the rights of the states most vigorously to assail. Its advocates indeed have maintained it with equal earnestness and ability, but having been foiled on some eminent occasions, and having fallen from power in no small degree from their strenuous maintenance of this political heresy, one of the most distinguished among them has compiled a laborious work with a view to sustain it. In doing this, judge Story has attempted to fortify himself, by shewing that the people of the United States were always one people: that the colonies themselves, when subjects of Great Britain, were not distinct and separate from each other, but were one people: that during the revolutionary struggle they were still one people even anterior to the confederation: that the declaration of independence treated them as one people, and that this oneness or unity particularly distinguished them in "ordaining and establishing the constitution of the United States." Such is the general tenor, as it appears to me, of judge Story's doctrine, but as I shall, in proceeding to examine it, quote his very language, I shall have done him no injustice, if what I have just said does not represent him fairly. Let us proceed then to state and examine his several positions.

We will begin with the colonies. In page 164, judge Story remarks that "though the colonies were independent of each other in respect to their domestic concerns, they were not wholly alien to each other. On the contrary they were fellow subjects, and for many purposes one people. Every colonist had a right to inhabit if he pleased