proper remedy. Of this, that government has furnished a precedent of the highest authority in those acts which excluded the second James, and elevated the prince and princess of Orange to the throne of the kingdom.

The second example is found in the government of the United States. This government is founded on the mutual compact, an agreement among the people themselves, to form a constitution, which they should by their own engagement be bound to support, and to observe and obey all laws and regulations to be made pursuant to the powers instituted in that constitution. It is a representative government, and all the functionaries are elected and appointed mediately or immediately by the people, and periodically accountable to them through that medium. The constitution contains limitations of the powers entrusted to the several organs sufficiently specific to afford a fair ground of decision whether these powers shall, in any instance, have been exceeded or abused; and a tribunal sufficiently independent, and yet sufficiently accountable to decide on the constitutionality of every act, which shall be called in question in any cause before them. If the act be adjudged unconstitutional, it is void. If it be a legislative act, the legislators are accountable to the people through the medium of elections. If it be an executive act, in addition to the avoidance of the act, and the accountability of the officer in the same manner, he is farther liable to removal by impeachment and disqualification for office, to a reparation in damages, and as the case may be, to prosecution and punishment at law for the offence. There is also ample provision in the constitution for such alterations and amendments as shall from time to time be found necessary and expedient, to be made by the people, the original source of power, and the only parties to the compact, in the mode prescribed either by their representatives in their state conventions called for that purpose, or by their representatives in the state legislatures, to whom proposals of amendment, which must be specific, are to be referred. Here all by their own free consent, through which the author's universal principle of obligation is brought down, and placed in immediate communication with human action, are solemnly bound to support the constitution, and support and obey every constitutional act of the government.

It seems therefore impossible to conceive, that with the people, and the people includes every class and grade in the community, under this constitution there ever can arise a justifiable cause for resisting the government.

The precedent and example of our own government would alone have been a sufficient refutation of the author's opinion of the nullity of any civil compact in the establishment of civil institutions, of its impracticability and the dangerous consequences of admitting its principles as a ground of civil union and civil obedience. But I wished also to adduce the example of the British government for several reasons; among others to show how a man of the first reputation for talents and integrity, may be blinded by a favorite theory of which he considers himself to be the author, or has undertaken to be the champion. In no other way, can we account how such a man, fully acquainted with the political writings of those authors who are still the pride of his nation, with the general opinion of his countrymen, with the theory, practice, public acts, and declarations of his government, should have rejected the true and acknowledged principles of that government, and substituted, in their stead, an abstractprin ciple, to the mass of mankind neither visible, nor tangible, and which is rarely, if ever, the immediate motive to action; thus cutting asunder the strongest ligament of society, the only legitimate bond of union, in the mutual and voluntary assent of its members; and leaving, without any obligation, voluntarily contracted, every member under the guidance of this principle, so evanescent in practice, and without the intervention of a common judge, to determine the expediency and measure of obedience, and the expediency, time, and measure of resistance, a situation only to be found in a despotic government.

It is true the author wrote at a time when wild and extravagant opinions of civil liberty, or rather political liberty, and the social compact, were beginning to be broached in Europe, which afterwards drove the people of the continent to madness, and made many proselytes in his own country. Probably, the disgust, which he conceived, from the accidental abuse of a good principle, led him, as is too often the case, to declare war against the principle itself, and prevented him

from seeing and acknowledging that from this exploded principle, his government were enabled to put down all opposition, and to stand erect amidst that political tempest which prostrated some of the most powerful governments of the old world, and shook others from their base. He did not indeed, live to witness the event, but from the energy of this same principle, his nation rose superior to every danger, maintained their honor and independence against a world in arms, finally triumphed gloriously in the contest, and were hailed the liberators of Europe.

I was also desirous of exhibiting the source, whence we have derived the principles of our government, the popular branch of the English constitution; principles which that nation had found the means of inserting into the foundation of their ancient edifice, and, removing some of the decaying, unsightly, and cumbrous parts, have, on this foundation, in connexion with what remained of the old, raised a magnificent structure, uniting in a good degree, the symmetry, convenience, and beauty of modern architecture, with the venerable grandeur of the ancient, while we upon the same principles, on a foundation more broad, uniform, and solid, have raised an edifice, which if not equally venerable for its antiquity, equally gorgeous and magnificent, yet as we pride ourselves, uniting more symmetry, convenience, and beauty, and less exposed to the shock of political tempests. On the whole, it belongs to both nations, and surely not least to the people of these states to indulge a noble pride, that these principles are making advances in the old world, and in the new, have broken the chains of despotism riveted for ages, have diffused, and are diffusing the blessings of freedom and free institutions throughout one quarter of the globe, the whole continent of America; and to cherish the generous hope that they are destined one day to meliorate the condition of the whole human race.

CHAPTER II.

Of Sovereignty.

By sovereignty is commonly understood supremacy, supreme power, unlimited and uncontrolled. We find, however, that it is used with considerable latitude, in its various applications. When applied to states and nations, in relation to each other, it means nothing more than independence. A sovereign state, in a political sense, is a state or nation in the free and uncontrolled possession of self government; the right of making war and of entering into treaties of amity, alliance, and commerce with other nations, as it shall judge most to promote its own interest. In this application of the term there is no idea of supremacy, but simply that of national independence. such is the meaning of the term when applied to nations as it respects their external relations. It has no reference to their natural powers, or physical force. These may be unequal in

the extreme, and yet each remain equally sovereign, equally independent. But when applied to the internal government of a state, it is made to signify a power somewhere vested, competent to regulate, control, and direct the will of the whole and of every subordinate member of the community. To this end, it is supposed to be absolute, unlimited, and incapable of being put under any control.

Various have been the opinions concerning this internal right of sovereignty, and its attributes, and where it can, or ought to be vested. It was long maintained almost universally, throughout the old world, that sovereignty was conferred on kings, and independent princes, by the immediate act of God;

or as it was sometimes expressed,—God transcribes in kings the right of governing, which he held by virtue of creation. It was holden, that the sovereignty does not vest in the monarch by the election of the people, by succession, conquest, or any kind of occupation of the government, and that election, succession, conquest, or occupation, cannot be admitted as secondary causes. They are to be considered as occasions only, on which God by his immediate act confers the sovereignty on the prince; that on a vacancy of the throne, it returned to the original source, to be again conferred on the immediate successor. If the succession was broken or contested, it waited the event to be again conferred on the successful candidate. But it finally came to be considered the orthodox opinion, that the sovereignty once conferred on the reigning prince was thenceforth hereditary, and the right indefeasible, and thus, on the death of the reigning prince, it passed by a sort of metempsychosis, and vested eo instante in his lawful heir. Still it was held that republican governments whether in form democratic or aristocratic, were incapable of this divine gift, - and were not entitled to the appellation of sovereignty, or majesty.

Grotius and Puffendorf were the first writers of any note on the continent of Europe, who called in question this source of the divine right of sovereignty, and derived it from the civil compact. Puffendorf speaking of the civil compact, which he here calls a covenant, says," so likewise the same covenant affords a full and easy title, by which the aforesaid sovereignty appears established, not by violence, but in a lawful manner, by the voluntary consent and subjection of the respective members. This then is the nearest and immediate cause, from which sovereignty, as a moral quality, doth result."* Yet, such is the force of association and early habits, he still adheres to the divine right. At the close of the same section he says,"Yet, to secure to the supreme command an especial efficacy and sacred respect, there is need of another additional principle, besides the submission of the subjects; and therefore

* Puffendorf, B. 7. Sec. 2.