-

must necessarily be a constitutional mode of giving construction and efficacy to all constitutional provisions. The first three Articles of the Constitution provide for the three several departments of what it repeatedly calls "the government of the United States," assigning appropriate powers and duties to each. The executive department is expressly required to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” including the Constitution itself, the fundamental and "supreme law," - and all other law; and to make oath that he "will faithfully execute the office." The legislative department is authorized "to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution" the powers vested in the executive or any other department of the government. The judicial department, or "the judicial power, shall extend to all cases in law or equity arising under this Constitution;" that is, from any action or omission of the Government or by its authority, and which may involve the meaning and construction of every sentence in the Constitution. As every power conferred necessarily involves a duty, here is ample provision made for the complete execution of every part and parcel of the Constitution. It does not cover the aggregate merely; but every word, sentence, and portion of it in detail, from "We, the people," to the end of Article VII., and all the Amendments.

§ 3. This duty of the government was first

directly promulgated by the convention who formed the instrument. In their resolution for putting the Constitution into operation, after providing for the choice of the first President and members of Congress, they say that they shall "proceed to execute this Constitution." It was recognized and acted upon by the first President and Congress, in the enactment of the first statute ever made under the Constitution. The sixth Article of the Constitution, requiring certain oaths to be taken by officers of the general and local governments, assigned no special duty to the government in general, or to Congress in particular, respecting its execution. Nevertheless, they made this statute for the express purpose of executing it; and it has been approved and practised upon, by all classes of the government and people, as long as the government has stood, and is still in force. The same duty has also been repeatedly exercised in the enactment of divers other laws, similarly called for, though not specially authorized, and expressly approved and sanctioned by the adjudications of the Supreme Court. A law is a rule of conduct, and a supreme law is above all other law. A law without a sanction is no law, and a rule neither followed nor retributed is void. Hence the necessity which compelled the American people to make in their government an agent, with power to execute the supreme law, and every part of it,-in the language of

the "Federalist," "a common government, with powers equal to its objects;" having constitutional power to give effect to all constitutional provisions.

§ 4. With these two important principles thoroughly imbibed, and constantly held in view, the true character of the Constitution, and the extent of the powers of the government, will be more easily investigated, and more readily understood. I enter into no analysis or vindication of these principles, because they are considered as purely elementary and fundamental; as incontrovertible maxims, if not self-evident truths, without which there can be no government. If the Constitution is not law, or if the government is not bound, has not the right and duty, to execute it, there is nothing left that is worth a discus

sion.

1 No. 62.

CHAPTER II.

THE GOVERNMENT.

§ 5. THE first clause of the Constitution is not only the first in the order of its arrangement, but the first in the importance and significance of its contents. It is a declaration of the authority by which it was made, the purposes for which it was made, the fundamental law by which these purposes are to be executed, and the country and nation to which they are applied. It is, in fact, the essence and epitome of the whole instrument, by which the government is ordained and created, and its purposes, authority, and duty established. It is in these comprehensive and emphatic words: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

§ 6. This enacting clause, though standing at the head, and being introductory to all the rest, was really one of the last that was incorporated in the Constitution. The circumstances out of which it grew, the accretions by which from time to time it was accumulated, the alterations and variations through which it passed in the process, and the time and manner of its incorporation in its present shape as a part of the instrument, are interesting facts in its history, and well accord with the importance of its present position as the leading, enacting, and most mandatory section of the Constitution.

§ 7. The principal materials out of which the Constitution was compiled, so far as they were not original with the convention, were found embodied, classified, and commingled with others, in at least seven different formal instruments. Saying nothing of the New-England Confederacy of 1643, the Albany Plan of Union of 1754, or the plan proposed by Dr. Franklin to Congress in 1775, there was, 1st, The Articles of Confederation of 1781, to which the attention of the convention was directly called by the terms of their appointment; 2d, A set of resolutions, introduced, on consultation with his associates, by Mr. Randolph, and called the Virginia Plan; 3d, A Constitution in form, drawn up by Mr. Charles Pinckney, and called the SouthCarolina Plan; 4th, A set of resolutions, drawn up on consultation, and introduced by Mr. Pat