vious document, the Declaration of Independence. It is not strictly a part of the Federal Constitution but its principles of free government were taken for granted by those who drew up that document, and everybody accepts and believes in these splendid statements: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." We must, however, note in this place the splendid Preamble to the Constitution, setting forth its purpose to make one union for the benefit of all the people: We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 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. This appeal to high motives belongs not only to the posterity of the people then in the United Page 4 There is no document of greater value than these four pages of our country's Constitution. It is preserved in a specially built safe in the CONGRESSIONAL LIBRARY AT WASHINGTON. Photographs of these pages were received for publication in this book through the courtesy of David Roberts, Division of Prints, Congressional Library. States but to all immigrants and their posterity, who make themselves citizens of the federal Republic. Meaning of the Constitution The Americans hardly realized what a great work they were doing. State conventions were called to pass upon the Constitution, and in several it all but failed because some people thought it might destroy all the power and influ ence of the states. \ However, eleven of the thirteen states ratified it within a few months, and the other two a little later. The principle of that constitution was many years afterwards summed up by Daniel Webster who said of it, "This is a people's constitution"; or as Abraham Lincoln stated it " a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Every individual state, before and since that time, has had its own popular government, with an elective legislature, elected governors and elected or appointed judges. So it was with the new Federal Government. Sovereignty Reams of paper and oceans of talk have been used on the question whether the states were "sovereign" and therefore kept a right to leave the new Federal Union into which they entered. The truth is that neither the state governments nor the Federal Government was then or has ever since been really sovereign. Sovereignty means the right to do anything that can be done by a government. Each of the states gave up part of its own constitution and laws when it ratified the new Government; and at the same time each had the advantage that all the other states did the same thing. Massachusetts helped to change the constitution of Virginia, and Virginia altered the constitution of Massachusetts. The only sovereign then or now is the people of the United States of America who made the Constitution and all the different forms of our government. The the Federal Constitution. By using our people also have the power to change slow way of amending that document they may also change any part of any state constitution that would otherwise conflict. John Marshall, Expounder of the Constitution We have seen how the American people had been getting ready for a hundred years to make a national constitution that would satisfy all parts of the Union and at the same time would answer for the needs of a strong and growing nation. Yet the man who has had most personal weight in making the Federal Constitution what it is today was not a member of the Constitutional Convention. This was John Marshall of Virginia, born in 1755, son of a soldier in the French and Indian wars. He began to study law by himself and was a student at William and Mary College, and a captain in the Revolution. When the new government was formed, Marshall took the Federalist side in politics and Washington sent him as one of the three envoys to France in 1797. President Adams made him Secretary of State and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, in which office he served for thirty-four years till his death in 1835. This was Marshall's great opportunity, for he had one of the clearest of minds, knew a great deal of law, and was able to use his wonderful mind and powers in clearing up the meaning of the Constitution and the place of the states and of the general government in the Union, were looked upon as Federalist doctrines; but long before Marshall's death the Jeffersonian Republicans accepted them. The great point was that Marshall, and the Supreme Court with him, laid down the great doctrine of implied powers" that is, for instance, that since Congress had the power to borrow money it might borrow it by setting up a bank; though the power to create such a corporation was not stated in so many words within the Constitution; it was fairly upheld as "necessary and proper." 66 Marshall was a delightful companion, lived simply and greatly enjoyed his friends. Perhaps the most famous thing that he ever said was to the "X. Y. Z." representatives of the French Directory in 1797, when they demanded that the United States should pay money for a treaty: "We said that we had JOHN MARSHALL spoken to that point very explicitly; we had given an answer? No, said he, you have not: What is your answer? We replied, it is no; no; not a sixpence." His idea of the superior power of the Union over the states was thus set forth: "The American states as well as the American people, have believed a close and firm union to be essential to their liberty and to their happiness. They have been taught by experience that this union cannot exist without a government for the whole; and they have been taught by the same experience that this government would be a mere shadow that must disappoint all their hopes unless invested with large portions of that sovereignty which belongs to independent states." See Analyzed Text of the Constitution, Its Contents and Meaning, pages 289-305 Questions and Problems, Chapter V, see page 308 PART II The Young United States 1789-1865 WE, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, 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.-The Preamble to the Constitution. |