assured its permanency but also its nationality and absolutely verified the preamble, "We, the people," thus forever obviating all questions as to the increased authority of the Federal Government, as well as the additional limitations (Citing in a note United States vs. Maurice, MARSHALL, Ch. J., 2 Brock, 96, p. 109, and Van Brocklin vs. Temple, 117 U. S. 151, p. 154.) "Established not by one, by two, or by three of the States, but by the people of all the States, speaking in their collective capacity as the people of the United States, the union could not be dissolved consistently with that well known maxim that the power which bound is the only one that can unloose, unless all concurred, and then only because the concurrence of the citizens of all the States in such an act would, on a principle already stated, be in effect a renunciation or abdication by the people of the United States." Mr. Curtis says in his Constitutional History of the United States, 2d Vol, pp. 115-116: "The reader who has followed me through the preceding volume has seen that at a very early period in the deliberations of the convention it was settled that the new government must be divided into the three departments of the legislature, the executive, and the judicial, and that it must be a national government. It may here be useful to condense into one statement what has already been given in greater detail in regard to the early distinction between a 'national' and a 'federal' government. It has appeared that many important members of the convention admitted at once the necessity for a more efficient government than that of the first Confederacy of the states, but they believed that the existing system of the Union could be made to answer all requirements by distributing its powers into the three departments of a legislative, an executive, and a judiciary, without altering the principle which made the Union a close league between sovereign states for certain purposes common to them all. But under this principle there had been no mode by which the legislative, the executive, or the judicial powers could be made to act directly upon individuals, whether those powers were vested in one body of men or in several bodies. Nor had such a mode of action upon individuals been devised in any of the confederacies between different states, either in ancient or in modern times. It was found that in order to reach and introduce the principle of direct action upon the individual citizen, some means must be discovered by which the powers of the central government, whatever they were to be, could be made supreme over the separate powers of the states, in case of any conflict. To abolish the states, or to fuse all the elements of political sovereignty into one mass, was out of the question. The convention was not assembled and had not been instituted with any design or expectation that the people of the states would merge themselves in one national democracy, or deposit the whole of their respective sovereignties in the hands of a central government of any form or description." upon State Sovereignty, and making the Constitution, the laws of the United States, and all treaties made under their authority, the supreme law of the land and absolutely binding not only on the judges, as expressed in the Constitution, but also upon all the inhabitants of all the States.3 $196. Results of the Convention; Washington's meditation. But whether the members of that Convention themselves knew what they had accomplished will never be known. Perhaps some of them thoroughly appreciated that they had laid the foundations of a Nation, perhaps others felt that the State life had been preserved to the exclusion of all centralization. Bancroft declares the members were awe-struck at the result of their councils; the Constitution was a nobler work than any one of them had believed it possible to devise, and he adds that they all dined together, and took a cordial leave of each other; a single line in that summary of the day's work contains a wondrous world of thought. "Washington," he says "retired at an early hour of the evening to meditate on the momentous work which had been executed." That great man well knew that the sun carved upon the back of the chair which he had occupied during those long sessions, and which had been so effectively used as a simile by Doctor Franklin at the close of the final session, not only was a rising and not a setting sun,2 but that it was rising upon a nation that, through the efforts of men who, like himself, had buried all local selfishness in the noble efforts they had made during the past months, was fully endowed with every attribute of nationality and sovereignty which would enable it ere the close of See opinions of Supreme Court as to the nature of the ratification of the Constitution cited, and quoted from, in § 27, pp. 47 et seq. ante. § 196. 1 Bancroft's History of the Corstitution of the United States, 6th Edition, New York, 1893, vol. 2, p. 222. 2"The Constitution being signed by all the members, except Mr. Randolph, Mr. Mason and Mr. Gerry, who declined giving it the sanction of their names, the Convention dissolved itself by an adjournment sine die. "Whilst the last members were signing, Doctor Franklin, looking towards the President's chair, at the back of which a rising sun happened to be painted, observed to a few members near him, that painters had found it difficult to the then approaching century to take its proper place as one of the greatest powers of the earth. distinguish in their art, a rising, ting. But now I know that it is a from a setting sun. I have, said rising sun.' he, often and often, in the course of the session, and the vicissitudes of my hopes and fears as to its issue, looked at that behind the President, without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting: but now at length, I have the happiness to know, that it is a rising, and not a setting sun." Madison Papers, Vol. III, p. 1624. "The story is told that at the last session of the convention which framed the Constitution of the United States, and after the final draft had been adopted and the delegates were about to disperse, the venerable Franklin rose, and, pointing to the quaint back of the chair which Washington had occupied while presiding, and on which there was carved a half sun with rays radiating from it, said: 'As I have been sitting here all these weeks, I have often wondered whether yon sun is rising or set 338 "The old man's prophecy has been fulfilled. Cannot we make it applicable to the present crisis, and as by the sword of Washington the sun of liberty rose o'er our country, and by the pen of Lincoln the single cloud of slavery that darkened it was swept away, so under the guidance of our noble President and Commander-in-Chief who can doubt but that the same sun that sheds its rays of happiness and peace over our own land, will also shed them alike on the land of our neighbor, and that beneath their heat tyranny and oppression will forever melt away from the Western Hemisphere over which nature and our honor have made us the natural guardians of peace and liberty." Voice of the Nation, by Charles Henry Butler, April, 1898, quoting above incident and applying it to Message of President McKinley of April 11, 1898, in regard to Cuba. CHAPTER VII. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTIONS OF THE SEVERAL STATES, IN SO FAR AS THEY RELATE TO THE TREATYMAKING POWER OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT. 200-Views of minority opposing 217-Mr. Madison's reply to Mr. Henry. 218-Treaty-making power as it affected Virginia; the navigation of the Mississippi. 219-Patrick Henry on the pre rogatives of the King of Great Britain; other views. 220-Views of Mr. Corbin on necessity of treaty-making powers in Central Government. 221-Patrick Henry's views as to effect of treaties on States. 222-Mr. Madison's support of Constitutional provisions as to treaties; final debate. 223-Constitution finally ratified by Virginia; amendments suggested. 224-Ratification by New Hamp shire; action of Rhode Island; Convention in New York. 225-Personnel of New York Con § 197. Constitution to be ratified by States.—A great victory had been achieved in the Federal Constitutional Convention; a harder battle was, however, to be fought before the Constitution of the United States, as the sovereign act of the People, was to take the place of the Articles of Confederation of the States, and to effectually unite into one great nation the various Commonwealths which were fast drifting apart owing to the inefficacy of those Articles. It was necessary to submit the Constitution to the people of the thirteen different States, and to obtain the ratification of at least nine,1 and eventually of them all, before the Union could be considered as absolutely safe.2 It was by no means an easy task to obtain this result when the theory of States' rights had such able vindicators as Patrick Henry, Luther Martin, Elbridge Gerry, Samuel Adams, and Colonel Mason. 3 The Federal Convention had, as we have seen, recommended that the ratification should be by State conventions and not by State legislatures; this course was adopted by Congress and the report of the Federal Convention was transmitted to the legislatures of the respective States in order that the State conventions might be called at once.1 $197. the United States, and to certain 1 Constitution of United States, special histories written in regard Article VII. to the State conventions of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Massachusetts. 2 See note under § 169, pp. 294 et seq., ante, for authorities on proceedings of State conventions to which the Constitution was referred. The references in the notes to the subsequent sections of this chapter will principally be to volumes II, III and IV of Elliot's Debates; references will also be made to Curtis' Constitutional History of 3 See § 195, p. 332 et seq., ante. 4 The United States in Congress assembled, Friday, September 28th, 1787. "Present, -New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Caro |