keep the hands of a discretionary Chief | Magistrate off from the property of his subjects? Will it be sympathy with the moneyed classes? But suppose his sympathies should not happen to be with them? He need not conciliate them, for he can get all he wants without their assistance. If he should happen to be obliged at any time to resort to a popular renewal of his power, he certainly would not have to depend upon the rich for a new lease. His dependence would rather be upon the poor, for whose benefit he may have plundered the rich. That he would have countless opportunities for plundering them there can be no question; for in the case supposed, which is the only alternative, he could be under no constitutional restraint, and consequently there could be no judicial check upon his acts or his decrees. Again, in the case supposed, of what use would legislative bodies be, even if they were not corrupted or controlled by such an Executive ? Without any constitutional restraints, the mere form of originating laws in legislative chambers, let them represent whom they might, would amount to nothing against the will of the Executive, even if the legislation should escape the corruption or dictation of the Executive while it was preparing. The tution of the United States saved from ruin was to respect the political identity of every State, and to devise some mode in which the States that had undertaken to secede could be restored to their normal places in the Union. Notwithstanding the desire that was to some extent felt to have those States reduced to the condition of Territories of the United States, it was found that the grand obstacle was not merely a question of expediency, but that it was a question of continuing the right of the United States to exercise over the several peoples of those States the powers embraced in the Constitution. In other words, it was a question of the right of the United States to govern those States at all, or in any manner, and this could be asserted only by disclaiming all idea of a military conquest of provinces, and by assuming that the separate identity of every State remained. Accordingly, whatever may be thought of the measures that were called "reconstruction," it must be remembered that in the process of their execution, and in the result, the professed object—and the only object that was consistent with our political system-was to bring back those States and their peoples into the practical resumption of their constitutional relations to the Federal government, with the same rights and powers that belong to every other State. Not only, therefore, does the history of the formation and establishment of our national Constitution show that one of the inevitable conditions on which it was founded was the existence and perpetuity of the separate States as political and selfgoverning bodies, but the history of our late civil war also shows in a most striking manner that our political system can not be preserved and perpetuated without the continued recognition of the identity, the separate autonomy, and the fixed rights of the States and their peoples. It has always appeared to me that the crowning merit of the framers of the Constitution was that they succeeded in finding a I pass now from the special consideration of the interests of property to some suggestions of the strength of the Constitution in respect to the great political objects for which it was created. strength of a government, by which can properly be meant nothing but a political system, is to be measured by its adaptation to the indispensable conditions of the national existence. One of the indispensable conditions of our national existence is the autonomy and independence of the States as political bodies, subject to the deduction of so much political power as has been irrevocably ceded by the people of each State to a central and national authority. Whatever may have been thought heretofore of the mode or the means by which that cession can be re-mode in which the people of the several called, the strongest advocate of the national character of our political system will not deny that it is founded on the idea of a collection of States which are indestructible. Even in the throes and convulsions of our late civil war it was found that the States were indestructible; that the only mode in which we could come out of that conflict with the Consti States could constitute themselves into a nation for certain purposes, and could institute a national government proper by a cession of certain stated political powers, and at the same time leave all other political powers of every State entirely unimpaired. It is true that they were compelled to do this, for they could not otherwise have established any Constitution at all. But it was in the mode in which they did it that their great merit as lawgivers and statesmen consisted; and now it is to the adaptation of their political | system to the inevitable condition of the country, as an element and proof of the strength of the system, that I briefly invite the attention of the reader. When I speak of the political system of the United States, I refer to what was done and established between 1787 and 1791. This is the period of the formation, adoption, and amendment of the Constitution by one and the same generation of men. I regard the first ten amendments as parts of the political system established by the same men who framed and established the Constitution as it was originally proposed for the adoption of the people of every State. It is well known that those ten amendments, although not insisted on as conditions precedent by the eleven States which first ratified the Constitution, were yet proposed and acceded to as indispensable to complete the character of the system, and to secure its acceptance by the two States which still remained aloof. They were not forced upon a minority of the States by a constitutional majority under the amending power, but they were unanimously accepted by every State as indispensable parts of the political system, and as fixing its character forever. Now one of the most important constitutional subjects that can be considered is, How did that generation of men and that group of thirteen States deal with the amending power itself? Where did they leave it? Where they left it, it stands today. It has not been touched since. It has been exercised since on five different occasions; but the power itself, in all its original scope and its original limitations, remains just as it was originally established. Its scope and its limitations constitute a very important element in estimating the strength of our political system, if the object of any such system be its own preservation, and the welfare, happiness, progress, and security of the people who live under it. If we turn to the original Constitution, we find that after providing for a mode in which it could be amended, it laid this important restriction upon the amending power: that no State without its consent shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. Its equal suffrage in the Senate meant, under another provision, that The each State shall have two Senators. amending power was vested in threefourths of the States, but the equal suffrage of the States in the Senate was forever excepted out of that power. In like manner, to every State was given in the Electoral College, by which its vote for President of the United States was to be cast, a number of electors made up of the same number as it was entitled to have of Senators added to the number of its Representatives in the Lower House of Congress. Notwithstanding the restriction which the Constitution lays upon the amending power, is that power itself capable of being so amended as to do away | with this restriction, and by a vote of three-fourths of the States introduce, through the amending process, a different mode of representation in the Senate and in the Electoral Colleges? I presume that most persons would be startled by this inquiry. But it is an inquiry that goes to a deep question: Are there any fundamental rights and powers of the people of every State which are so fixed and immutable that they are beyond the reach of the will of three-fourths of the States? It is not enough, with respect even to this matter of equal suffrage in the Senate, to point to the special restriction laid upon the amending power. That power either is or it is not capable of being changed by a three-fourths vote of the States. If it is capable of being changed, the restriction may be taken away. If it is not capable of being changed, the restriction will remain. But there are other important rights that may be affected by the amending process. Can three-fourths of the States so amend the Constitution as to make the President Executive for life, and make his eldest son his successor? In other words, have the people of every State an unalterable, fixed, and vested constitutional right to have the Executive office filled and occupied for a fixed term of years, and an equally fixed, vested, and unalterable constitutional right to have the President appointed by electors to be chosen in each State as its legislature may direct? And are there any other rights of the States or their people which are not subject to the amending power of threefourths of the States? Whether the amending power is itself capable of being enlarged, is a question very important to be considered, when we are considering the strength and stability of the Constitu tion; for if it is an unlimited power, the system of the Constitution may be converted into almost anything that can command the physical force requisite to compel submission. ment? Considering who the people were who established both the Constitution and this amendment, they can be no other than the people of every State, for they alone hold any rights that are not enumerated in the Constitution. All the rights held by the people of the United States, as a nation, are those enumerated in the Constitution. They have no others. If we go forward to the Tenth Amendment, we find that, ex industria, it de It seems to me that in any effort to define or understand the scope of the amending power, we must look beyond the orig- | inal Constitution, and must consider the objects and purposes of the Ninth and Tenth amendments. Those amendments followed so immediately after the adop-clares that "the powers not delegated to tion of the Constitution by eleven States, and were so peculiarly necessary to procure for it the adoption of the remaining States, that they must be regarded in the same light as if they had been inserted in the original text. They bear directly upon the scope of the amending power, not only because that is one of the powers of the Constitution, but because their forcible and peremptory language extends to everything which the Constitution contains. It has sometimes been suggested that these amendments were merely express declarations of what would have been implied without them, and that they were adopted to quiet jealousies. I read in them a great deal more. It seems to me that they were designed to secure what could not have been secured without them, and what it would not do to leave to implication. Certainly they were so regarded by those who insisted on them. What did these amendments say? The Ninth declared that "the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Certainly this was a most impressive command, uttered by the unanimous voice of the people of all the States, that no construction shall be given to any rights enumerated in the Constitution which will deny or disparage the other rights which we the people have retained to ourselves. If this is not to be regarded as an assertion that there are rights retained by the people which no exercise of the rights enumerated in the Constitution shall ever be permitted to impair, or even to disparage, then it has no meaning. But one of the rights enumerated in the Constitution is the right of three-fourths of the States to amend it. Can that right ever be so exercised as to take away any right of the people which they "retained" when they gave in their adhesion to the Constitution? And who are "the people" referred to in this amend the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." Here again the distinction is drawn between powers delegated to the United States, or prohibited to the States, by the Constitution, and powers reserved to the States or the people. It is not necessary to quibble on the word "delegated," for it is clear enough that it was used in the sense of "conveyed," "surrendered,” or "transferred." But who are "the people" referred to? They could not be the people of the United States at large, for they have no reserved powers. They have the powers which the Constitution has given them, and they have no others, excepting the power to prevent the States from exercising the prohibited powers. "The people" who hold reserved powers are the people of each and every State. To them and to their States certain powers are reserved. Are these reserved powers subject to be taken away by threefourths of the States through the amending process? Is any State liable to have its equal representation in the Senate taken away by an amendment of the Constitution which will get rid of the restriction now resting upon the amending power? Is not the power to have an equal voice in the Senate one of the reserved powers of every State and its people? Is not its power to legislate on the tenure of property, on the marriage relation, on the right of suffrage, on the qualifications for its own offices, on a thousand other things, one of its reserved rights, which no amendment of the Federal Constitution can touch without its assent, because they were, by force of the Ninth and Tenth amendments, excepted out of the amending power of the Federal Constitution? I have adverted to this part of the subject because I wish to assist the dissatisfied of my countrymen to reflect on those features of our political system which re DE COURCY'S RIDE. is a region comparatively little disturbed by immigration or change, and therefore still full of quaint and romantic legends, one of which is embodied in this tale. You can see the old manor-house yet, crowning the terraced light green knoll which slopes on every side to the water; for the confluence of two river estuaries emptying into the great bay almost makes an island of the little peninsula. The narrow isthmus that remains is almost wholly occupied by the carriage-road which leads to the mainland, where lie the arable fields which once made up the wealth of the broad manor. But with all its isolation, the manse was far from a lonesome place in the days presumably peer out through its rows of dismal eyes, and the very commonplace tenants who are hidden away somewhere in a remote wing, mirth and full-handed hospitality held carnival in its stately halls and over its velvet lawns. They were jollier times than the old house is ever likely to see again. ally make it a very strong one. I take it no one will deny that in every just sense a system of govemment for a country is entitled to be regarded as having strength in proportion as it secures the happiness and promotes the welfare of those who dwell under its sway. I venture also to believe that all will admit that the division of our country into separate States, resulting from geographical situation, early settlement, differences of manners and pursuits, varying opportunities for useful legislation, and a multitude of other causes, is both a fortunate and an inevitable condition of things. Whatever, in the fundamental institutions of our national system, tends to save and protect the separate political existence of the people of every State, and to enable them to live harmoniously and happily along with other greater and more powerful communities, under the exercise of national pow-long gone by. Instead of the ghosts which ers created for specific ends, is a great blessing. The States can not be obliterated without a revolution. It is inconceivable that Connecticut can ever be absorbed in New York, or Rhode Island in Massachusetts, or Delaware in Pennsylvania, or Florida in Georgia, without convulsions that will shatter the whole political fabric. This Union must be a Union of States, held together by a national bond that is formed through the establishment of a central authority for certain limited purposes; and a most important part of the strength of the whole system consists in the recognition of local and personal rights, without which there can be neither peace, nor progress, nor security, public tranquillity, nor private happiness. I know not what can be more interesting and instructive to a reflecting mind than to pass from one extremity of our great land to another, noting the differences of laws, of customs, of development, of manners, that mark the people of our States, while one can see how the name of American in which we all glory, and the admirable national Constitution under which we live, make us all akin. The delights of foreign travel may open other thoughts, and afford objects of a very different interest. But what American of cultivated intellect would be willing never to compare one State with another, or be ignorant of the power and energy and stability of that Constitution which has worked the miracle of uniting so many States, and yet kept them separate? In a little clump of trees to the left of the building you come, as usual, upon the family grave-yard. Here they lie, generation after generation-infant De Courcys, whose small mounds have almost disappeared under the encroachments of vegetation and quadrupeds; antique De Courcys, represented by little hollows where the rain collects in pools; obscure De Courcys, whose fragile slabs have been shattered or slurred till you can read them no longer; distinguished De Courcys, whose talents and virtues, with the public services performed, or the number of children reared, are still legible in solid graven marble. Parallels to all these could doubtless be found elsewhere; but there is one massive tombstone which awakens most unusual emotions. It bears no mark or inscription whatever except a man's name -Albert De Courcy-and below it the admirably wrought bass-relief of a rider in full career on a steed seemingly snorting fire. Somehow the stone has gathered very little moss, and its few discolorations rather heighten than detract from the vividness of the group. The dilated nostrils, the swollen eyes, and the furious tension of every limb and feature combine to pro duce an effect which may well be styled | summer, the nice judgment spending ithaunting and breathless. There is something almost appalling in this mysterious frozen action amid the peace and hush of the country. One can not turn from it without an intense desire to learn somewhat more of the rider and his ride. He was not the only De Courcy of the manor, though both his parents had taken their places under those very eulogistic grave-stones. His brother Earnest kept "bachelor's hall" with him-a sort of establishment which was naturally frowned upon by the proprieties of the time, but which had its charms nevertheless. Yet the reckless enjoyment that took place within the old walls was not at all chargeable to the younger and more orderly man. His irreproachable and well-managed character was indicated by the fact that he had thus far been spared any nickname by the country-side. Thus while every negro lad for miles around knew Albert as "Master Dashing De Courcy," Earnest was Earnest still. Perhaps the popular mind found his Christian name sufficiently apt and significant. self on the trivialities of a fox-hunt, the frank daring running to perverse foolhardiness, the nobility buried in nonsense. Yet this man who would be a boy had a strange fascination for her, even when she was most startled and shocked by his antics. She could no more help it than she could help feeling like Diana, or looking like the Goddess of Liberty. Helen's nature was one of those in which the reforming instinct is inborn. It hurt her to leave anything untouched that needed bettering. Indeed, only a fine sense of propriety kept this trait from becoming unduly meddlesome. The proof that it did not become so is found in her continued popularity. Yet her ambition to do good was continually seeking outlets in all directions, and finding very inadequate ones. She was not content with a young girl's ordinary ideals. She would like to be the Mother of her Country, had that been possible, and would probably have filled the rôle to perfection. As the next best thing, she would have found relief in becoming the guiding star or in whose work should tell upon the future. These fancies were not wild in her case. In spite of democratic theories, the landed gentry of Maryland furnished lawgivers and rulers to the province almost as inevitably as European aristocracy governed the older nations. Into the front rank of this privileged class Helen had come at birth. She was not only a "lady born," and one of the colonial "quality," but a direct descendant of those old wardens of the Scotch border whose daughters often waited as maids of honor upon their queen. could point to the words of the old ballad: "Yestreen the queen had four Marys; It must not be supposed that there was anything very deplorable in the proceed-spiring companion of some great soul ings of Dashing De Courcy. You need give him but a glance, as he rode out upon black Cecil, to be sure of that. There was none of the hollowness or hectic of dissipation in that strongly marked, devilmay-care face; and if there was defiance in eye, carriage, and costume, it was a defiance full of good-will and healthy merriment. He was at war with nothing under heaven except conventionalism and gloom; and his good service against the latter readily won pardon for the nonchalance with which he broke through the cobweb restraints of the former. "Dashing, you know," with a lift of the eyebrows, became sufficient comment on even the most unheard-of freaks. What monarch rules by a more "divine right" than that "privileged character" whom all of us have at some time met? She To-night she'll have but three: There was Mary Beaton, and Mary Seaton, And Mary Carmichael, and me." Besides, the broad rich acres about her home-the appanage of her family in the One of his neighbors sometimes flatter- New World for more than a centuryed herself that she would bring this wild were letters of credence which could not colt of a man into the traces of civilized well be questioned. These advantages, life, and extract something really useful with her noble order of beauty and her from his roistering, wasteful energy. It fine intellect, insured her association with pained Helen Carmichael to see the light the dominating spirits of her region, and estimate which he set upon all that was her probable influence upon them. strongest and best in him. She saw the keen perceptive power flashing forth to as little purpose as the heat-lightning of Without seeking farther among her admirers, there was Earnest De Courcy, already giving promise by the elegant grav |