time of peace, are dangerous to liberty, and ought not to be kept up, except in cases of necessity; and that, at all times, the military should be under strict subordination to the civil power; that, in time of peace, no soldier ought to be quartered in any house without the consent of the owner, and in time of war only by the civil magistrates, in such manner as the law directs.

"XVIII. That any person religiously scrupulous of bearing arms ought to be exempted upon the payment of an equivalent to employ another to bear arms in his stead.

"Under these impressions, and declaring that the right aforesaid cannot be abridged or violated, and that the explanations aforesaid are consistent with the said Constitution, and in confidence that the amendments hereafter mentioned will receive an early and mature consideration, and, conformably to the fifth article of said Constitution, speedily become a part thereof,-We, the said Delegates, in the name and in the behalf of the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, do, by these presents, asssent to and ratify the said Constitution. In full confidence, nevertheless, that, until the amendments hereafter proposed and undermentioned shall be agreed to and ratified, pursuant to the aforesaid fifth article, the militia will not be continued in service out of this State, for a longer term than six weeks, without the consent of the Legislature thereof; that the Congress will not make or alter any regulation in this State respecting the times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators or Representatives, unless the Legislature of this State shall neglect or refuse to make laws or regulations for the purpose, or from any circumstance, be incapable of making the same; and that, in those cases, such power will only be exercised until the Legislature of this State shall make provision in the

premises; that the Congress will not lay direct taxes within this State, but when the moneys arising from impost, tonnage, and excise, shall be insufficient for the public exigencies, nor until the Congress shall have first made a requisition upon this State to assess, levy, and pay, the amount of such requisition made, agreeably to the census fixed in the said Constitution, in such way and manner as the Legislature of this State shall judge best; and that Congress will not lay any capitation or poll tax.

"Done in Convention, at Newport, in the County of Newport, in the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, the twenty-ninth day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and ninety, and in the fourteenth year of the Independence of the United States of America."*

We have now gone through with the action of all the States upon the Constitution. We have examined the records themselves, and not mere assertions touching them. This concludes that sketch of the history of the Union, as it is called, which I proposed. In it we see, that it was first formed by separate and distinct Colonies for the common maintenance of the chartered rights of each. When this failed, it became a Union of separate, distinct States, by Articles of Confederation, for the support and maintenance of the Independence and Sovereignty of each. The absolute right of local Self Government, or State Sovereignty, was the primal and leading idea throughout. We have seen that these States, as Sovereign, responded to a call of a General Federal Convention, to revise the first Articles of Confederation. The present Constitution was the result of their labors. We have seen that it was submitted to the Legislatures of

* Elliot's Debates, vol. i, pp. 334-335.

each State, in their separate State organizations, to be referred by them to a Convention, in each State, of the people thereof, that they, in their Sovereign majesty, might approve or reject each, separately, for themselves, as States, and that it was to be established between such States only as should ratify it, and then only in case as many as nine should ratify it.

We have seen that the State Conventions did so act upon it separately and severally, and adopt it as a Constitution for the States, so to be united thereby, each believing it to be a Federal Constitution, and that all powers not delegated were reserved to the States; but, to quiet apprehensions on this point, a majority of them, in their acts of ratification, demanded an amendment which should make this express declaration, and it was in confidence that this should be done, that they assented to it. Which we shall see was immediately afterwards done.

We have further gone into the debates in the several State Conventions, and seen what were the leading ideas of both friends and opponents as to the nature and character of the Constitution. While many apprehended danger to the Sovereignty of the separate States from constructions and implications, yet on all hands it was universally admitted that it purported to be a Federal Constitution; and it was with this avowed understanding of its nature, by every advocate and supporter it had in every State in the Union, even by Hamilton, Morris, Wilson, King, Madison, and Randolph, who had favored a National Government proper, in the Federal Convention, instead of the plan embodied in the Constitution. The leading idea in all the Conventions was that a Confederate Republic was to be established by it upon the model set forth in Montesquieu. According to that model an artificial State is created for Foreign or National, as well as inter State

purposes, and these only, by several small Republics, thus Confederating, for their common defence and happiness; each retaining its separate Sovereignty, and the artificial State so created by them being, at all times, subject to their will and power. That this artificial State so created may be dissolved, and yet the separate Republics survive, retaining, at all times, their State organization and Sovereignty. This model of a Confederate Republic, by Montesquieu, was the leading idea with the advocates of the system, as appears from their debates, in every State where we have access to them.

Now, then, after this review, is it not clear that the United States are, or constitute, a Confederated Republic (as Washington styled it), bound together by the solemn Compact of Union, entered into by the several members thereof, under the Constitution? The legitimate consequences flowing from this great truth, if it be a truth, will be the subject of a farther talk when I hear what you have to say in reply to the premises. I am now through for the present.

Is not the Constitution, as appears not only from the history of its formation thus given, but from its face, a Compact between Sovereign States?

COLLOQUY VII.

WEBSTER ON THE CONSTITUTION-COMMENTS.

PROF. NORTON. When I declined replying to your question, I preferred to wait until you got through with all you had to say or offer in reference to the action of the several States upon the adoption of the Constitution. My object was to reply to all together. This I will now endeavor to do, and as my opinions upon the whole subject have been so much better expressed by Mr. Webster, the great recognized Expounder of the Constitution, you will allow me to let him reply to you instead of my undertaking to do it myself. This whole subject was thoroughly and ably discussed in the United States Senate, in 1833, I think, upon a set of Resolutions presented to that body by Mr. Calhoun, in the days of Nullification. Have you these Resolutions and Mr. Webster's speech upon them?

MR. STEPHENS. Yes. Here are Mr. Calhoun's Resolutions you refer to. They were offered by him on the 22d January, 1833, the day after what was called the Force Bill, against South Carolina, was introduced into the Senate. The Force Bill was taken up first. Mr. Calhoun spoke against that. But Mr. Webster, in rising to speak, when that measure was before the Senate, did not reply to Mr. Calhoun upon it, but called for the reading of these Resolutions, and directed his whole

* Niles's Register, vol. xliii, Appendix, p. 170.