power of the people is indivisible, unrepresentable and inalienable, and they can do no wrong, then they are absolute and cannot be subject to law or government. Which is to say-man cannot live in society! In this country, at least, we all profess to be governed by law and responsibility to law. We can, lawfully, do no act that is prohibited by law, and, as people, merely, can make no law. We are, therefore, subject to the law, and the power that makes the law is superior to us, but is of us, and is placed over us by the body politic for our mutual good and the welfare of the whole. Sovereignty in society can never be in abeyance, or in a state of hiatus or syncope, except in revolutions. Revolutions can only be against the will of governments. If political changes are made with the consent and approval of government, and in a legally acknowledged way, and by prescribed modes, they cannot be properly called revolutions, for revolution means a subversion or upsetting of the supreme law making power, or a part of it, against its will, and in defiance of its power. By the Constitution of England, a part at least of sovereign power is vested in the King, and descends by inheritance. To remove the King and change the dynasty is then a revolution. It was a revolution when we threw off the royal power and denied and resisted the authority of the British parliament. Our revolution transferred all sovereign power from that government, compatible with just principles of representation, into the hands of the State govern ments, and all subsequent constitutions have been adopted by consent of these State governments, and in every instance, the first legal step taken to consider, prepare or adopt such constitutions have been taken by the State legislatures. They have all been adopted consonant to their will and with their primary consent, and are, therefore, legal changes, and not revolutions; for, otherwise, every change of the Constitution would be a revolution.

Prof. Gervinus greatly mistakes when he says that the Americans, at the commencement of their self-government, were "guided entirely by the instincts of nature and reason in its simplest consequences, apart from all existing State organization," and that they had "no antiquity, no tradition, no history and experience." This is a strange mistake for a historian. The learned professor

in his over excited enthusiasm, common to all modern continental reformers or political liberals, seems to have overlooked the whole history of the American Colonies, and to have forgotten that with legislative forms of government we had, from our very foundation, possessed and enjoyed all the great principles of anglican liberty, however underated by Rousseau, and that English antiquity and British history was still our history and our antiquity, and that except in the personnel of the supreme power, scarcely any change was made by our revolution in the freedom of our institutions, as the case of Rhode Island proves, and none whatsoever were made in our social relations. The Heidelberg professor was, therefore, wrong in saying, upon a superficial view, that "the theories of Rousseau (which he favors) were first brought into practice in the American Constitution, as the principle of a new code of politics." It would have been perfectly true if said of the Declaration of Independence and of many of the preambles of the State Constitutions, though contradicted by the subsequent provisions in such constitutions. The practice, in no instance, conformed to the theory. But the General Government neither admits nor operates on the numerical principle, nor has it been given the right to bestow or refuse the right of suffrage. Suffrage only comes through the States, and the right to it is only within their legal power. So far from the numerical principle of Rousseau having been adopted by the Government of the United States, it is denied by the clause which provides for counting the numbers of people in the respective States, to be represented in the House, which only includes "free persons and those bound to service only for a term of years, and excludes Indians, not taxed, and three-fifths of all ather persons, by which was meant slaves, then possessed by every State in the Union and by every European State that had colonies.

Rousseau says, the idea of modern representation is derived from the feudal governments, which he considers iniquitous and absurd, and that in the ancient republics, the people had no representatives; on ne connaissait pas ce mot la: hence he supposes that the instant a people gives itself representatives, they cease to be free. The conclusion is perfectly consistent with the prem

ises and theory, and those who adopt the theory must expect that conclusions will be drawn which naturally flow from them.

Hence the hopeless struggle which wild enthusiasts are now maintaining, and will long maintain, against the royal governments of Europe, which, bad as they are, promise more peace and protection to the people than the red republicanism of Rousseau's disciples. Hence all the late failures on the continent in their attempts to better their condition. Their excitement and their theories begin to invade our shores, attended with equally bad results. It appears to be distinctly within our recollection when first the idea seems to have obtained among sensible, welleducated men amongst us, not inclined to demagogism, that sovereignty was vested in the people, and not in the supreme power or government. And just in proportion as it obtains, it will be seen that constitutional obligations will be weakened and disregarded, whenever they come in the way of popular wishes or popular, local, or party interests. It will inevitably produce those political rat-holes which cannot be filled, and which, sooner or later, must sap the foundations of that constitutional dyke which was intended to protect us from such devastations.

Mons. Laponneraye, in a historical notice of Robespierre, prefixed to a late edition of his works, (Paris, 1840,) with the countenance and assistance of the late Armand Carrel, says that Jesus Christ, Rousseau, and Robespierre, ("les trois hommes,") were three names that marched inseparably, and were logically deduced the one from the other, as the three terms of the same proposition; a trinity, holy and sublime, which embraces in itself the principles of Equality and Fraternity;-Robespierre the militant, Rousseau the theorist, and Jesus Christ the initiator. Robespierre held that the circle of sovereignty, in its universality, embraced everybody; and that to desire to enter upon the exercise thereof was, in other terms, to desire revolution. And St. Just, whose works have also lately been republished, "the most virtuous of men," as his editor calls the man who proclaimed Terror as the order of the day, early embraced the principles of Rousseau with enthusiasm and profound conviction, and looked upon him, as all their clubs did, as the Precursor of the Revolution.

St. Just, in his Report to the Convention, in the name of the Committee of Safety, (10th Oct., 1793,) says: "A people has but one dangerous enemy, and that is government."—" since the people of France have declared their will, all who are opposed to it are excluded from the sovereignty (hors le souverain), and all without the sovereignty are enemies." Such must always be the fate of a minority where sovereignty is supposed to reside in the people, and not in the legally and constitutionally established powers of government. And such are the opinions and course of those who carry out most rigidly the principles and theory of Rousseau.

We by no means deny that the people, legally considered, are the source of all political power, and that it is intrinsically designed for their happiness and welfare; but we cannot say when or how this power was first transferred from the inorganic masses to the hands of legal power. It is enough that we find government acknowledged by all people, civilized and uncivilized, and that society cannot exist without it, and no evidence can be furnished of any original compact constituting government; and we deny that the necessary supreme power can be exercised in any other way, under our system, than by the law, or through the legitimate organs of government; and we contend that the meaning of sovereignty is this supreme power, which has been established for the protection of the citizens, who cannot otherwise be protected in property or person. If something else is meant, a new word should be found for it; and it can only lead to confusion and error if the word is perverted to other uses.

Blackstone says: "By the sovereign power is meant the making of laws; for wherever that power resides, all others must conform to and be directed by it, whatever appearances the outward form and administration of the government may put on. For it is at any time in the option of the legislature to alter that form and administration." The latter part of the sentence is true as to the British Parliament, because it is, as far as human affairs are concerned, omnipotent or absolute, and may alter the form of government, and may put the execution of the laws in whatever hand it pleases. So the Parliament has removed kings

and chosen others; for the king of England, though commonly styled their sovereign, is in some respects really only an institution representing sovereignty, and possesses only in part supreme power; for the full power is there only vested in Parliament, (King, Lords and Commons.)

The American colonies, as we have said, when they adopted their constitutions, were not so inexperienced and unorganized as to be left entirely to the instincts of reason, as Prof. Gervinus supposes; but, while in a state of revolution, supported themselves by means of such institutions as remained to them of their former condition, and had already legislative bodies, and the sovereignty of the States was always maintained by some acknowledged, authorized government at their gloomiest period. They had their Governors and General Assemblies, their Courts, their trial by jury, their habeas corpus, their charters, or other próvincial forms of government, and, in short, the common law of England with all its attendant officers and institutions of local selfgovernment; and what was worth them all, but perhaps the consequence of all, the habit of obedience to the laws, devoid of factious discontent and love of change, and free of metaphysical and sophistical theories, that tend to a constant disturbance of society, and always aim at something that is neither attainable or comprehensible. The people no longer owed allegiance to a crowned head, or to the government of Great Britain, but, with the slightest possible changes, formed independent governments of their own, and vested them with sovereign power, called States. In the case of Dunn vs. City Council (Harper's L. R. 196), Judge Nott says, speaking of eminent domain, "This power I have already said is an essential attribute of sovereignty. Wherever the sovereign power is lodged, that constitutes a part. In South Carolina, I think it is lodged in the legislative body, which consists of a Senate and House of Representatives. The legislature, therefore, possesses all the power which the people themselves possess [possessed?] where it is not restricted by the constitution, or where the power is not delegated to any other branch or department of government." Judge Huger, in Thomas vs. Daniel, (2 McCord's Law Reports, p. 359,) says that the legis