conceived to be the ultimate principles of American freedom. Assuming that the sovereignty resided in the people, they of their own motion, and in their own names, in April, 1841, called a convention; which assembled in October, and in the month following proposed a constitution extending the right of suffrage to every white male adult citizen of the United States who had resided one year in the State, and apportioning the representatives among the towns and cities of the State, as nearly as possible in proportion to their actual population. This constitution was submitted to the people by the convention, in December, (the General Assembly giving no sanction whatever to it, nor providing any means for ascertaining under oath the number of votes for or against it,) and received, as its friends allege, 13,944 votes in its favor, of which 4,960 were given by persons having a right to vote under the charter and the acts of the General Assembly, being a majority not only of all the citizens, but even of the old electors.

Meantime the General Assembly, taking alarm at this new state of things, had themselves, in February, 1841, passed a resolution requesting the freemen to choose, in August, delegates to attend a convention in November to form a new constitution in whole or part, with full powers for that purpose. This convention met in November, and being unable to agree on the question of the franchise, adjourned to February, 1842. They met again in February, and extended the franchise to all white male adult native citizens resident in the state two years, and to naturalized citizens, three years resident, and having the old property qualification; but though they changed the rate of representation, they made it nearly as unequal as before. The constitution thus formed was submitted to all those persons who were made electors by it, and was lost by a majority of 676.

The movement in favor of the people's convention and constitution was denounced by the old government in all its stages, as revolutionary and illegal, and, after the rejection of their constitution, they passed in March an act declaring the exercise of any of the principal offices under the people's constitution an act of treason, to be

punished by imprisonment for life. The friends of the people's constitution still persevering, the General Assembly resolve that an insurrection exists in the state, and call upon the President for assistance to put it down by force. He promises to give it. His interference does not actually take place, only because, on the first collision between the two parties, the suffrage party is overthrown. Whether they will ever rally is the problem of the future.

Here are questions which go to the foundation of this government: First. In whom does the sovereignty reside?

Second. What is the right of resistance or of revolution?

Third. How far does the Federal Constitution authorize an interference by the Union with the exercise of sovereignty in a State?

Fourth. In what manner can such interference be made?

In discussing them we do not mean to enter any further than we have done into the questions of fact. It is of no importance to the questions we are about to consider, whether, in this particular case, the majority of the resident citizens of Rhode Island did or did not sanction the people's constitution. We certainly think there is reasonable evidence that they did, not the least part of which is the refusal of the Charter Assembly to examine and count the votes. If they had admitted the right of such majority to change the organic law of the State, and had been sincerely desirous to ascertain the fact whether the majority had done so or not, they would, we think, have made the examination which the friends of the constitution desired them to make. It is true that the charter government has always denied the fact of a majority of the people being in favor of the constitution; but they have also denied the right of such majority to make the constitution if they would. It is this latter position which we are about to discuss.

All Americans agree, in general terms, that the sovereignty resides in the people. This is the language of our constitutions, our bills of rights, our legal formulas. But who are the people? Is the people, in whom, according to our American theory, the sovereignty resides, the body of the elect

ors, or the whole body of adult male citizens, or the whole body of human beings in the State?

The question here put is general, as if the same answer could be given for all the States of the Union. This may not be really the case. The states, being independent, except so far as they surrendered their independence by the act of Union, each must determine for itself what qualifications or exceptions shall be made to the general doctrines which, as we shall show hereafter, were promulgated by the whole circle of American States. The exceptions may qualify so much the general result, that in fact the sovereignty in Massachusetts may reside in one body and in South Carolina in another. The constitution of the United States does not fix it, nor interfere with it, except to require a "republican form of government in every State." It is possible, therefore, that the general doctrines upon which, as we shall show, the revolution was defended, may have been modified in a single State so that the sovereignty may in fact reside in a greater or less body compared with the whole population. These, how ever, are exceptions, and do not destroy the rule.

There were, we think, certain, principles promulged at the revolution, by the authority and on behalf of all the States, which necessarily lead to the doctrine, that the sovereignty resides, with some exceptions, in the whole body of the male population.

To understand this matter clearly, it may be necessary to refer to the state of opinion at and previous to the revolution. Ever since the time of the English commonwealth, the general mind of England had been much engaged upon questions of government, and among others of its origin and the social compact. The dethronement of James the Second, and the accession of William and Mary, gave a new occasion and a new impetus to the discussion. Beginning with philosophers, the question spread among the people, and finally, in the latter part of the last century, engaged

the attention of Christendom.

There were persons who maintained the divine right of kings. Sir Robert Filmer wrote a book to prove that the kingly office was transmitted from Adam, down through the eldest sons in countless generations of his descend

ants, till it rested upon the consecrated shoulders of the actual possessors of thrones. Locke wrote his celebrated treatise in answer to Filmer, in which, after exposing the absurdity of Filmer's theory, he entered upon a profound investigation of the origin and rightful authority of government, in a manner which has illustrated even his own illustrious name.

His doctrine, in short, was this: that all men were born free, equal, and independent; that no human being could rightfully exercise any control over another but from his own free contract, children and idiots excepted; that this contract might be expressed or implied; and that the authority conferred by a political society upon its government could be resumed.

"Men being, as has been said, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is, by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community, for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living, one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make a community or government, they are thereby presently wherein the majority have a right to incorporated, and make one body politic, act and conclude the rest."-Locke on Civil Government. Book 2, chap. 8,

sec. 95.

"Though I have said above, that all men by nature are equal, I cannot be supposed to understand all sorts of equality; age or virtue may give some a just precedency; excellency of parts and merit may place others above the common level; birth may subject some, and alliance or benefits others, to pay an observance to those to whom nature, gratitude or other respects may have made it due; and yet all men are in respect of jurisdiction or all this consists with the equality which

dominion over one another; which was

the equality I then spoke of, as proper to the business in hand, being that equal right, that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man."Chap. 6, sec. 54.

King and Parliament. The consequence was, that the whole population was remitted to their original rights. The rights to which they had succeeded were their rights, not as British subjects, for they were such no longer; not as American citizens, for they had not become such by the formation of an American government; but to their rights as men-to their natural equality. Every person, of a competent age and judgment, had as much right as any other to participate in the new government. No man, or number of men, had any right to exclude any other man from his equal share in its foundation.

Such was the state of things at that particular crisis. Society was resolved into its elements, and the authority of the state devolved upon the whole people. Such was the general understanding at that time. For that reason, Congress recommended to the several States to frame governments suited to their condition and wants. It was, to use the language of the old constitution of Virginia, because "the government of this country, as before exercised under the crown of Great Britain, was totally dissolved," and "viewing with great concern the deplorable condition to which this once happy country would be reduced, unless some regular, adequate mode of civil polity should be speedily adopted," that all the States, excepting Connecticut and Rhode Island, created forms of government for themselves. How were these governments formed? By the actual or implied consent of the whole people. It was not necessary, that every human being should be personally present and consent to the new constitution, nor that they should all actually act on the matter. Acquiescence might be equivalent to consent, and silence to acquiescence. In theory, the new constitution was the act of a majority of all the persons in the state, capable of entering into a contract; in fact, it was the act of a portion acquiesced in by all.

A constitution being thus once established by an act of popular sovereignty, the actual administration might then be delegated to a smaller number, who thenceforth were to wield all the powers of the state. The majority of the whole people being competent to make such constitution as they please,

might, if they saw fit, restrict the elective franchise to any particular class, and exclude some of their own number from the choice of public officers. Would such a delegation be revocable? Could such a restriction be removed by a majority of the whole people afterwards? Is the consent thus given really or by implication, to a constitution, revocable, and can the exercise of the sovereignty be resumed at any time by the whole people, without the consent of the parties to whom the power may have been confided, or, to use a legal expression, without the consent of the grantees? Can it be resumed without a revolution? After a constitution is once adopted, by which an electoral body is established smaller than the whole people, does there still remain a legal right to change that constitution, in a manner not provided by the constitution itself, and without the consent of the electoral body?

This depends entirely upon another question, before alluded to, whether the rights which belonged to the whole people, when they entered into the social compact, or when at the revolution they formed a new government, were transferable or defeasible. That at the formation of the social compact all men were equal, and entered into it as such, we have clearly shown; that at the revolution they acted as equals again, is equally clear. Have they surrendered or lost that equality-that equal right to participate in the government"that equal right that every man hath to his natural freedom, without being subjected to the will or authority of any other man?" The answer is contained in the Declaration of Independence, and firmly imbedded in our fundamental laws, as if our glorious ancestors had some presentiment that there might come some inglorious day when this great right of rights should be questioned:

DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. "We hold these truths to be self-evi

dent: that all men are created equal; that tain UNALIENABLE rights; that among these they are endowed by their Creator with cerare 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