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ments to the most ambiguous and exceptionable parts of the said Constitution of government, ought to be laid before Congress and the Convention of the States that shall or may be called for the purpose of amending the said Constitution, for their consideration, previous to the ratification of the Constitution aforesaid on the part of the State of North Carolina."

More than a year afterward, when the newly organized Government had been in operation for nearly nine months, and when-although no convention of the States had been called to revise the Constitution-North Carolina had good reason to feel assured that the most important provisions of her proposed amendments and "declaration of rights" would be adopted, she acceded to the amended compact. On November 21, 1789, her Convention agreed, "in behalf of the freemen, citizens, and inhabitants of the State of North Carolina," to "adopt and ratify" the Constitution.

In Rhode Island the proposed .Constitution was at first submitted to a direct vote of the people, who rejected it by an overwhelming majority. Subsequently-that is, on May 29, 1790, when the reorganized Government had been in operation for nearly fifteen months, and when it had become reasonably certain that the amendments thought necessary would be adopted— a convention of the people of Rhode Island acceded to the new Union, and ratified the Constitution, though even then by a majority of only two votes in sixty-six-34 to 32. The ratification was expressed in substantially the same language as that which has now been so repeatedly cited:

"We, the delegates of the people of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, duly elected and met in convention, . . . in the name and behalf of the people of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, do, by these presents, assent to and ratify the said Constitution."

It is particularly to be noted that, during the intervals between the organization of the Federal Government under the new Constitution and the ratification of that Constitution by North Carolina and Rhode Island, respectively, those States

were absolutely independent and unconnected with any other political community, unless they be considered as still representing the "United States of America," which by the Articles of Confederation had been declared a "perpetual union." The other States had seceded from the former union-not in a body, but separately, each for itself—and had formed a new association, leaving these two States in the attitude of foreign though friendly powers. There was no claim of any right to control their action, as if they had been mere geographical or political divisions of one great consolidated community or "nation." Their accession to the Union was desired, but their freedom of choice in the matter was never questioned. And then it is to be noted, on their part, that, like the house of Judah, they refrained from any attempt to force the seceding sisters to return.

As illustrative of the relations existing during this period between the United States and Rhode Island, it may not be uninstructive to refer to a letter sent by the government of the latter to the President and Congress, and transmitted by the President to the Senate, with the following note:

"UNITED STATES, September 26, 1789. "GENTLEMEN OF THE SENATE: Having yesterday received a letter written in this month by the Governor of Rhode Island, at the request and in behalf of the General Assembly of that State, addressed to the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven United States of America in Congress assembled, I take the earliest opportunity of laying a copy of it before you.

"GEORGE WASHINGTON."

Some extracts from the communication referred to are annexed:

"STATE OF RHODE Island and PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS, In General Assembly, September Session, 1789.

"To the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives of the eleven United States of America in Congress assembled:

"The critical situation in which the people of this State are placed engages us to make these assurances, on their behalf, of their attachment and friendship to their sister States, and of their

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disposition to cultivate mutual harmony and friendly intercourse. They know themselves to be a handful, comparatively viewed, and, although they now stand as it were alone, they have not separated themselves or departed from the principles of that Confederation, which was formed by the sister States in their struggle for freedom and in the hour of danger. . . .

"Our not having acceded to or adopted the new system of government formed and adopted by most of our sister States, we doubt not, has given uneasiness to them. That we have not seen our way clear to it, consistently with our idea of the principles upon which we all embarked together, has also given pain to us. We have not doubted that we might thereby avoid present difficulties, but we have apprehended future mischief.

"Can it be thought strange that, with these impressions, they [the people of this State] should wait to see the proposed system organized and in operation ?—to see what further checks and securities would be agreed to and established by way of amendments, before they could adopt it as a Constitution of government for themselves and their posterity? . . .

"We are induced to hope that we shall not be altogether considered as foreigners having no particular affinity or connection with the United States; but that trade and commerce, upon which the prosperity of this State much depends, will be preserved as free and open between this State and the United States, as our different situations at present can possibly admit.

"We feel ourselves attached by the strongest ties of friendship, kindred, and interest, to our sister States; and we can not, without the greatest reluctance, look to any other quarter for those advantages of commercial intercourse which we conceive to be more natural and reciprocal between them and us.

"I am, at the request and in behalf of the General Assembly, your most obedient, humble servant.

"JOHN COLLINS, Governor.

"His Excellency, the President of the United States."

[AMERICAN STate Papers, Vol. I, MISCELLANEOUS.]

8

CHAPTER IV.

The Constitution not adopted by one People "in the Aggregate."-A Great Fallacy exposed.—Mistake of Judge Story.—Colonial Relations.—The United Colonies of New England.-Other Associations.-Independence of Communities traced from Germany to Great Britain, and from Great Britain to America.-Mr. Everett's "Provincial People."-Origin and Continuance of the Title "United States."-No such Political Community as the "People of the United States."

THE historical retrospect of the last three chapters and the extracts from the records of a generation now departed have been presented as necessary to a right understanding of the nature and principles of the compact of 1787, on which depended the questions at issue in the secession of 1861 and the contest that ensued between the States.

We have seen that the united colonies, when they declared their independence, formed a league or alliance with one another as "United States." This title antedated the adoption of the Articles of Confederation. It was assumed immediately after the Declaration of Independence, and was continued under the Articles of Confederation; the first of which declared that "the style of this confederacy shall be 'The United States of America'"; and this style was retained-without question -in the formation of the present Constitution. The name was not adopted as antithetical to, or distinctive from, "confederate," as some seem to have imagined. If it has any significance now, it must have had the same under the Articles of Confederation, or even before they were adopted.

It has been fully shown that the States which thus became and continued to be "united," whatever form their union assumed, acted and continued to act as distinct and sovereign political communities. The monstrous fiction that they acted as one people "in their aggregate capacity" has not an atom of fact to serve as a basis.

To go back to the very beginning, the British colonies never constituted one people. Judge Story, in his "Commentaries" on the Constitution, seems to imply the contrary, though he shrinks from a direct assertion of it, and clouds the subject by a con

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fusion of terms. He says: "Now, it is apparent that none of the colonies before the Revolution were, in the most large and general sense, independent or sovereign communities. They were all originally settled under and subjected to the British Crown." And then he proceeds to show that they were, in their colonial condition, not sovereign-a proposition which nobody disputed. As colonies, they had no claim, and made no pretension, to sovereignty. They were subject to the British Crown, unless, like the Plymouth colony, "a law unto themselves," but they were independent of each other—the only point which has any bearing upon their subsequent relations. There was no other bond between them than that of their common allegiance to the Government of the mother-country. As an illustration of this may be cited the historical fact that, when John Stark, of Bennington memory, was before the Revolution engaged in a hunting expedition in the Indian country, he was captured by the savages and brought to Albany, in the colony of New York, for a ransom; but, inasmuch as he belonged to New Hampshire, the government of New York took no action for his release. There was not even enough community of feeling to induce individual citizens to provide money for the

purpose.

There were, however, local and partial confederacies among the New England colonies, long before the Declaration of Independence. As early as the year 1643 a Congress had been organized of delegates from Massachusetts, Plymouth, New Haven, and Connecticut, under the style of "The United Colonies of New England." The objects of this confederacy, according to Mr. Bancroft, were "protection against the encroachments of the Dutch and French, security against the tribes of savages, the liberties of the gospel in purity and in peace." The general affairs of the company were intrusted to commissions, two from each colony; but the same historian tells us that "to each its respective local jurisdiction was carefully reserved," and he refers to this as evidence that the germ-principle of Staterights was even then in existence. "Thus remarkable for unmixed simplicity" (he proceeds) "was the form of the first con

* Bancroft's "History of the United States," vol. i, chap. ix.