ponding feeling, and when before the Supreme Judge of the world' they resolved to dissolve the political connection with the mother country, they solemnly declared, that they were of right, and ought to be free and independent States. The Confederation recognized each State as "retaining its sovereignty, freedom and independence ;" and in entering into the present Federal Union, great as are the powers delegated to the Federal Government, yet the sovereignty and independence of the States is still preserved. I has been well remarked, that the present Union "is distinguished from the Confederation, not so much the increase of powers conferred on it, as by the invigoration of those before possessed." With the exception, indeed, of the new power to regulate commerce, there is no material new power conferred by the people on their rulers.

The Confederation, it must be remembered, had been formed in a time of war, and for a state of war and danger. No fixed principles of Union had been agreed on till nearly two years after the Declaration of Independence. The defence of the States against the common enemy at that time, was the sole motive to the Union of the States. With the old Congress, the States were therefore willing to entrust the sword, but the purse was substantially withheld. It had no revenue, and it had no power to collect one. It had been proposed that the Congress should be invested with the power to lay an impost of 5 per cent. on foreign merchandize, and this failing, it was content to ask for a grant of this power for a limited period, and this also failed. It was not until the war was ended, and the great object of the Confederation attained, to-wit, the independence of the States, that its inadequacy to the proper government of the country in a time of profound peace, became evident. How could it be otherwise? There was no system of general revenue which the Congress could succeed in putting into successful operation. The public debt was to be paid, but the States could not agree as to the best mode of apportioning their debt. There were importing States, and there were consuming States. There were jarring interests, which in various ways impeded the operations of the government, and the consequences were, the violation of the public faith, and the consequent depreciation of the public debt.

But among all the causes which in those days embarrassed the United States, there were none which brought upon the country such a deluge of evils, as the obstructions which commerce received. To commerce, every State looked, as the source of its future and its permanent prosperity. But there was no common head to regulate cominerce. Each State having exclusively the right to regulate its trade, there was of course no uniformity of action as regarded foreign nations. When foreign governments laid heavy restrictions on our trade, there was no general power to counteract the effects of these restrictions, by retaliatory laws, so as to meet the views and interests of all the States; and when to this was added the evil of the consuming States, being obliged to submit to the exactions and heavy imposts laid on foreign goods by the importing States, the distress became general. Hence, a general anxiety and

desire for a government, which should regulate and protect the ge neral commerce of the country in a state of peace, as well as to defend it in a time of war.

Thus arose the present Union of the States. The sole motive to this Union was first COMMERCE, and secondly, the COMMON DEFENCE. The Constitution of the U. States never would have existed had it not been that the States sorely felt the evil of not having a head to regulate commerce. The old Confederation had been rapidly passing away by the disregard of many of the States to its recommendations. It was the common and the severe pressure of an obstructed, ill-managed, foreign trade upon the States, which was about to involve the whole country in accumulated distress and ruin, which formed the great inducement for a firmer and better Union; and it is not hazarding too much to say, that had it not been for this pressure alone, the present Federal Government would never have been called into existence. It was called into existence to regulate commerce." This is no speculation--it is history. All who lived in those days know it; and, let the compact itself be looked into; let it be analyzed with care; let the proceedings of the Convention be referred to, and it will be seen that the Constitu tion of the United States is a government of specified or enumerated powers, expressly provided not for internal, but for external objects, viz:-the purposes of defence and commerce. Any construction, therefore, which would extend the powers of the government to the encouragement of domestic manufactures, and the construction of national roads and canals, is to extend its sovereignty to objects which are not within the proper sphere of its action, and therefore illegitimate, and all the acts of the government in the exercise of these powers, is Usurpation-and must be put down by the Southern States, if, as will hereafter be seen, it is not their determination to be put down themselves.

NO. 6,

It cannot be too strongly impressed on the minds of our citizens, that the Government of the United States is a Government instituted for external, and not internal objects. This is the language of the Federalist, which is the best commentary on the Constitution, and as such, its authority is acknowledged in our courts. "The powers (says the Federalist) delegated by the Constitution to the General Government, are FEW and defined. Those which remain to the State Governments are numerous and undefined. The former will be exercised on EXTERNAL objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce, with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the States, extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties and properties of the people, and the INTERNAL order, IMPROVEMENT, and prosperity of the State."

Thus we see, how exactly this exposition of the Constitution, coincides with the history of the times, in which it was framed, as noticed in my last number. The sole motive to the present Union of the

Let us

States, as I there stated, was defence and commerce. On "war, peace, negotiation, and commerce, (says Mr. HAMILTON,) the few and the defined powers of the government are to operate.' But do they, my fellow-citizens, operate on these subjects, and these alone? look at the government as it has been administered since Mr. MONROE'S accession to the Presidency, and ask ourselves, if Congress has not been in the exercise of some of the most important of the numerous and undefined powers, which, according to this commentary, are reserved to the States? Has it not extended its power to the "internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the States? What are its roads and canals, but measures of internal improvement and prosperity of particular States? Are they called at Washington by any other names than " measures of internal improvement?" What are its tariffs? Are they measures of general interest to all the States; or are they schemes for employing capital to revive the languishing industry of particular States, and thus promoting the "internal prosperity of those States? And what will be the appropriations out of the National Treasury for the Colonization Society, when they shall be made, of which there can be no doubt? Will these appropriations be referred to the objects of "war, peace, negotiation, and commerce" Or do they naturally belong to the objects which concern the "internal order" and government of the black population of the United States, and the LIVES, liberties and properties" of the WHITE people of the Southern States?

To all such questions there is an easy answer. The above picture given us of the Constitution of the United States, as it was in 1787, when it was presented to, and accepted by the States, is precisely the reverse of that, which is now held up to us as the rule and guide for our conduct. It is for Congress that are now reserved, those " numerous and undefined powers which concern the lives, liberties, properties, and internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the States;" and to the sovereign individual States, belong the few and the defined powers of legislating on all subjects of ordinary interest, as long as such legislation shall not clash or interfere with any act or measure which Congress shall, at its discretion, deem as a means most immediately, or, most remotely, connected with the regulation of commerce, or the promotion of the general welfare of the United States.

And is this state of things to continue? Are the great and vital interests of sovereign States to be in danger of being swept from their foundations by the furious tempests of construction and implication, without one single effort to save them? Let us hope not ?— Let us believe that when our citizens shall see the subject in its true light, and shall test the meaning of the Constitution, by the plain rules of common sense, and call to their aid all the circumstances which are connected with the rise, progress and perfection of the Federal Constitution, they will see at a glance, that the government of the Union, is a government for defence and commerce, and that it has no power to promote this or that particular interest, or regulate this or that branch of domestic industry, or to legislate on any sub

ject whatever, in which every State has not an immediate and a direct interest. It is a government instituted expressly to do that, to which each State is separately incompetent, to wit, the regulation of trade with foreign nations and between themselves, for their mutual benefit, and to the defence of all the States against a common enemy. This being the legitimate end of the government, any act passed by Congress, which is not naturally connected with the defence of the country, or the regulation of its trade, beneficially for every part of the Union, is (with one or two trifling exceptions, provided for by the Constitution) an usurped power. But Congress is not at liberty, arbitrarily to assume, as a pretext for exercising any par ticular power, that it is a means adapted to the proposed end of the government. If the connection between the means and the end, be not a real and a natural connection, it is still an usurpation. It is conceded on all hands, in and out of Congress, that the Federal Government is a government of limited powers, and that "every sovereign power not delegated, is retained by the States or the people." It results then, that before Congress can ex-, ercise any great substantive powers, it must place its finger upon that clause of the act of enumerated powers, which clearly confers the grant of power contended for, or it must shew, that the particular power claimed as incidental, is a mean so necessarily and so properly adapted to the end, for which the sovereign power was given, that without its exercise, the grant itself would be nugatory and void. If it cannot do the one, or the other, usurps the power

it

I am sensible that this is not the doctrine of the Supreme Court of the United States. But I hope, in its proper place, to support this opinion, and to shew that it is the doctrine of plain sense; and moreover, that this was the sense of those who framed the Constitution, and of those who accepted it from the hands of the Convention. If I can satisfy my fellowcitizens, as to the true and unequivocal intent of that instrument in 1787. ny purpose will be answered, for the meaning of the people of these States, as collected from the proceedings of the Convention, must, and will prevail, over the sophistry and ingennity of the Bar, or the metaphysical learning of the Bench, and particularly when vital interests are at stake.

Where can Congress look for the power to construct national roads and canals, and to impose upon the Agriculturists of the South perpetual tribute and extortion. If we look to the enumeration of power, as set forth in the Constitution, we look in vain for powers of such magnitude. The power to tax indefinitely being first given, there is not one of the seventeen enumerated powers, with the exception of that which gives Congress jurisdiction over the District of Columbia, and that of the power to give patents and copy rights, which does not relate either to commerce or defence; thus confirming my position, that it is a government for External objects alone. Looking at this list of specified powers, it is preposterous to say, that in any other wants, than the necessity of a Federal head to regulate our commerce, and a Federal arm to defend us in time of war, did the present government originate. It is absurd to say, that the people ever did want, or ever can want a general government for any other purposes. These are the only wants common to all the people of the United States: In Commerce, we are all equally interested, and we all stand in need of defence. But on every other subject, be that subject what it may,

the wants, the feelings, and the interests of the people of the United States are substantially opposite and dissimilar, and to the end of time, in all pro bability, they will remain so. To have entrusted Congress, therefore, with a power to legislate at its discretion, upon any subject, which it might conceive would promote the general welfare, excepting in the modes specified, would have been to confer on it a most tremendous power of legis lation such a legislation as never could be a safe or a just one in their hands. The Sages who penned the Constitution, were aware of this. They no doubt contemplated, that the legislation which might promote the interests of one section of the country, might operate to the injury of other States. They probably were aware, that the time would come, when the surplus capital of the Northern and Middle States might be profitably employed in Manufactures, and that if there was not a limitation to the power of Congress, the people of those States, who would, in time, constitute a great majority, would promote their local interests at the expense and the ruin of the Southern States, the people of which had no interest but that of Agriculture and Commerce. To guard therefore against any species of legislation, in which all the people had not an undivided interest, was their care; and it is impossible to look at their work, (the Constitution of the United States,) without being struck with the circumspection, with which power is dispensed from the States, and from the people, to their rulers, and without perceiving with what a free and liberal spirit, they dispense every power necessary to defence and commerce, and withholding, at the same time, every thing else. And yet this government, whose limits of power are so plainly marked, and so precisely defined, that he who runs may read them, is now in the exercise of some of the greatest powers that belong to a Sovereign unrestricted in his views, and unlimited in his will.

What power, I ask, can be more substantive, primary, or paramount, than the power to construct national roads and canals. If to cut up the country in every direction, by works of this nature, is not to claim sovereign dominion in the States, I know not what is meant by dominion. Can' a power which involves jurisdiction over the territory and soil of our citizens, be claimed as incidental to, or as derivative from enumerated powers, none of which are greater than the power in question? What power again, indicates more complete sovereignty, than that, by which, at the will of the Sovereign, the paramount interests of one part of an Empire, can be prostrated, in order that extensive immunities and monopolies should be conferred on particular classes? Can it be possible, that the same body of men, who seriously and soberly thought, that a specific grant of power was necessary to enable Congress to exercise jurisdiction over its forts, magazines and dock yards, could intend to give them the unlimit ed jurisdiction which the opening of roads and digging canals naturally confers on those who have the power to construct them? Can it be true, that the same body of men, who believed, that Congress could not " promote the progress of science and the useful arts" by a patent or a copy right, unless there was an express grant for that purpose ever contemplated, that they should promote the progress of manufactures, which rank foremost amongst the "useful arts?" Did these men ever dream of Congress having its committees on the useful arts, its committees on agriculture, and on manufactures, or that it would contemplate a colony on the