Page:Debates in the Several State Conventions, v4.djvu/462

446 my anxieties are much excited, I have had recourse to other sources for the true meaning of this Constitution. During the throes and spasms, as they have been termed, which convulsed this nation prior to the late presidential election, strong doubts were very strongly expressed whether the gentleman who now administers this government was attached to it as it is. Shortly after his election, the legislature of Rhode Island presented a congratulatory address which our chief magistrate considered as soliciting some declaration of his opinions of the Federal Constitution; and in his answer deeming it fit to give them, he said, "the Constitution shall be administered by me according to the safe and honest meaning contemplated by the plain understanding of the people at the time of its adoption—a meaning to be found in the explanations of those who advocated, not those who opposed it. These explanations are preserved in the publications of the time." To this high authority I appeal—to the honest meaning of the instrument, the plain understanding of its framers. I, like Mr. Jefferson, appeal to the opinions of those who were the friends of the Constitution at the time it was submitted to the states. Three of our most distinguished statesmen, who had much agency in framing this Constitution, finding that objections had been raised against its adoption, and that much of the hostility produced against it had resulted from a misunderstanding of some of its provisions, united in the patriotic work of explaining the true meaning of its framers. They published a series of papers, under the signature of Publius, which were afterwards republished in a book called the Federalist. This contemporaneous exposition is what Mr. Jefferson must have adverted to when he speaks of the publication of the time. From this very valuable work, for which we are indebted to Messrs. Hamilton, Madison, and King, I will take the liberty of reading some extracts, to which I solicit the attention of the committee. In the seventy eighth number we read, "Good behavior for the continuance in office of the judicial magistracy, is the most valuable of the modern improvements in the practice of government. In a republic, it is a barrier to the encroachments and oppressions of the representative body; and it is the best expedient that can be devised in any government to secure a steady, upright, and impartial administration of the laws. The judiciary, in a government where the departments of power are separate from each other, from the nature of its functions, will always be the least dangerous to the political rights of the Constitution. It has no influence over the sword or the purse, and may be truly said to have neither force nor will, but merely judgment. The complete independence of the courts of justice is essential in a limited constitution; one containing specified exceptions to the legislative authority; such as that it shall pass no ex post facto law, no bill of attainder, &c. Such limitations can be preserved in practice no other way than through the courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts manifestly contrary to the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges of the states or the people would amount to nothing. Where the will of the legislature, declared in its statutes, stands in opposition to that of the people, declared in the Constitution, the courts, designed to be an intermediate body between the people and the legislature, are to keep the latter within the limits assigned to their authority. The Convention acted wisely in establishing good behavior as the tenure of judicial offices. Their plan would have been inexcusably defective had it wanted this important feature of good government." The authority I have read proves to demonstration what was the intention