Page:Henry Adams' History of the United States Vol. 2.djvu/146

129 1803. LOUISIANA LEGISLATION. 129 but the view of American history thus suggested was peculiarly interesting. If the chief-justice and his as- sociate expressed correctly the opinions of the strict- constructionist school, the government had at some time been converted from a government of delegated powers into a sovereignty. Such was the belief of Campbell's political friends. Four years after the Dred Scott, decision was declared, the State of South Carolina, in Convention, issued an "Address to the People of the Slave-holding States," justifying its act of secession from the Union. " The one great evil," it declared, " from which all other evils have flowed, is the overthrow of the Consti- tution of the United States. * The government of the United States is no longer the government of confed- erated republics, but of a consolidated, democracy. It is no longer a free government, but a despotism." If the strict constructionists held this opinion, they necessarily believed that at some moment in the past the government must have changed its character. n L Th " ?nlf nrnnt irhi n h hm r l nn m i rr n fl i n ftmnr i rrm his- l^ — tory f" * ar K e * n fa p roportion, «" pfirniBTlg!!* J? ..*** V^t influpnrpj and so nnmnlatiivpi quits effects as to repre- ^^ q ent such a revolutio n _wag_ the Lo uisiana purchase ; .^ and if the Louisiana purchase was to be considered as having done what the Federalists expected it to do, — if it had made a new constitution and a govern- ment of sovereign powers, — the strict construction- ists were not only consenting parties to the change, they were its authors. VOL. II. — 9