Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/345

 CH. III.] citizen is not supposed to enter into the compact, as a sovereign with all the others as sovereign, retaining an independent and coequal authority to judge, and decide for himself. He has no authority reserved to institute new negotiations; or to suspend the operations of the constitution, or to compel the reference to a common arbiter; or to declare war against the community, to which he belongs.

§ 337. No such claim has ever (at least to our knowledge) been asserted by any jurist or statesman, in respect to any of our state constitutions. The understanding is general, if not universal, that, having been adopted by the majority of the people, the constitution of the state binds the whole community proprio vigore; and is unalterable, unless by the consent of the majority of the people, or at least of the qualified voters of the state, in the manner prescribed by the constitution, or otherwise provided for by the majority. No right exists, or is supposed to exist, on the part of any town, or county, or other organized body within the state, short of a majority of the whole people of the state, to alter, suspend, resist, or dissolve the operations of that constitution, or to withdraw themselves from its jurisdiction. Much less is the compact supposed liable to interruption, or suspension, or dissolution, at the will of any private citizen upon his own notion of its obligations, or of any infringements of them by the constituted authorities. The only redress for any such infringements, and the only guaranty of individual rights and property, are understood to consist in the peaceable appeal to the proper tribunals constituted by the government for such 39