Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/84

 the declared will of many of the States, in the most simple and expeditions mode possible.

Again, these amendments are not donations, but reservations; exceptions out of a grant already made, the power of which grant, if not accompanied by such exceptions, it was apprehended, might, by some possibility, influence the subjects reserved. The only effect, then, which such reservations can have, is to preserve to the former possessors, the things reserved, and in their former plight. Moreover, these reservations are exceptions out of a grant of political powers: for the object of this Constitution, is to transfer such powers only. But if so, the reservations must refer to political powers also: for it would be very absurd, to save and reserve any thing from the action of other powers, in a grant that regards political powers alone. The reservations thus made by the States, in a grant of political power only, are exceptions out of such a grant, made by them to a corporate body created by each State and its co-States, which body is styled in the grant itself "the United States."

Even this is not all. In these two amendments, a marked distinction is drawn between Rights and Powers. The former are reserved to "the People" only; the latter "to the States respectively, or to the People." The reason of this is plain; in this country the People have two characters. In the first, they are regarded as mere individuals and subjects enjoying very many private rights: some of which, as men, they derive from their Creator, and as citizens they derive others from the very nature of the society of which they claim to be members. In the second character, they are regarded as the sovereigns of these subjects. In this character they constitute a body corporate and politic, all those rights (if they may be called such) are corporate rights: and therefore, are nothing else than corporate powers, which, when appertaining to any body, that is not only a body corporate, but a body politic too, at once become political powers. The People as individuals, have no political power, although they have many sacred natural and civil rights. The people as a body politic, or commonwealth, have no natural rights, although they have vast political power which they acquire either by their own force, or by their own consent. Right is eternal; it is an emanation of