Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 27.djvu/71

 The Vindication of the Xmil,. 63

terms of the Constitution it was not to be effective until nine States should have ratified the same.

The adoption of the Constitution was not the act of the people of the whole country, but of each State, as only by the separate accep- tance of its terms by each State could it become binding upon her. The States were absolutely free to enter the new Union, or to retain their complete independence. Thus North Carolina and Rhode I>l.ind the latter not being even represented at the Philadelphia convention refused to enter. The Congress of the United States laid tariff duties upon imports from both of these Commonwealths, as in the case of other foreign States acts which were not repealed until they entered the Union.

CONSOLIDATED GOVERNMENT.

When Mr. Henrv, who was not a member of the Philadelphia con- vention, charged that the expression, " We, the people of the United States," in terms implied a consolidated government. Mr. Madi- son, the foremost architect of the Constitution, replied: " Who are the parties to it? (the Constitution). The people. But not the peo- ple as composing one great body, but the people as composing thir- teen sovereignties. Were it, as the gentlemen asserts, a consoli- dated government, the consent of a majority of the people would be sufficient for its establishment."

The bare recital of these facts would seem to demonstrate that in the formation of the Constitution, and the resulting Union, the States acted as separate sovereignties, and that the government thus cre- ated, was the result of a compact between them, and not the act of the people as a whole.

The powers of the Federal Government, therefore, were delegated and not inherent; and to ascertain them it is only necessary to search the Constitution, where those so delegated are enumerated.

In the conventions of Virginia and New York, the question was raised as to the relative rights and powers of the State and Federal governments, and in order to define more clearly the meaning of the Constitution, and to establish more firmly the rights 6f the States, the resolution of the Virginia convention, in adopting the Constitu- tion, uses this language:

VIRGINIA CONVENTION.

" We, the delegates of the people of Virginia, do in the name and behalf of the people of Virginia, declare and make known, that the