Page:The American Democrat, James Fenimore Cooper, 1838.djvu/31

Rh of the states themselves, is positively restrained by the constitution of the United States.

Although the several states have conceded to the United States most of the higher attributes of sovereignty, they have reserved to themselves nearly all of the functions that render governments free, or otherwise. In declaring war, regulating commerce, keeping armies and navies, coining money, which are all high acts of sovereignty, despotisms and democracies are alike; all forms of governments equally controlling these interests, and usually in the same manner.

The characters of institutions depend on the repositories of power, in the last resort. In despotisms the monarch is this repository; in aristocracies, the few; in democracies, the many. By the constitution of the United States, its government is composed of different representations, which are chosen, more or less directly, by the constituencies of the several states. As there is no common rule for the construction of these constituencies, their narrowness, or width, must depend on the fundamental laws of the states, themselves. It follows that the federal government has no fixed character, so far as the nature of its constituency is concerned, but one that may constantly vary, and which has materially varied since the commencement of the government, though, as yet, its changes have always been in the direction of popular rights.

The only distinctive restriction imposed by the constitution of the United States on the character of the state governments, is that contained in article 4th, section 4th, clause 1st, which guaranties to each state a republican form of government. No monarchy, therefore, can exist in this country, as existed formerly, and now exists, in the confederation of Germany. But a republican form of government is not