Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/205

 power of a State. The very term, "representative," implies a superior in the individual or body represented. Fortunately for us, the people of the several colonies constituted, not a mere mass of individuals, without any organic arrangements to express their sovereign will, or carry it into effect. On the contrary, they constituted organized communities — in the full possession and constant exercise of the right of suffrage, under their colonial governments. Had they constituted a mere mass of individuals — without organization, and unaccustomed to the exercise of the right of suffrage, it would have been impossible to have prevented those internal convulsions, which almost ever attend the change of the seat of sovereignty — and which so frequently render the change rather a curse than a blessing. But in their situation, and under its circumstances, the change was made without the least convulsion, or the slightest disturbance. The mere will of the sovereign communities, aided by the remaining fragments — the popular branches of their several colonial governments, speedily ordained and established governments, each for itself; and thus passed, without anarchy — without a shock, from their dependent condition under the colonial governments, to that of independence under those established by their own authority.

Thus commenced the division between the constitution-making and the law-making powers — between the power which ordains and establishes the fundamental laws — which creates, organizes and invests government with its authority, and subjects it