preamble yet remains the key to the whole instrument. It is more appropriate than it was before a single amendment was made.

We agree that these objects are to be attained by the elec tion of senators and representatives to Congress in the mode prescribed in the Constitution, and at the times and places and in the manner fixed by the States, unless the regulations be modified by Congress; in choosing a President upon the basis of representative numbers; in organizing and maintaining judicial tribunals, and conferring upon them all the jurisdiction contemplated by the Constitution as it was, and by the amendments intended to secure the personal and political rights of every citizen.

As the government is one of limited powers, the manner of their exercise has been, and always must be, questions about which patriots may differ.

It is a notable fact that in the history of the country the interposition of the executive veto has been so rare as always to attract attention, and when the occasions have been of moment the people have generally decided at the polls in favor of right. So of all the laws ever passed by Congress, only half a dozen of them have been held by the Supreme Court of the United States to be unconstitutional. And when these decisions have not been in harmony with the judgment of the nation, they have hardly had the practical force of precedents. In no nation in the world has there ever been such an array of legal mind, or such modes of constant judicial enlightenment. In a complex government, where there are thirty-eight, and soon must be fifty, appellate expounders of the Constitution, besides the hosts of publicists, reviewers, and barristers necessary to carry on such a machinery, absurd and untenable precedents can maintain no permanent hold. Courts may not bow to the popular will; but they can never withstand the just criticism of a nation of lawyers. So the great power of impeachment, although several times attempted, has only twice

succeeded. We are thus taught that these extraordinary powers of one department of the government over the hasty or corrupt action of another are fraught with no danger, since, with them, the independent action of legislative, executive, and judicial functions can be harmoniously preserved, and all are alike responsible to the great alembic of popular judgment. The enumeration of powers and familiar precedents force all to admit that the national government has the right to collect national taxes, duties, imposts, excises, and postage; to regnlate commerce; to coin money, and regulate the value thereof; to pass uniform rules of naturalization and bankruptcy; to levy war; keep armies and navies; to make treaties and national compacts; to send ambassadors abroad; to purchase, conquer, and annex states, and thus enlarge the area of freedom; to suppress insurrection and rebellion; to fulfill the guaranties to the States of full faith and credit to judicial proceedings; the rendition of fugitives; republican form of government; the organization and supervision of Territorial governments, or "inchoate States;" the exclusive control over the Federal district, forts and arsenals; all matters of admiralty; the punishment of piracies and felonies upon the high seas; and now to protect the citizens, not only against foreign oppression, but against the encroachments of their own State gov ernments and of one another; and that the National government and the States are restricted from passing bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, creating titles of nobility, establishing religion, or preventing the free exercise thereof; abridging the freedom of speech, of the press, or the right of petition; instituting domiciliary visits; abolishing grand juries and jury trial for the citizen not connected with the military service; invading life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or in any matter violating the most enlarged principles of republican government.

These are the great cardinal features of the government, and there are others of lesser moment, restricting direct tax

ation to representative numbers, forbidding export duties and other matters, of detail and security against Federal legislation, and which prohibit the States from the exercise of national powers and making compacts with sister Statesgrants and restrictions which have not been increased or diminished by the amendments. And these very amendments have demonstrated what our fathers learned in the early days of the Republic, that if evils, real or supposed, exist, the charter itself has provided a peaceful mode of incorporating new provisions or abolishing old ones. And that fourscore years have elapsed, and only fifteen amendments, mostly declaratory, have been incorporated, is encouraging proof, that none will be rashly made.

There is one feature in the history of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments which might have assumed a serious form, but which fortunately, under the mighty influence of popular sentiment, we have escaped. I allude to the fact that after the amendments had been "ratified by the legislatures" of several of the States, but before the necessary "three-fourths" had spoken, legislatures subsequently elected passed resolutions recalling these ratifications. Here is a great question of power. The word ratify occurs but twice in the instrument, once as to the mode of amendment, and once as to the "ratification" of the original instrument by nine States. As to the latter, the nine might thus agree upon a government for themselves to the exclusion of those refusing their concurrence. But as to amendments three-fourths may ratify for themselves and for those refusing. Without any reference to the political aspect. of the controversy, it has always seemed to me that the derivation of the word and the reason and spirit of the article lead to the conclusion, that whenever a convention, as in the original case, or a legislature, as in the fifteen others, had ratified the whole instrument or an amendment, it agreed that so soon as the appropriate number should do likewise, the whole or the amendment should be binding; and that the force of the con

sent could not be dependent upon the subsequent will of the ratifying State, but upon the wills of the other States which might follow, indeed might have been induced to follow those very States which attempt to revoke their ratifications. The foundations of government are too deep, and the superstructure of too mighty weight to be the subjects of annual caprice. I have carefully examined the subtle arguments to the contrary. They seem to me to be kindred to that theory which has cost rivers of blood and mountains of debt, the monstrous assumption that a State might, at any time and for any cause, withdraw its ratification of the Constitution ard set up as an independent nation.

Our Constitution rests upon no false notions about the preceding sovereign character of the States. They are bound by the surrenders to the extent of the expressed and clearly implied powers. And every covenant, including the right to amend in the mode provided, is one in which every citizen, as a citizen, as well as every corporation as such, has a deep and abiding interest; and terms of such covenant can only be peacefully changed in the manner provided in the instru

ment.

We of Texas have little right to misunderstand what we surrendered. We were a constitutional republic. We had a flag and seal; a national existence; army and navy; foreign treaties; the right to coin money, and to do every thing which an independent nation may do. But by the act of annexation. we saw our lone star move away and become the largest, if not the brightest, in the national galaxy. We knew and we felt that we were a nation no more; but only one thirtieth part of a great and mighty Republic. An effort to snatch the old star from the constellation has not hurt it, but greatly humbled those who so grossly mistook the theory of government. Conquered, punished, and humiliated, that State, so fruitful of useful revolutionary precedents, is to-day asking readmittance to the full fellowship of our national fraternity. We return

wiser if not better men, and we return to stay and grow as we did during our first decade in the Union, to increase threefold in ten years, and to become the great theater for new improvements, and the field for young and vigorous growth.

The history of the last ten years has "written and lead in the rock forever" that an appeal to force, as a redress of temporary evils, or as a security for apprehended dangers, arouses the nation to a sense of the value of the compact, and more firmly binds us in the bonds of union. Therefore, there is no reason to despair of the Republic, so long as the true philosophy is understood, that our Constitution is ordained by the people and for the people, and that all magistrates are but the servants of the people, directly responsible to them. It should be the mission of every patriot, as far as in him lies, to teach the people the true principles of the Constitution; to enlighten them as to their rights and responsibilities as citizens, and to shield them against wrong.

To its study I have given much of my life. My permanent reproductions have been few, and only in the form of collecting definitions, arranging references and facts, and so systematizing the whole as to arrest the attention of students, and make easy the thorough mastery of the great principles which underlie our government. If my researches shall have aroused the attention of a few thoughtful minds, I shall felicitate myself in the belief that my time has not been misspent. And could I select my own niche in the temple of fame, I would prefer to be remembered as the writer who had been most successful in making easy the study of the charter of our liberties. If this Academy shall give a part of its influence to the philosophical teachings of the Constitution, and in demonstrating how in its thirtieth decade it can be the bond of union for more thousands of millions of souls than milhions at the commencement, future ages will have reason to bless our labors.