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RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENSHIP

RESPONSIBILITY OF CITIZENSHIP

N 1787, the delegates selected by the people of the various American states assembled in general convention at the city of Philadelphia and prepared a plan of government which they submitted to the people for ratification. After a period of heated discussion, the proposed constitution was finally ratified and formally adopted by the free voice of the people of the original thirteen states, and the American nation was born.

The Federal Constitution is a body of definite powers specifically delegated by the people, creating a form of government, national in its scope, and, to the extent of its powers, absolute and supreme. All power residing in the sovereignty of the people, not delegated to the Federal government, was distinctly retained and reserved by them.

For its life and preservation, the Federal Government rests upon the expressed will of the citizens of the United States. The people alone have the right to change or to abolish it, a right they may exercise at any time in the way provided by the Federal Constitution.

The State constitutions and all laws, in like manner, exist through the wishes of the people of the several States, and, within the expressed limits prescribed by the Federal Constitution, may be changed or repealed at the peoples' will.

The basis, therefore, upon which the Federal Government, State constitutions, and all laws rest is the wish and desire of the American people.

Regarding this wish and desire, called "public opinion," Hon. James Bryce has said:

"Public opinion has really been the chief and ultimate power in nearly all nations at nearly all times.

"The difference between despotically-governed and free countries does not exist in the fact that the latter are ruled by opinion and the former by force, for both are generally ruled by opinion. It consists rather in this, that in the former the people instinctively obey a power which they do not know to be really of their own creation, and to stand by their own permission, whereas in the latter the people feel their supremacy, and consciously treat their rulers as their agents; while the rulers obey a power which they admit to have made and to be able to unmake them-the popular will.

"Towering over Presidents and State Governors, over Congress and State Legislatures, over conventions and the vast machinery of party, public opinion stands out, in the United States, as the great source of power, the master of servants who tremble before it."

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1 Am. Commonwealth, 2 ed. Rev. vol. ii., pp. 247, 249, 255.

Public opinion is "the judgment of a self-conscious community upon any subject of general interest."I It is not, however, "the arithmetical sum of the opinions of the individuals who compose the society," but "many opinions mutually modify each other, and result in a common conviction which may differ in some degree from that of each person involved."

Public opinion may be likened to a composite portrait, made by the printing, one over another, of photographic negatives of different persons, resulting in a portrait which is easily distinguishable from any of the likenesses which helped to form it, but in which each one has exercised a material influence. It may also be likened to the music of an orchestra, made up, as it is, of divergent but related sounds. Each instrument directly affects the music of the orchestra by its tone and volume; the larger the orchestra, the less effect the individual instrument may exert, but that each instrument contributes to the resultant sounds is beyond question.

Public opinion, the social orchestral music, the composite photograph of the co-operative individuals composing the society, is the omnipotent American sovereign, to whose voice all listen and to whose commands all submit.

1 Sociology, by Prof. Giddings, p. 138.

• Introduction to the Study of Society, by Small & Vincent, p. 307.

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