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pendence and individual Sovereignty" of each State, since it could not "retain" what did not belong to it.

5. There is not a syllable nor a hint anywhere in the Declaration of Independence that it was intended to merge the peoples of thirteen free, sovereign and independent States into a Nation; nor was there any assumption of sovereign powers by the Continental Congress, since the delegation from each Colony was empowered by its Colony to exercise all the powers necessary and proper for the conduct of the war and foreign intercourse. And in the Articles of Confederation the second Article, quoted above, is so absolutely inconsistent with the theory of the consolidationists, that they hardly deserve a respectful refutation.'

6. The answer to Mr. Webster by Mr. Calhoun, and the complete overthrow of his political doctrine, by quoting his own former utterances (always scrupulously ignored and excluded by Northern compilers of school readers, speakers, Union text-books, etc.), may profitably be imitated here. In June, 1851, Mr. Webster delivered an address at Capon Springs, Va., in which he said:

"I have not hesitated to say, and I repeat, that, if the Northern States refuse, willfully and deliberately, to carry into effect that part of the Constitution which respects the restoration of fugitive slaves, and Congress provide no remedy, the South would no longer be bound

'One of the most glaring non-sequiturs in all the writings of the consolidationists occurs on page 525 of Bancroft's fourth volume, as follows: "On the 24th (June) Congress 'resolved that all persons abiding within any of the united Colonies, and deriving protection from its laws, owe allegiance to the said laws, and are members of such Colony'; and it charged the guilt of treason upon all members of any of the united Colonies who should be adherent to the King of Great Britain. giving to him aid and comfort.' The fellow

to observe the compact. A bargain can not be broken on one side, and still bind the other side."1

Mr. Calhoun's quotations from Mr. Webster's former speeches, and this subsequent utterance at Capon Springs indicate a temporary confusion of thought in 1833, in the midst of the dangers to the Union which protection to New England's manufacturers had caused.

But even if there were no reason to charge Mr. Webster with inconsistency, he is not supported by the evidence he adduces; on the contrary, it is against him. "The people of the United States" in the ratifying ordinances of New Hampshire and Massachusetts, to which he refers, meant the people of the thirteen free, sovereign, independent, and separate States, each State having retained its "sovereignty, freedom and independence" in the Union. Such were "the people of the United States" at that time, and it was a remarkable distortion of the import of the phrase to make it equivalent to "one people" or Nation."

His appeal to the "We, the people" in the preamble of the Constitution is as unavailing as that to the ordinances of New Hampshire and Massachusetts; it indicates an inexcusably superficial examination of the provisions of the Constitution. Whenever nine States ratified the Constitution, it was to be a "Constitution between"-not for, or of, or among-" the States "-not people "so ratifying the same.”

Even this little preposition between," which is a compound of the old preposition be, which signifies at, in, or by, and the numeral adjective tween, which signifies twain, twin, or two, not only disposes of the "one

subjects of one king became fellow-lieges of one republic. They all had one law of citizenship and one law of treason."

'Curtis's Life of Webster, Volume II, pages 518-519.

See Note F.

people" doctrine; but it clearly demonstrates that the compact was between two parties, each State being one of them and its co-States the other. If this is untrue, the statesmen of 1787 were ignorant of the meaning of between.1

Thus it is beyond question that, if we are guided by the accepted definitions of words, the recognized canons of interpretation of language, and the recorded acts of deliberative bodies, there is not even a shadow of a foundation for the contention that the peoples of the several States were ever consolidated into a Nation, or "one people"; and it is among the marvels of this century that any intelligent man could derive such a doctrine from the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, or the Constitution. And the marvel grows when we find this absurd definition of "State" in all the editions of Webster's Dictionary published since 1864: "In the United States one of the Commonwealths or bodies politic, the people of which make up the body of the Nation, and which, under the National Constitution, stand in certain specified relations with the National Government, and are invested, as Commonwealths, with full power in their several spheres, over all matters not expressly inhibited."

2

The consolidationists at an early date (Mr. Webster, e. g., at the laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, on June 17, 1825) substituted "over" for "between," and to-day very few people have the courage to deny that the Government is "over" the States.

2 This word "commonwealth" was substituted by the Puritans of England for "kingdom," being the English equivalent for the Latin Respublica; and the change was made because there was a change in the source of political power, the freedom, sovereignty and independence of England not being affected. Thence it was imported into these Colonies in 1776, and adopted by some of them. It was a specific title, while "State" was general; but both, in political nomenclature, implied nothing less than absolute autonomy.

NOTE F.

66

The flag of the United States preserves the truth as to the "one people" doctrine. On June 14, 1777, the Congress which submitted the Articles to the States, passed this resolution: 'That the flag of the thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white, with thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation." Afterwards the stars in the "new constellation" were increased as new States were added to the Union, the first act of the Congress providing for such increase being passed April 4, 1818.

It was a union of separate and sovereign States, bound together by the ties of mutual interest and for mutual defense, the same ties which bound them under the Articles and under the Constitution. Such was the significance of the flag in the beginning, and nothing has happened since to impart any other significance to it. If this is not true, the stars should have been long ago removed from it and the population of the "Naticn" substituted for them, the thirteen stripes remaining to remind us of the time when the United States "were."

CHAPTER V.

NEW ENGLAND'S SHIPPING INTERESTS.

"It was easy to foresee, what we know also to have happened, that the first great cause of collision and jealousy would be, under the notion of political economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an attempt on the part of the mother country to monopolize the trade of the Colonies.

* *

"The second century opened upon New England under circumstances which evinced that much had already been accomplished.

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The commercial character of the country, notwithstanding all discouragements, had begun to display itself, and five hundred vessels, then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in relation to commerce, thus early at the head of the Colonies."---Webster's Plymouth Address, December 22, 1820.

Having brought the record of events up to the formation of the new government, we need to be somewhat familiar with the different interests of the different sections of the Union, which could be benefited or injured by Congressional legislation. We begin with New England's shipping interests, because they were among the first to ask for special favors, and to sow the seeds of that sectional conflict which produced the war between the Northern and the Southern States.

The people who came over and settled in Massachusetts in 1620-23, had spent from eleven to fifteen years in Leyden, the oldest city in Holland, containing at that time about one hundred thousand inhabitants, engaged in manufacturing, ship-building, foreign commerce, and domestic trade.

The historians tell us that: "At the end of the sixteenth century, the Dutch gained the possession of the

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