leave it without any government whatever. The city would have no right of complaint to the Federal President or Congress against such a measure.

III. A State commands the allegiance of its citizens, and may punish them for treason against it. Allegiance to the State must be taken to be subordinate to allegiance to the Union. But allegiance to the State still exists; treason against the State is still possible.

These are illustrations of the doctrine that the American States were originally in a certain sense, and still for certain purposes remain, sovereign States. Each of the original thirteen became sovereign [in domestic affairs] when it revolted from the mother country in 1776. By entering the Confederation of 1781-'88 it parted with one or two of the attributes of sovereignty; by accepting the Federal Constitution in 1788 it subjected itself for certain specified purposes to a central government, but claimed to retain its sovereignty for all other purposes. That is to say, the authority of a State is an inherent, not a delegated, authority. It has all the powers which any independent government can have, except such as it can be affirmatively shown to have stripped itself of, while the Federal government has only such powers as it can be affirmatively shown to have received. To use the legal expression, the presumption is always for a State, and the burden of proof lies upon any one who denies its authority in a particular matter.

What State sovereignty means and includes is a question which incessantly engaged the most active legal and political minds of the nation, from 1789 down to 1870. Since the Civil War the term "State sovereignty" has been but seldom heard. Even "States' rights" have a different meaning from that which they had forty years ago.

What, then, do the rights of a State now include? Every right or power of a government except:

The right of secession (not abrogated in terms, but admitted since the war to be no longer claimable. It is expressly negatived in the recent constitutions of several Southern States).

Powers which the Constitution withholds from the States (including that of intercourse with foreign governments).

Powers which the Constitution expressly confers on the Federal government.

As respects some powers of the last class, however, the States may act concurrently with, or in default of action by, the Federal government. It is only from contravention of its action that they must abstain. And where contravention is alleged to exist, whether legislative or executive, it is by a court of law, and, in case the decision is in the first instance favorable to the pretentions of the State, ultimately by a Federal court, that the question fails to be decided.

A reference to the preceding list of what each State may create in the way of distinct institutions will show that these rights practically cover nearly all the ordinary relations of citizens to one another and to their government. An American may, through a long life, never be reminded of the Federal government, except when he votes at presidential and congressional elections.

Looking at this immense compass of State functions, Jefferson would seem to have been not far wrong when he said that the Federal government was nothing more than the American department of foreign affairs. But although the national government touches the direct interests of the citizens less than does the State government, it touches his senti

ment more. Hence the strength of his attachment to the former and his interest in it must not be measured by the frequency of his dealings with it. In the partitionment of governmental functions between nation and State, the State gets the most but the nation the highest, so the balance between the two is preserved. Thus every American citizen lives in a duality of which Europeans, always excepting Swiss, and to some extent the Germans, have no experience. He lives under two governments and two sets of laws; he is animated by two patriotisms and owes two allegiances. That these should both be strong and rarely be in conflict is most fortunate. It is the result of skillful adjustment and long habit, of the fact that those whose votes control the two sets of governments are the same persons, but above all of that harmony of each set of institutions with the other set, a harmony due to the identity of the principles whereon both are founded, which makes each appear necessary to the stability of the other, the States to the nation as its basis, the national government to the States as their protector.

CHAPTER II.

STATE CONSTITUTIONS

The government of each of the forty-five States is determined by and set forth in its Constitution, a comprehensive fundamental law, or rather group of laws included in one instrument, which has been directly enacted by the people of the State, and is capable of being repealed or altered, not by their representatives, but by themselves alone. As the Constitution of the United States stands above Congress and out of its reach, so the Constitution of each State stands above the legislature of that State, cannot be varied in any particular by Acts of the State

legislature, and involves the invalidity of any statute passed by the legislature which a court of law may find to be inconsistent with it.

The State Constitutions are the oldest things in the political history of America, for they are the continuations and representatives of the royal colonial charters, whereby the earliest English settlements in America were created, and under which their several local governments were established, subject to the authority of the English Crown, and ultimately of the British parliament. But, like most of the institutions under which English-speaking peoples now live, they have a pedigree which goes back to a time anterior to the discovery of America itself. It begins with the English Trade Guild of the Middle Ages, itself the child of still more ancient corporations, dating back to the days of imperial Rome, and formed under her imperishable law.

When, in 1776, the thirteen colonies threw off their allegiance to King George III., and declared themselves independent States, the colonial charter naturally became the State Constitution. In most cases it was remodeled, with large alterations, by the revolting colony. But in three States it was maintained unchanged, except, of course, so far as crown authority was concerned, viz., in Massachusetts till 1780, in Connecticut till 1818, and in Rhode Island till 1842. The other States admitted to the Union in addition to the original thirteen, have all entered it as organized self-governing communities, with their Constitutions already made by their respective peoples. Each Act of Congress which admits a new State admits it as a subsisting commonwealth, recognizing rather than affecting to sanction its Constitution. Congress may impose conditions which the State Constitution must fulfil. But the authority of the State Constitutions does not flow from Congress,

but from acceptance by the citizens of the States for which they are made.

The State Constitutions of America well deserve to be compared with those of the self-governing British colonies. But one remarkable difference must be noted here. The constitutions of British colonies have all proceeded from the Imperial Parliament of the United Kingdom, which retains its full legal power of legislating for every part of the British dominions. In many cases a colonial constitution provides that it may be itself altered by the colonial legislature, of course with the assent of the Crown; but inasmuch as in its origin it is a statutory constitution, not self-grown, but planted as a shoot by the Imperial Parliament at home, Parliament may always alter or abolish it. Congress, on the other hand, has no power to alter a State Constitution. And whatever power of alteration has been granted to a British colony is exercisable by the legislature of the colony, not, as in America, by the citizens at large.

The original Constitutions of the States, whether of the old thirteen or of the newer commonwealths, have been in nearly all cases, except the most recent, subsequently recast, in some instances five, six, or seven times, as well as amended in particular points.

The Constitutions of the revolutionary period were in a few instances enacted by the State legislature, acting as a body with plenary powers, but more usually by the people acting through a convention, i.e., a body especially chosen by the voters at large for the purpose, and invested with full powers, not only of drafting, but of adopting the instrument of government. But the usual practice in later times has been for the convention, elected by the voters, to submit, in accordance with the precedent set by Massachusetts in 1780, the draft Constitution framed by it