There are no signs of it. And wealth is quite able to protect itself by its intelligence and the power of money. Meantime, Europe is willing that universal suffrage be considered an American institution and that America be held accountable for it, and America does not hesitate to accept that responsibility.

(4) A Division of Sovereign Powers into Federal and State. Sovereign powers according to the European idea were indivisible. The power over internal affairs was considered inextricably bound up with power of war and peace and foreign relations. Professor Van Tyne says that Lord Mansfield in the House of Lords made an argument described as "so full, so learned, so logical, and in every respect so true that not an atom of doubt remained in the breasts of his hearers," proved by a "multitude of examples," that it was impossible to suppose two supreme legislatures and "impracticable to draw a line for bounding the authority of the British legislature." Mansfield was a great judge and jurist but not a great statesman. He lived long enough to see the Americans boldly do exactly that which he had declared impossible, namely, divide sovereign powers between Congress and the States. The Constitution gave part of sovereign powers to the new nation; the other part to remain with the separate States, each State by itself. The fact that sovereignty itself resides in the people in an American sense enables them to divide the sovereign powers between Nation and State and to change the distribution from time to time by amendment. This division of sovereign powers was something new in the world. It was and is distinctively an American institution not English or French or German, medieval or ancient, but American. Cooley says: "In American constitutional law a peculiar system is established; the powers of sovereignty being classified, and some of them apportioned to the government of the United States for its exercise, while others are left with the States. Under this apportionment the nation is possessed of supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power in respect to certain

subjects throughout all the States, while the States have the like unqualified power, within their respective limits, in respect to other subjects."1 All this was an experiment in government and so far has proved successful in the United States, although it took four years of civil war to establish it. That war succeeded because the armies of the North marched to battle with a crusader's faith that they were right—a right demonstrated by Webster in his argument with Hayne. Some recent professorial historians say that Hayne was right and Webster wrong, and that the meaning of the Constitution was changed by the march of events. The lawyers know better. "We, the people" are not "We, the States," and the powers of the federal government are not dependent on the will of particular States. Not a line of the Constitution justifies withdrawal or change except by amendment. Sovereignty is with the whole people and they parceled out powers between the States and the federal government. Once granted, no minority could withdraw or judge of what powers had been given. The Constitution created a nation with irrevocable powers unless revoked by amendment. If the framers of the Constitution and those who ratified it had believed it could be nullified by any State, it would never have been ratified at all. If it had been understood or assumed that a State might withdraw, that fact would have appeared in the arguments of the day. In fact, New York State in its convention at first proposed to reserve the right to withdraw from the Constitution, but Hamilton pointed out that if they accepted the Constitution at all, it was accepted forever. Hamilton told them, "The constitution requires an adoption in toto and forever. It has been so adopted by the other states." 2 The Kentucky Resolutions and the Hartford Convention were an afterthought. Calhoun many years later claimed that a State could decide whether the Government had exceeded its powers and could nullify any excess. Marshall replied that the Supreme Court alone was to decide such a question. Jefferson Davis claimed that the States

having voluntarily formed the Union, any one of them might withdraw, in other words, secede. Abraham Lincoln replied that the Union has the right of self-preservation and is as indestructible as the States. Argument failed. The one weak spot in the Constitution was submitted to the arbitrament of war and the federal idea prevailed.

This American federal idea differs from the federal idea in Europe.

Greece gave to the world the idea of a free, independent city, ruled by its own people. That was a priceless gift. But Greek cities never could combine into a permanent federal union and so they perished by the arms of Philip of Macedon at Charoneia in 338 B.C. Grote points out as to the Greeks "that in respect to political sovereignty, complete disunion was among their most cherished principles. The only source of supreme authority to which a Greek felt respect and attachment was to be sought within the walls of his own city. Political disunion — sovereign authority within the city walls—thus formed a settled maxim in the Greek mind."1

Rome originated the idea of a federal government, but Rome went only part way. The Roman republic conquered many nations and, in fact, practically all the conquests were by the republic and not by the later Roman Empire. Rome gave to the conquered hations Roman laws and the protection of Roman arms, and in return collected tribute. Rome originated and adopted the fixed policy of allowing its subject nations to continue their own religion and laws, except so far as they conflicted with Roman policy. Rome always retained the power, however, of changing the laws of the subject nations and herein it fell short of a complete federal idea. The result was that in the conflict of factions in Rome itself, the Roman Governors (proconsuls) of the subject nations were almost independent and waged wars on their own account, and levied taxes and kept the proceeds, subject to the risk of impeachment at Rome if they went too far.

There was chaos, and if the Cæsars had not succeeded, the civilized world would probably have crumbled to pieces and civilization itself been put back for centuries. The Roman federal idea lacked the self-preserving and self-recuperating element of local self-government, free from control of the central government, and nothing but despotic power held the Empire together for five hundred years after the termination of the republic.

"Those who form

and they are the

Taylor, a late English writer, well says, their political views upon a priori grounds great majority—resent the very fact of the Roman Empire as a kind of monstrous creation, occupying a valuable site which would otherwise have been devoted to the erection of a noble political structure capable of giving the blessings of constitutional government to the whole world. There could be no greater delusion. The choice of the Romans was not between an improved republic and a degraded empire, but between an empire or no government at all. The ancient self-control had gone. Political passions and degraded appetites had broken loose which could never again be enchained by voluntary republican forms. Since liberty had failed, there was nothing left but to try repression: the only alternatives were absolute monarchy or ruin. To protest against a form of government which supplied that quality for lack of which the republic failed, namely, an efficient form of political control, is an idle and perverse judgment sustained for the most part by a deliberate determination to ignore the facts." 1

England at first adopted the Roman federal idea and its faults. English colonies and conquered countries were administered for profit by the control of their exports, imports, and manufactures, and that led to the loss of the American colonies, and would have led to the loss of Canada if that policy had not been changed in 1840. Since then, England has practically adopted the full federal idea of local self-government, free from the interference of Parliament.

The United States in its Constitution of 1787 carried the federal idea to its logical conclusion by boldly dividing sovereign powers between the federal government and the States. Single sovereignty of the people became a dual sovereignty of the people. For instance, the people of New York State are sovereign as to their own State affairs; they share with all other people of the United States the sovereignty as to national affairs; they have nothing to do with the sovereignty of the people of another State as to that State's affairs.

Not only are the sovereign powers, which constituted the oldtime state, divided in America between the federal government and the States, but in some instances a single power is divided; as, for instance, the power of taxation and the power over commerce. In the division of the sovereign power over commerce between the federal government and the States, the federal government is given power over interstate and international commerce, while the States retain power over intrastate commerce. Books have been written on this subject alone, and the subject has tested the resources of the bar and bench for over a hundred years.

This bewildering maze and labyrinth of constitutional law is something new in the world. It has supplanted the divine right of kings. It has arisen from the American dual sovereignty and is the guardian of that dual sovereignty. It has piloted the two ships of state, state and federal; otherwise they would have collided and sunk.

The Achæan League in Greece, the Confederation of Switzerland, and the Confederation of Holland, all had the germ of federalism, but it remained for America to apply it on a continental scale in the making of a great nation. As Sidgwick says: "Switzerland does not give the decisive model of federality; this is given by the United States of America." Sidgwick also says: "We have in North America an impressive example of a political society maintaining internal peace over a region larger