JAMES MONROE.

MONROE, JAMES, fifth President of the United States; born in Westmoreland County, Va., April 28, 1758; died in New York, July 4, 1831. In 1776, when he was a student at William and Mary College, he entered the revolutionary army as a cadet, was present at several battles in the North, and rose to the rank of major. After the close of the war he was about to commence the study of law with Thomas Jefferson, but was called into public service, which was commenced in 1782 by his election to the Assembly of Virginia; and to Congress in the following year. Of his distinguished civil career it is not necessary to speak at length. It began in his twenty-third year, and continued without interruption until 1825, when, at the age of sixty-seven, he retired from the presidency, having served for two terms. With the exception of Washington, he is the only President who has been elected by anything like a unanimous vote of the presidential electors. During this whole period he was in the continuous service of his own State or of the nation. He was twice Governor of Virginia, twice envoy to France, Secretary of State and of War, and twice President. During his later years he employed himself much in writing, and his manuscripts were purchased by order of Congress, but no further disposition was made of them. He left a small work entitled "The People the Sovereigns," which remained in manuscript until 1867, when it was published, with a brief "Memoir," by his grandson, Samuel L. Gouverneur.

SOVEREIGNTY AND GOVERNMENT.

THE terms "sovereignty" and "government" have generally been considered as synonymous. Most writers on the subject have used them in that sense. To us, however, they convey very different ideas. The powers may be separated and placed in different hands; and it is the faculty of making that separation, which is enjoyed by one class of governments alone, which secures to it many of the advantages which it holds over all others. This separation may take place in the class in which

the sovereign power is vested in the people. It cannot in that which it is vested in an individual, or a few; nor can it in that which is mixed, or compounded of the two principles.

The sovereign power, wherever vested, is the highest in the state, and must always remain so. If vested in an individual, or a few, there is no other order in the state. The same may

be said of those governments which are founded on the opposite principle. If the people possess the sovereignty, the king and nobility are no more. A king without power is an absurdity. Dethroned kings generally leave the country, as do their descendants. Whatever the sovereign power may perform at one time, it may modify or revoke at another. There is no check in the government to prevent it. In those instances in which it is vested in an individual or a few, the government and the sovereignty are the same. They are both held by the same person or persons. The sovereign constitutes the government, and it is impossible to separate it from him without a revolution. Create a body in such a government with competent authority to make laws, treaties, etc., without reference to the party from whom it was derived and the government is changed. Such agents must be the instruments of those who appoint them, and their acts be obligatory only after they are seen and approved by their masters, or the government is no more.

In mixed governments, in which there are two or more orders, each participating in the sovereignty, the principle is the same. Neither can the king nor the nobility in such governments create a power, with competent authority, to rule distinct with themselves. In these governments the sovereignty is divided between the orders, and each must take care of its own rights, which the privileged orders cannot do if their powers should be transferred from them. The government is divided between the orders in like manner, each holding the station belonging to it, and performing its appropriate duties. They therefore constitute the government. It follows as a necessary consequence that sovereign power and government even in the governments of this class, are the same, and that they cannot be separated from each other.

It is only in governments in which the people possess the Sovereignty that the two powers can be placed in distinct bodies; nor can they in them otherwise than by the institution of a government by compact to which all the people are parties, and in which those who fill its various departments and

offices are made their representatives and servants. In those instances the sovereignty is distinct from the government, because the people who hold the one are distinct from their representatives, who hold and perform the duties of the other. One is the power which creates; the other is the subject which is created. One is always the same; the other may be modified at the will of those who made it. Thus the Constitution becomes the paramount law, and every act of the government, and of every department in it, repugnant thereto, is void.

ORIGIN OF GOVERNMENT.

THE origin of government has been traced by different writers to four sources: divine right, paternal authority, election, and force. I trace it to two only, election and force; and believe that it has originated sometimes in the one and sometimes in the other, according to the state of society at the time, and the number of which it was composed. I think that this proposition admits of a clear and satisfactory demonstration. Before, however, I attempt it, it will be useful to take a brief notice of the other sources; especially as it is to them that the advocates of despotism and hereditary right have traced it. . . .

Divine and paternal right appear to me to rest on the same basis, although they have not been so understood by the writers who have traced governments to these sources. If divine, the claimant or pretender must prove his title by some miracle or other incontestable evidence, or it must commence with the parent; and, beginning with him, be subject to all the views applicable to that title. They must either accord, or be in opposition to each other. No advocate of either places them in opposition; and, if they accord, it must be by meaning the same thing under different names. So absurd are both pretensions that I should not even notice them, if they had not gained such weight as to form an important feature in the works of distinguished and able writers on the subject of government; and if I did not wish also, in this elementary sketch, to simplify the subject by getting rid of all such absurd doctrines. . . .

In tracing regal power to the paternal source, we trace it to a single pair, from whom the whole community must have descended; for otherwise the origin could not have been paternal.

If this be the source of power, it must have commenced with the human race, and, admitting the authority of the Mosaic account, with our first parents; and, to preserve the succession, have descended in the right line to the oldest son from generation to generation, to the present day. If the right ever existed, it must have commenced at that epoch and still exist, without limitation as to time, generation, population, or its dispersion over the earth. A limitation of the right in either of these respects would be subversive of it. To what term confine it? Through how many generations must it pass? To what number of persons, or extent of territory, carry it. How dispose of it, after those conditions should have been fulfilled. The mere admission that such limitations were prescribed, would be to admit that the right never existed. And, if not limited, it would follow that one man would now be the sovereign or lord of all the inhabited globe: than which nothing can be more absurd. . . .

Do any of the sovereigns of the present day trace their titles to Adam, or to any other first parent? or would they be willing to rest on that ground? We know that they would not; and if they did, that it would fail, since the commencement of all the existing dynasties may be traced to other sources; to causes such as operated at the moment of their derivation, and varied in different countries. Does any community, in Europe, or elsewhere, trace its origin to a single pair, unless it be to our first parents, and which is common to the human race? We know that except in their instance, and at the creation of mankind, societies have never commenced in that form; and that such have been the revolutions in every part of the globe, that no existing race or community can trace its connection, in a direct line, with Adam, Noah, or others of that early epoch. In the infant state of every society individuals seek each other for safety and comfort. Those who are born together, no matter whence their parents came, live together, and thus increase and multiply, until the means of subsistence become scanty. A portion then withdraws to some other quarter where the means can be procured, and thus new societies have been formed, and the human race spread over the earth, through all its habitable regions.

From every view that can be taken of the subject the doctrine of the Divine or paternal right as the foundation of a claim in any one to the sovereign power of the state, or to any portion of it, is absurd. It belonged to the dark ages, and was charac

teristic of the superstition and idolatry which prevailed in them. All men are by nature equally free, their Creator made them so; and the inequalities which have grown up among them, and the governments which have been established over them, founded on other principles, have proceeded from other causes, by which their natural rights have been subverted. We must trace governments, then, to other sources; and in doing this should view things as they are, and not indulge in superstitious, visionary, and fanciful speculations.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE.

(From Message to Congress, December 2, 1823.)

IN the wars of the European Powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy so to do. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparations for our defence. With the movements in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. The political system of the Allied Powers is essentially different in this respect from that of America. This difference proceeds from that which exists in their respective governments; and to the defence of our own, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of their most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted.

We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety.

With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European Power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them or controlling, in any other manner, their destiny, by any European Power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.