Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-01-10

origin, by geographical position, and by the
mutual tie of common dependence on Great
Britain. When that tie was sundered, they
severally assumed the powers and rights Of ab-
solute self.government. The municipal and
social institutions of each, its laws of property
and of personal relation, even its political or
ganization, were such only as each one chose
to establish, wholly without interference from
any other. In the language of the Declaration
of Independence, each State had full power
to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliance
establish commerce, and to do all other acts
and things which Independent States may OF
right do" The several colonies differed IN
climate, in soil, in natural productions, in re-
ligion, in systems of educ&on, in legislation,
and in the forms of political administration !;
and they continued to differ in these respects
when they voluntarily allied themselves as
States to carry on the war of the revolution.
The object of that war was to disenthral the
United Colonies from foreign rule, which had
proved to be oppressive, and to separate them
permanently from the mother country; the
political result was the foundation of a federal
republic of the free white men of the colonies,
constituted, as they were, in distinct, and re-
ciprocally independent State governments
As for the subject races, whether Indian or Al
rican, the wise and brave statesmen of that day
being engaged in no extravagant scheme OF
social change left them as they were, and thus
preserved themselves and their posterity from
IL tha
which have prevailed in the revolutlonlzed
European colonies of America.
When the confederated States found it con-
yenient to modify the conditions Of their asso-
ciation, by giving to the general government
direct access, in some respects, to the people
of the States, instead of confning it to action
on the States as such, they proceeded to frame
the existing Constitution, adhering steadily to
the guiding thought, which was to delegate on
ly such power as was necessary and proper to
the execution of specific purposes, or, in other
words, to retain as much as possible, consls-
tently with those purposes of the independent
powers of the individual States. For objects
of common defence and security, they enstrust-
ed to the general governmentcertain carefully
defined functions, leaving all others as the un-
delegated rights of the separate independent
sovereignties.
Such is the constitutional theory of our gov
ernment, the practical observance of which has
carried US, and us alone among modern repub-
lies, through nearly three generations OF time
without the cost of one drop of blood shed in
civil war. With freedom and concert of &C
ton it has enabled us to contend successfully
on the battlefield against foreign foes, has ele-
vated the feeble colonies into powerful States,
and has raised our industrial productions, and
our commerce which transports them, to the
level of the richest and the greatest nations OF
Europe. And the admirable adaptation of our
political institutions to their objects, combin-
ing local self.government with aggregate siren
9Th, has established the practicability of agov-
ernment like ours to cover continent with
confederate States.
The Congress of United States is, in effect,
that congress of sovereignties, which good men
in the Old World have sought for, but could
never attain, and which imparts to America
an exemption from the mutable leagues for
common action, from the wars, the mutual ln-
vasions, and vague aspirations after the balance
of power, which convulse from time to time the
governments of Europe. Our cooperative ac-
ton rests in the conditions of permanent con-
federation prescribed by the constitution. Our
balance of power il. ..in the seperate reserved
rights of the States and their equal representa-
ton in the Senate. That independent sover-
eighty in every one of the States, with its re-
served rights of local self-government assured
to each by their co-equal power in the Senate
was the fundamental condition of the Constitu-
tion. Without it the Union would never have
existed. However desirous the larger States
might be to re-organize the governments so as to
giveto their population its proportionate weight
in the common counsels, they knew it was im-
possible, unless they conceded to the smaller
ones authority to exercise at least negative
influence on all the measures of the govern
ment, whether Legislative or executive, through
their equal representa tions in the Senate In
deed, the larger States themselves would not
have failed to perceive. that the same power
was equally necessary to them, fer the securl-
ty of their own domestic interest against the
aggregate force of the general government. In
word, the original States went into this per-
manent league on the agreed premises, Of ex-
ert;ng their common strength for the defence
of the whole, and of all its parts, but of utter
ly excluding all capability of reciprocal aggges-
sion. Each solemnly bound itself to all the
others, neither to undertake, nor permit, any
encroachment upon, or intermeddling with,
anothers reserved rights.
Where it was deemed expedient, particular
rights of the States were expressly guaranteed
by the constitution but, in all things beside,
these rights were guarded by the limitation
of the powers granted, and by express reserva-
tion of all powers not granted, in the compact
of union. Thus, the great power of taxationn
was limited to purposes of common defence
and general welfare, excluding objects apper-
tanning to the local legislation of the several
States, and those purposes ol general welfare
and common defence were afterwards defined
by specific enumeration, as being matters only
of correlation between the States themselves,
or between them and fore gn governments,
which, because OF their common and general