The Washington union. [volume] (City of Washington [D.C.]) 1857-1859, 1858-01-26
STATE CONSTITUTIONS.

system of government, the right to alter or modify
their organic laws otherwise than In obedience to
the conditions imbodied thereinY Fsa
This question is one, just now, OF great practical
inheritance II involves the principle Of popular
sovereignty and bears directly upon the very central
mint of the Kansas controversy. We maintain the
utmost doctrines of representative democracy
that there can be permanency in government
which il not based upon the broadcast exercise of the
elective franchise
Our governments are the work of the people and
will be sustained by their patriotic labors az such
We have been successful because the founders Of
our system saw the possibility Of securing therein
the amplest freedom Of the citizen with the whole
some restraints of because they framed their
government as to maintain for themselves perpet
ual supervision over and direction Of its affairs and
at the same time that the popular will shall be ex
pressed only through representative organs. 1t is
this little barrier that separates us from pure de-
mocracy, and equally, if We regard our own expert
ence from anarchy.
State constitutions are limitations imposed upon
public agents, not upon the people themselves, by
whom through their representatives, they are enact
ed TEey constitute part of the machinery of our
representative system They not compacts be
tween two or more legal parties They are not cove
nants of faith impaired by Divine power and bind
ing to eternity There is nothing sacred about them.
They are convenient political charts by which the
ship is sailed they mark the soundings and the
shoals, but they do not guide the helm They are
simply instructions of the principal to his agent-re
strictions imposed upon the latter while in the dis
charge of the business of the former In this view
organic laws are always within the reach of the peo
pie, and may be altered or modified they may
| desire.
| State constitutions are supreme over Legislative
| bodes--the people are supreme over them All
laws must be enacted under their limitations but the
system under which such laws made il of necessity
always subject to the direct control of the people
who act in respect all public affairs in obedience
TO the forms prescribed by the Legislative authority
This is 80 because such forms necessary in order
to ascerta the will of the majoritybecanse gov
ernment is perpetual. There must be lapse in this
respect and cannot be without producing temporary
| anarchy. Public order and the well-being OF the
people constitute the two great objects of govern
ment To effect these ends might is the practical
element used, and we contend that it is justly cxcr
csed by the majority To deny the authority Of the
majority, expressed in legal way, then, is pract
| cal absurdity.
The Lecompton constitution specifically directs
that the same may be amended. in certain manner,
after the year 1864 There is no prohibition against
! action before that time.
But il is asserted that majority Of the people
| of Kansas are utterly opposed to their
stitution If so, they have the nndoubted power
to control their State government All Of its local
machinery, its federal representation, its officers
and its Offices Of every description, fall of necessity
into their hands the instant she is admitted into the
Union But the advocates Of the Topeka constitu-
tion-that simulated and fictitious government which
never had the sanction Of single legal attribute
that government which reached the dignity Of
| an honest public meeting--which breathed'an at
mosphere of treason, and will become extinct when
it's pestilent miasmas shall pass awaythese men
suddenly seized with such profound respect for the
forms of State and the constituted authorities as 10
deny the right of the people to alter modify their
| organic law. Whence COMES this sudden reverence
for order and the obligations of constitutions by
the party which abures its allegiance to the fed
eral compact, because it recognises the relations
of master and slave, by the party which maintains
that the majority of the people of Kansas may de-
prve the minority Of the boon of government ITSELF
not by voting but by refusing to votey Tho act Of
1854 authorized the people Of Kansas to organize
territorial and State government. Under the author
ity thereby conferred they at put the former
into operation Thus were created legal FORMS
through the agency Of which alone the people could
express their wishes. The territorial government,
though designed to be temporary, was to them tho
law of their political existence Through its agency
they had right to speak If we say they were dis
satisfied with their representatives, and refused,
when they had the necessary population, to frame
State system, we simply convict them of folly,
without impairng the rights Of those who were an
thorized and willing to do If, then, the Lecomp-
ton constitution is the work of minority, the poo
pie of the United States it to their sefrespect
their regard for public order and to their contempt
for that folly which sullenly and causeessly refuses
to exercise its duties, claiming thereby that it dis
franchises and discredts those who do, by smbra-
cling the earliest occasion to receive the State into
the Union and thus separate it's fretfnl local disputes
from federal politics. a d H 'G 98&
The authority conferred to alter modify the con-