Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-03-14

b. THE COURT, ER JUSTICE PIKE
looNTISUED PROM LAST WEEK.

II We 4 HUE Closely examine MI.
Madis0n's notion, that the Government
created was IN part National and IL part
Federal, and in one case both National
and Federal, we shall see how import
ant the idea of q grant from the People
was. His position in the Federalist was,
that the people Of all the States, as one
UhOle, are represented in the House Of
Representatives, and elect the President
by their electors. II so, that People is
q power, a political unit and being, dis
tiuct from the States, like the people of
France. Nothing that is not so can be
represented. If the Government Is in
part National, then there is Nation,
and the people of thaJ Nation are one
people. Then the National powers were
I granted by the National people. The
/ States sit in the Senate, the Nation 10
the House. The PeopNhre the consti
uents Of the Nation. us not 3 confed-
GRAFTON of States, but q unity Of the
people. The Constitution, therefore,
really was made by the people. They
have established g law and Constitution
Of Government, as well for the States as
for themselves.
OF course it would soon be seen that
the powers were not granted both by the
States and the people. The action of
each Convention was either the action Of
the State, OF Of the people as cOntradis-
tingUIshed from, and the creators of the
State. So that the public mind would
irresistiOly be led to the conclusion that
As il would have been useless to reserve
any powers to the people. if all the pow
ers granted were granted by the States
as States, that therefore all the grants
were by the people, and the reservations
TO the States were made by the people in
favor of the States.
The new government thus began with
two unsettled questions. The first was,
by whom the Constitution vas made,
whether by the States ia their corporate
capacity, or 10y the one people of al.
The second, what was its nature was
it National or Federal?
OF course the extent Of the indefinite
and implied grants, much depended on
the question by whom they were made.
II by the one people, there would be the
same rules of construction as apply to
the State Constitutions liberal, or
what afterwards came to be called a Iati-
tudiuETiau construction. II by the
States, no powers were reserved to the
people, to be exercised through the Gene
raj Government, but IL had only such
powers Is the States had agreed to eXer-
else IN common. It was not q govern
ment Of the people, Cycr the States, but
one exercised by the States Jointly and
its laws and Treaties we're supreme in
every State, only because they were the
highest exercise of power by every State.
No state could disObey her OJga action,
and the National action was her action,
just as her action as a State was the act,
in law, Of every citizen.
Mr.. Madison, who he'd been one Of the
foremost Nationalist, wen to the extent
80 aA.a-Hra. shoe HhL L#.A.- a.--M--aN 49, ]
Sovereignty, but wanted some of its
essential attributes, always chung to the
notion that the government was in part
National. He had said 80 in the mum
Oers Of PHb'ilsS. He could not afterwards I
DENY IL. But he always contended that
the Constitution was a Compact between
the States, made by the States, OF, as he
said, by the people, but by the people as
composing the respective States, each
people acting separately as a unit. That
was mere yeTbiage. The action Of the
people Of the State, in Convention, is the
action Of the State. The Conventions
did not sit because the JUhOIe people Of
al the States ordered il: they derived
Do authority from that source. Each
Was authorized by the viii Of The single
State, legislatively expressed and its
ratification was valid, because il was the
act Of the State, expressed in the most
solemn form possible.
The government vas, at the begin
ming, and tor several years, in the hands
Of the natiOnalists. But the eyes OF
those who had been Of that faith, in the
Southern States, were sOou opened, SO
far that they saw that although they had
fortunately failed in wholly destroying
the equality Of the States, they had put
% 10 serious jeopardy aud that pTetexts
were found, and plsusiSe grounds, on
the face OF the Constitution itself, for
claiming that the Government and Con-
stitutiOn really Were what they had tried
TO make them in other words, that the
one people, the We the People Of the
Uniled States had made a National
Government; and one Nation. Then
they united with their former antsgo-
uists, and took the name Of 'Republi-
cans a word which had no distinctive
meaning while the nationalist, being
IN favour Of enlarging the powers Of the
Federal Government at the expense OF
the States, came to be called Federal
ISIS at first the appropriate and honora-
be name Of those 10 whom they were
opposed and Who were ia favor Of a fed
erai government as cOntradistinguisbed
from a national one.
IL was the c0urse which Virginia and
south Carolina had taken in the Con
veDuOD, for the selfish object Of obtain
ing a preponderatiug influence, by COM
biBatiOB with the other large States, in
the new Confederacy,-not seeing, in
their short-sightedness, that the time
would speedily arrive when they would
be comparatively unimpOrtant amid the
multitude Of States, which SO much
embarrassed their public men in arguing
upon the nature Of the Government, aud
brought their " abstTactiensD into disre-
pUte. There il little c0herency OF logic
in the arguments of Mr.. Madison. His
ideas as 10 the real nature Of the Govern
ment we're hardly more than confused
notions. He did not understand them
himself. Dor the saBe reason, the doc
lrlne oi Mr.. Calhoun, and Of what came to
De called alter be arose, the South Car
DINA school, We're regarded a. ultra and
extravaganza by the Madisonian republic
cans OF democrats, with whom he was
80 lar iron being 10 unison, as to act for
several years with the Wing party, 10
TIE time OF General Jackson and for
me same Reason Ice Proclamation of
dtheraI JacEseu aklnEt South Carolina
was as positively Nationalistio as
Mr.. Webster's arguments against
Hayne and Calhoun, For the same
reason, also, the alliance between the
states Rights Democracy Of the south
Lbe natonailstie Democracy Of the
North was, ofnecessity, only temporary.
/ use the words Estates RigbtsU he
cause the Southern Democracy was only
by degrees becoming sBti-nstionalistjc. /
the masses OF IL being far 10 the rear OF |
the more Intelligent among the leaders.
and caring for nothing contained in Inc
creed, except those portions of il thai
represented the people as governed TOO
much, and as the true source of power. /
which Is rue but also entitled to have
their Ho1leataFy viii Immediately en-
forced As law which is not true.)
The potion OF the AstionaIIsts in the
/ Convention was, that il was necessary,
in order to give the large States due
weight, and TO have 3 true Government