The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-08-09
THE STATES AND THE NATION"

Ter frst sOunucu inc KEY Holc u hiohtii va w"
. ago IN the United States senate, then the stall
wart newspapers and corner grocery polite
Z ians took it up, and next the Maine, ono
', Pennsylvania and Wisconsin republican con
|, vcntons joined the refrain, and now all are
r voclfcrously chanting that this is a nation
What IS 1, nationy Webster defines "A nation
to be body of people united under the same
government" He gives the same definition
, of the word state" In common acceptance,
however, Il state to be a nation, as Vattel says,
must "have perfect and complete sovereignty
IN and over everything within It's limits IN
this sense the trainers of the constitution were
evidently not prepared to call the political lab
ric they had just erected nation for when
/, Gouvcrneur Morris proposed that name, we are
told in Eliots debates that ii was objected to
by such patriots as Eldridge and Madison, and
the name United States" was chosen as more
closely fitting the case. And in that enlarged
sense this country is certainly not nation.
its sovereignty is restricted in a hundred ways.
II has no power to punish criminals, except in
a few limited cases, for any Oilense from muir.
der down to petty larceny; it can pass no laws
to maintain the public peace, to enforce the
lcolection of debts, or any of the "Rights OF
Persons" or Rights Of Things" under which
Blackstone classes all the imaginable humaa
rights and wrongs to the maintenance or re
dress of which appeal can be had to the laws
and the courts In all these matters which are
Ig,, u, al I a
al government is powerlcss
There is, however, another sense in which
the government OF this country exercises the
largest national" powers. 1t can declare war
and make peace; it can raise armies and levy
taxes for their support; it can coin money and
regulate the value thereof; it can establish
post offices and post roads, &c, &c. In all that
pertains to the exercise Of these powers the
general government is undoubtedly sovereign,
and to that extent in the fullest sense ma
ton"
But Is tins the sense and if not, what is the
sense in which the stalwart bands have come
SO suddenly and bostcrously to insist that this
IS nation? The whole business arises out Of
the emphatic denial put forth by the democrats
of the power of congress, in the manner of the
Davenport law to surround the elections in
the states with swarm of supervisors and
marshals, backed by the United States army
to interfere with, intimidate, obstruct and pre-.
went the free exercise of the elective franchise
by the regularly, constitutionally and legally
qualified voters of the states. The democrats
say the constitution has given the states the
erclnsioe power to say who shall be voters and
when, where and how they shall vote, and as
long as the states exercise this power any at
tempt to interfere with that exercise by con
gress, and any attempt on the part OF congress
to interfere with the voters full and free exer-
else of the right of franchise under the laws of
the states, is unconstitutional and an unwar'
ranted, uniustifable and wrongful exercise of
mower The stawarts deny this impeachment
nv sayinp that tho Unitod States Is nation
that the idea that the states have any rights
is "pestlent doctrine that was wiped out by
the war, and that therefore this being nation
in tie full sense of the Vattellan definition, it
has perfect and complete sovereignty in and
over everything within its limits" and no
matter what powers the constitution relegates
exclusively to the states, the sovereignty Of
the nation" overrldes them all
The democrats maintain that this doctrine is
v0lutonary--as reasonable as the right of
secession which the war of the rebellion crush
ed out,-and that if those southern doctrinaires
who set up claim of such an enlarged sover
eighty for the states as to make of them ma
tons IN the full Vatteian sense, including of
course the right to seccde at will from the I'm
ion, were guilty Of treason and rebellion; so
are our later stalwart doctrlnGires who set up
for the federal government an equally ancon-
s,tutional and reasonable claim Of unlimited
sovereignty on the ground that it is a nation.
Said Clief Justice Chase, q Wallace, 125), in
an opinion delivered three years after the war
was over, Not only Is there no loss of separate
, and independent autonomy to the states
through their union under the constitution,
but the preservation Of the states and the main
tenance Of their governments are as much
within the design and care of the constitution
as the preservation of the Union and the main
tenancc Of the national government. The con
stltution, in all its provisions looks to an in
destructible anon composed of indestructible
states" Surely there was no obiteration of
state lines on account of this being nation"
in the estimation Of Chief Justice Chase.
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American politics have never seen anything
more shameful than the energy and hardy as