THE CONSTITUTION--CONTINUED.
Providence, or God operating through historical facts, constituted the American people one political or sovereign people, existing and acting in particular communities, organizations, called states.This one people organized as states, meet in convention, frame and ordain the constitution of government, or institute a general government in place of the Continental Congress; and the same people, in their respective State organizations, meet in convention in each State, and frame and ordain a particular government for the State individually, which, in union with the General government, constitutes the complete and supreme government within the States, as the General government, in union with all the particular governments, constitutes the complete and supreme government of the nation or whole country.This is clearly the view taken by Mr.Madison in his letter to Mr.Everett, when freed from his theory of the origin of government in compact.
The constitution of the people as one people, and the distinction at the same time of this one people into particular States, precedes the convention, and is the unwritten constitution, the Providential constitution, of the American people or civil society, as distinguished from the constitution of the government, which, whether general or particular, is the ordination of civil society itself.The unwritten constitution is the creation or constitution of the sovereign, and the sovereign providentially constituted constitutes in turn the government, which is not sovereign, but is clothed with just so much and just so little authority as the sovereign wills or ordains.
The sovereign in the republican order is the organic people, or State, and is with us the United States, for with us the organic people exist only as organized into States united, which in their union form one compact and indissoluble whole.That is to say, the organic American people do not exist as a consolidated people or state; they exist only as organized into distinct but inseparable States.Each State is a living member of the one body, and derives its life from its union with the body, so that the American state is one body with many members; and the members, instead of being simply individuals, are States, or individuals organized into States.The body consists of many members, and is one body, because the members are all members of it, and members one of another.It does not exist as separate or distinct from the members, but exists in their solidarity or membership one of another.There is no sovereign people or existence of the United States distinguishable from the people or existence of the particular States united.The people of the United States, the state called the United States, are the people of the particular States united.The solidarity of the members constitutes the unity of the body.The difference between this view and Mr.Madison's is, that while his view supposes the solidarity to be conventional, originating and existing in compact, or agreement, this supposes it to be real, living, and prior to the convention, as much the work of Providence as the existence in the human body of the living solidarity of its members.One law, one life, circulates through all the members, constituting them a living organism, binding them in living union, all to each and each to all.
Such is the sovereign people, and so far the original unwritten constitution.The sovereign, in order to live and act, must have an organ through which be expresses his will.This organ under the American system, is primarily the Convention.The convention is the supreme political body, the concrete sovereign authority, and exercises practically the whole sovereign power of the people.The convention persists always, although not in permanent session.It can at any time be convened by the ordinary authority of the government, or, in its failure, by a plebiscitum.
Next follows the Government created and constituted by the convention.The government is constituted in such manner, and has such and only such powers, as the convention ordains.The government has, in the strict sense, no political authority under the American system, which separates the government from the convention.All political questions proper, such as the elective franchise, eligibility, the constitution of the several departments of government, as the legislative, the judicial, and the executive, changing, altering, or amending the constitution of government, enlarging, or contracting its powers, in a word, all those questions that arise on which it is necessary to take the immediate orders of the sovereign, belong not to the government, but to the convention; and where the will of the sovereign is not sufficiently expressed in the constitution, a new appeal to the convention is necessary, and may always be had.
The constitution of Great Britain makes no distinction between the convention and the government.Theoretically the constitution of Great Britain is feudal, and there is, properly speaking, no British state; there are only the estates, king, lords, and commons, and these three estates constitute the Parliament, which is held to be omnipotent; that is, has the plenitude of political sovereignty.The British Parliament, composed of the three estates, possesses in itself all the powers of the convention in the American constitution, and is at once the convention and the government.The imperial constitution of France recognizes no convention, but clothes the senate with certain political functions, which, in some respects, subjects theoretically the sovereign to his creature.
