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Massachusetts, and Rhode Island claimed this power for the State Governors, and at the same time refused its exercise. But Madison, then President, at once denied it. In his message to Congress, in December, 1812, he says:

"The refusal was founded on a novel and unfortunate exposition of the provisions of the Constitution relating to the militia. The correspondences, which will be before you, contain the requisite information on the subject. It is obvious, that if the authority of the United States to call into service and command the militia for the public defence can be thus frustrated, even in a state of declared war, and of course under apprehensions of invasion preceding war, they are not one Nation for the purpose most of all requiring it; and that the public safety may have no other resource than in those large and permanent military establishments, which are forbidden by the principles of our free Government, and against the necessity of which the militia were meant to be a Constitutional bulwark."

IX.

SUPREMACY.

ARTICLE IV.

SECTION IV.-The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of Government; and shall protect each of them against invasion; and, on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.

ARTICLE V.-The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution; or on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments; which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress. Provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the ninth section of the first article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.

ARTICLE VI.-1. All debts contracted and engagements entered

into before the adoption of this Constitution shall be as valid against the United States, under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the

United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound, by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

WE ask any candid reader to examine these articles carefully, and then say if they leave. him the slightest justification for asserting the reservation by the States of a Constitutional right of secession from the Union. Let us observe how completely the State is subordinated by them to the Nation. While every State functionary, legislative, executive, or judicial, must take an oath of fealty to the Constitution of the United States, there is no recognition of a State Constitution whatever, except to see that it assumes no other than a republican form of government. Nor is the relation of the Nation to the State a doubtful one. There are no indistinct reservations on the part of the latter, no shadowy claims by the former. The Constitution of the United States shall

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be the supreme law of the land, and this supremacy does not refer alone to the conditions it actually embodies, but pushes its claims into an unlimited future. All laws and treaties which shall be made in pursuance of it shall be supreme. The judges in every State are to regulate their decisions by it. And, finally, as if to make assurance doubly sure, it is added, "Anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."

Observe, too, how complete is the surrender of the sovereignty in the articles providing for amendments. The right of demanding a convention of the people to originate them is not claimed by a single State, nor even by a majority of States, but by two-thirds the whole number. And the ratification is not to depend upon unanimous concurrence, as under the Confederation, but upon that of three-fourths the State Legislatures or Conventions, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be selected, not by the States, but by Congress. To their decision the whole must submit.

The expediency of leaving the whole

question open until each State had had an opportunity of proposing amendments to the proposed Constitution was much discussed at the time. But it was shown by its advocates, and especially by Hamilton and Madison in the "Federalist," that it was confessedly a compromise between the dissimilar interests and claims of thirteen States; that it had been already approved by a representative from each of them save one, viz., Rhode Island, which had taken no part whatever; that no hope could reasonably exist for equal unanimity in another Convention; that no claim to perfection was made on its behalf; that, on the contrary, it provided expressly for its own amendment, at any time, by a mode that was itself a guarantee for the utmost deliberation; and, finally, that the dangers arising from the anarchy and confusion of the country loudly demanded an immediate decision. "A nation without a NATIONAL GOVERNMENT," said Hamilton, on closing the last number of the "Federalist," "is to me an awful spectacle. The establishment of a Constitution, in time of profound peace, by the voluntary consent

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