While fifteen amendments of the Constitution have taken place within the first century of its history, these can only be justly reckoned as four. The first ten were adopted at one time, and soon after the ratification of the Constitution itself, and really constitute but one. They embrace what is known as the Bill of Rights, the various provisions of which have been noticed in the foregoing pages, in their proper connection. They declare in substance, that certain enumerated liberties of the people, and certain ancient muniments of liberty shall not be taken away; that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people; and that the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. The provisions touching personal rights were omitted from the original Constitution, because they were not thought necessary to be inserted, though strongly urged. It was deemed that they were sufficiently implied and understood in any system of free government, to be recognised by all courts sitting under it. And that a re-enactment of them might appear to imply that they were derived from the Constitution, or from the authority of the Government, instead of being natural rights antecedent to it, and safeguards that had become an indefeasible part of the inherited common law. While this was undoubtedly true in theory, experience has shown the wisdom of the amendments, by which the protection of these cardinal rights was expressly provided for, and placed beyond cavil.

The other clauses of these amendments, concerning rights not specially referred to, and powers not delegated to the Federal Government nor prohibited to the States, while quite unobjectionable, do not seem to be necessary. They only mar the symmetry of a document which contains no other superfluous words. It needs no assertion to show that the Constitution confers no powers not expressed or by necessity implied, and that neither States nor people had parted, in adopting it, with any rights which are not therein surrendered.

The eleventh amendment simply provides that a State shall not be sued in the Federal courts by the citizen of another State, or of a foreign country. It was adopted in 1794 and is in conformity with the general principles of sovereignty.

The twelfth amendment changes the method of electing President and Vice-President, mainly in one particular, unnecessary to be here referred to.

The last three amendments, very important in their nature, were proposed at the same time, at the close of the civil war in 1865, and were declared adopted by the requisite number of States-the thirteenth in 1865, the fourteenth in 1868, and the fifteenth in 1870.

They embody certain important results of the war. They prohibit slavery or involuntary servitude except for crime, in the United States; provide that all persons born or naturalised in the United States shall be citizens; and contain other provisions for the protection of personal, civil, and political rights, and having reference to debts incurred in the prosecution of the war, which have been already mentioned.

The outline thus attempted to be given of the Constitution of the United States, has occupied so much space, as to exclude some observations upon its character, its history, and its leading features, that may perhaps form the subject of another paper.

E. J. PHELPS.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake

to return unaccepted MSS.

THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. CXXXIII.—MARCH 1888.

MARCH: AN ODE.

I.

ERE frost-flower and snow-blossom faded and fell, and the splendour of winter had passed out of sight,

The ways of the woodlands were fairer and stranger than dreams that fulfil us in sleep with delight;

The breath of the mouths of the winds had hardened on tree-tops and branches that glittered and swayed

Such wonders and glories of blossomlike snow or of frost that outlightens all flowers till it fade

That the sea was not lovelier than here was the land, nor the night than the day, nor the day than the night, Nor the winter sublimer with storm than the spring: such mirth had the madness and might in thee made, March, master of winds, bright minstrel and marshal of storms that enkindle the season they smite.

II.

And now that the rage of thy rapture is satiate with revel and ravin and spoil of the snow,

And the branches it brightened are broken, and shattered the tree-tops that only thy wrath could lay low,

How should not thy lovers rejoice in thee, leader and lord of the year that exults to be born

So strong in thy strength and so glad of thy gladness whose laughter puts winter and sorrow to scorn?

Thou hast shaken the snows from thy wings, and the frost on thy forehead is molten: thy lips are aglow

As a lover's that kindle with kissing, and earth, with her raiment and tresses yet wasted and torn,

Takes breath as she smiles in the grasp of thy passion to feel through her spirit the sense of thee flow.

III.

Fain, fain would we see but again for an hour what the wind and the sun have dispelled and consumed,

Those full deep swan-soft feathers of snow with whose luminous burden the branches implumed

Hung heavily, curved as a half-bent bow, and fledged not as birds are, but petalled as flowers,

Each tree-top and branchlet a pinnacle jewelled and carved or a fountain that shines as it showers,

But fixed as a fountain is fixed not, and wrought not to last till by time or by tempest entombed,

As a pinnacle carven and gilded of men: for the date of its doom is no more than an hour's,

One hour of the sun's when the warm wind wakes him to wither the snow-flowers that froze as they bloomed.

IV.

As the sunshine quenches the snowshine; as April subdues thee, and yields up his kingdom to May;

So time overcomes the regret that is born of delight as it passes in passion away,

And leaves but a dream for desire to rejoice in or mourn for with tears or thanksgivings; but thou,

Bright god that art gone from us, maddest and gladdest of months, to what goal hast thou gone from us now? For somewhere surely the storm of thy laughter that lightens, the beat of thy wings that play,

Must flame as a fire through the world, and the heavens that we know not rejoice in thee: surely thy brow

Hath lost not its radiance of empire, thy spirit the joy that impelled it on quest as for prey.

V.

Are thy feet on the ways of the limitless waters, thy wings on the winds of the waste north sea?

Are the fires of the false north dawn over heavens where

summer is stormful and strong like thee

Now bright in the sight of thine eyes? are the bastions of icebergs assailed by the blast of thy breath?

Is it March with the wild north world when April is waning? the word that the changed year saith,

Is it echoed to northward with rapture of passion reiterate from spirits triumphant as we

Whose hearts were uplift at the blast of thy clarions as men's

rearisen from a sleep that was death

And kindled to life that was one with the world's and with thine? hast thou set not the whole world free?