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Southern Historical Society Papers.
erning jurisdiction. "The Federal and State Governments," says Madison, "are but different agents of the people." "Sovereignty," continues he, "resides with the people alone." "C" is the State agency, "D" the Federal one. Each acts over the whole ground.
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We must predicate agency, and not sovereignty, of these agents, "C" and " D." The people alone are sovereign and are repre- sented by "E." They have set two servants to work in the same field. They control both and prevent conflict. "The house is" not "divided against itself." The able writer who said "the problem left us by the Convention is to harmonize National and State sove- reignty," "loses sight of the people" — to use Madison's expression. The only sovereignty is theirs. "C" and "D" are always agents subject to it. There was no such problem !
It may be well to say here that Hon. George F. Edmunds and Hon. David Dudley Field, as the former shows in the North Ameri- can Review, seem to think "teetering" or "seesawing" is going on, as to dominance, between the General Government and the States, and they call it a principle! and conclude that the great duty or problem is to keep equilibrium .'
IN CONCLUSION,
It is painful to test by truth, doctrines taught by great and revered teachers, and reduce them to falsity ; but the duty is imperative and vital to institutional freedom, and the demonstration should be both historical and pictorial, so that even the boys — the coming power- holders of the country — shall, while forming their momentous poli- tical habitudes of thought and action, know and despise such doc- trines as untruths!
IN FACT, THESE DOCTRINES ARE REFUTED FALSEHOODS ;
And they so appear in American History, being originally charges which were made by the foes of the Constitution to defeat it, and
