Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/349

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CH. III.]

NATURE OF THE CONSTITUTION.

309

a state of society, the laws of that society must be the supreme regulator of their conduct. If a number of political societies enter into a larger political society; the laws, which the latter may enact, pursuant to the powers entrusted to it by its constitution, must be supreme over those societies, and the individuals, of whom they are composed. It would otherwise be a mere treaty, dependent on the good faith of the parties, and not a government, which is only another word for political power and supremacy.^[1] A state constitution is then in a just and appropriate sense, not only a law, but a supreme law, for the government of the whole people, within the range of the powers actually contemplated, and the rights secured by it. It would, indeed, be an extraordinary use of language to consider a declaration of rights in a constitution, and especially of rights, which it proclaims to be "unalienable and indefeasible," to be a matter of contract, and resting on such a basis, rather than a solemn recognition and admission of those rights, arising from the law of nature, and the gift of Providence, and incapable of being; transferred or surrendered.^[2]

↑ The Federalist, No. 33.
↑ Mr. Adams, in his Oration on the 4th of July, 1831, uses the following language: "In the constitution of this commonwealth [Massachusetts] it is declared, that the body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals. That it is a social compact, &c. The body politic of the United States was formed by a voluntary association of the people of the United Colonies. The Declaration of Independence was a social compact, by which the whole people covenanted with each citizen of the united colonies, and each citizen with the whole people, that the united colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. To this compact, union was as vital, as freedom and independence. From the hour of that independence, no one of the states, whose people were parties to it, could, without a violation of that primitive compact, secede, or separate from the rest. Each was pledged to all; and all were pledged to each other by a concert of soul, without

[1] The Federalist, No. 33.

[s340n1-2] Mr. Adams, in his Oration on the 4th of July, 1831, uses the following language: "In the constitution of this commonwealth [Massachusetts] it is declared, that the body politic is formed by a voluntary association of individuals. That it is a social compact, &c. The body politic of the United States was formed by a voluntary association of the people of the United Colonies. The Declaration of Independence was a social compact, by which the whole people covenanted with each citizen of the united colonies, and each citizen with the whole people, that the united colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent states. To this compact, union was as vital, as freedom and independence. From the hour of that independence, no one of the states, whose people were parties to it, could, without a violation of that primitive compact, secede, or separate from the rest. Each was pledged to all; and all were pledged to each other by a concert of soul, without

[1]

[2]