§ 341. The resolution of the convention of the peers and commons in 1688, which deprived King James the Second of the throne of England, may perhaps be thought by some persons to justify the doctrine of an original compact of government in the sense of those, who deem the constitution of the United States a treaty or league between the states, and resting merely in contract. It is in the following words: "Resolved, that King James the Second, having endeavoured to subvert the constitution of the kingdom by breaking the original contract between king and people; and by the advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons having violated the fundamental laws, and withdrawn himself out of the kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and that the throne is thereby become vacant."[1]
- ↑ 1 Black. Comm. 211, 222.
limitation of time, in the presence of Almighty God, and proclaimed to all mankind. The colonies were not declared to he sovereign states. The term 'sovereign' is not even to be found in the Declaration." Again—"Our Declaration of Independence, our confederation, our constitution of the United States, and all our state constitutions, without a single exception, have been voluntary compacts, deriving all their authority from the free consent of the parties to them." And he proceeds to state, that the modern doctrine of nullification of the laws of the Union, by a single state, is a solecism of language, and imports self-contradiction; and goes to the destruction of the government, and the Union. It is plain, from the whole reasoning of Mr. Adams, that when he speaks of the constitution as a compact, he means no more, than that it is a voluntary and solemn consent of the people to adopt it, as a form of government; and not a treaty obligation to be abrogated at will by a single state.
