The Lawyer in Literature. treated as separate nationalities. In finally acceding to the compact, North Carolina de clared her understanding to be that " Each State in the Union respectively retains every power, jurisdiction and right which is not by this Constitution delegated to the United States or to the departments of the general government." Rhode Island, the last to enter the Union, in an act of ratification, set forth in eighteen declarations amounting almost to a bill of rights, asserted : " That there are certain natural rights, of which men, when they form a social compact, cannot deprive nor divest their posterity . . ., and that the pow ers of government may be resumed by the people whenever it shall become necessary for their happiness." It would be difficult to express in plainer language the under standing of the several States.1 But if further proof of the limited federal nature of the government and the reserved rights of the States is needed, it is amply provided in the words of the fathers. 1 These proceedings are taken from " Elliott's Debates," as cited by Stephens.
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Alexander Hamilton, the leader of the "Nationals" in the Constitutional Conven tion, says (in the "Federalist," page 144) : "If the Federal government should over pass the just bounds of its authority, and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigencies may sug gest and prudence justify. The propriety of a law in a Constitutional light must al ways be determined by the nature of the powers upon which it was founded. . . If a number of political societies enter a larger political society, the laws which the latter may enact pursuant to the powers entrusted to it by its Constitution must necessarily be supreme over those societies. But it will not follow from this, that the acts of the larger which are not pursuant to its consti tuted powers, but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies, will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely aets of usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as sueh."
THE LAWYER IN LITERATURE. By Melv1lle D. Post, of the West V1rg1n1a Bar. An address delivered at the annual dinner of the Alumni of the Illinois College of Law, Palmer House, Chicago, Ill., May 27, 1899.
YOUR invitation to speak after dinner might be regarded by the layman as a piece of commendable foresight, since it would seem to recognize the wisdom of satisfying a lawyer before arousing him into activity; and that foresight goes further when it is remembered, as our ambassador to the court of St. James once declared, that the pyloric orifice is the shortest cut to the human brain. I approach with some trepidation the sub
ject selected for me by your learned Presi dent. At its threshold one is met by a vague protest against the apparent incon stancy of that one who, having taken to his roof-tree a stately dame, turns aside on occasion to swagger through the streets with her unconventional sister. The good house wives are apt to wag their heads and pre dict an early coming into the ecclesiastical courts. It is not my intention to meet this danger
