"That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people TO ALTER OR ABOLISH IT.”

This is the right of all rights. It protects the people from the odious charge of revolution in any change of government they see fit to make. It is as legitimate to alter or abolish a government as to enact laws in support of it.

"To institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."

By this declaration the right to build up in any form "most likely to affect their safety and happiness is conceded." It ignores all authority outside of the people, and leaves them free at any time to "alter or abolish" and institute a new government.

Upon these principles a government was partially founded, but in the pressure of events and the condition of the country, it was for a time left incomplete. Sovereignty is an essential condition of complete unity.

In 1777, the Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation. It was a compact of States; it was not national. It served, however, to tide over the struggle and set the people upon an independent basis. It was required to‘exer

cise sovereign functions of a national character. It was not endowed with that sovereignty. It needed completing, and had it been clothed with national sovereignty, the inestimable blessings of free government would have been secured to the American people, just as these principles were, as ratified in 1778.

In the Articles of Confederation the States were regarded as being endowed with absolute sovereignty, and the Confederation as an agreement to "be inviolably observed by every State." A government that extends its jurisdiction over the whole in all matters which concern the interest of the whole, or which relates to intercourse with other powers with which it is connected, must possess sovereignty over the acts it is required to perform and the interests it is required to protect. This defect in the then existing form of government led to a call for a revision and amendment of the Articles of Confederation, the history of which will be presented in the next chap

ter.

Thus the struggle for liberty ended in a brief but brilliant victory. Its fruit, which promised to nourish the famishing millions, was turned to bitter ashes, which only impoverishes by its hollow pretensions.

While liberty itself is lost, the name remains,

and since its blessings have never been felt by this generation, its value is not estimated. Incessant toil and privation stultify the mental powers and impoverish the spirit.

A condition that requires the whole time and energy to procure the necessary means of subsistence defeats the very purposes for which life is given.

The true purpose of life is to develop and cultivate to their highest capacity all the powers and attributes of body and mind, thus rounding out the individual to full and harmonious proportions; but this is impossible under existing conditions, because the whole energies are exhausted in procuring a bare subsistence.

This condition is virtually slavery—a condition incompatible with the purposes of life and the happiness of mankind. The attainment of liberty which involves the reconstruction of government is the work of the people, without which life and the pursuit of happiness are but idle dreams.

CHAPTER IV.

HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION, AND AN ACCOUNT OF THE LEADING MEN WHO ADVOCATED AND WHO OPPOSED IT.

"God of mercy! must this last?
Is this land preordained

For the present, as in the past,
And the future, to be chained ;
To be ravaged, to be drained,
To be robbed, to be spoiled,

To be hushed, to be whipped,
Its soaring pinions to be clipped,
And its every effort foiled ?"

THERE has been no period in the history of the world in which popular government was SO nearly in the balance as in 1787, when the Federal Constitution was framed and adopted by the convention in old "Liberty Hall.”

Long years of struggle for liberty, with varying success, had prepared the friends of freedom throughout the world for a determined resistance to the encroachments of usurped rights, and strike a blow that would effectually destroy its power on American soil, and give civil liberty an abiding place for all time to come.

Only in their possession for a brief period, and

before the plan for preserving it could be matured, the "eternal vigilance" so strenuously urged by its master spirit was relaxed, and the opportune moment was seized by the supporters of aristocratic government, who decided the fate, of that memorable struggle, until the accumulating evils of vested powers in giant corporations will drive the people to another revolution, unless the wisdom and resolution of the present generation shall, by peaceful means, avert so terrible a calamity.

In 1777 the Continental Congress agreed upon the Articles of Confederation to secure a united resistance to the measures of Great Britain in holding the colonies in subjection to her control.

In the excitement of war-and during its darkest period for the colonies-these Articles were framed and agreed to; but when the war was over, and the busy pursuits of industry supervened, the vigilant activity and artful schemes for aristocratic rule succeeded in substituting instead a system of government beyond the power of the people to control.

Among the leading men of this period and for this work was Alexander Hamilton, ambitious, active, energetic, talented, and brave, and fully imbued with the spirit of aristocratic supremacy, and without any faith in the people's capacity for self-government.