bridges, and other trifling concerns. In the warmth of debate he seemed to threaten resistance if the motion were carried; yet at last declared that even then he would remain a peaceful citizen, only devoting his head, his hand, and his heart to obtain redress in a constitutional manner. The measure was finally carried by a vote of eighty-eight to eighty.

New York, thus left nearly alone, could only persevere at the cost of throwing herself entirely out of the Union. Yet though the measure was supported by Jay, Hamilton, and Livingston, statesmen of the highest caracter, it was carried only with a majority of five, and with the demand for the most extensive amendments."

Within a year from the time the old Congress declared the Constitution ratified and in force, ten amendments were added; nine of which are for the protection of personal liberty, and the tenth specifies the limit of federal powers, and guarantees all power not delegated by the Constitution as belonging "to the States respectively, or to the people."

The observant reader of the early history of our government will notice the sentiment of the leading statesmen in regard to the question of slavery.

Thomas Jefferson introduced a bill in the Virginia legislature to abolish slavery in that State, which was lost by a single vote, and in Congress he introduced a measure looking to final emancipation in 1800.

Mr. Mason's views have already been noticed, and the feeling among the Republicans and some of the Federalists was in favor of manumission.

But slavery was incorporated into the Consti- . tution, and became a part of the government, with results calamitous beyond language to express or human thought to conceive. The Civil War placed the people in the condition out of which it took the slave, and transferred their masters from the Southern plantations to the factory pens, machine-shops, mining pits, and farms of the whole country.

The war was the result of constitutional provisions, but the cause of it was removed by violating them. It makes no provisions against

secession, and the first advocates of it were the Federalists of New England. As early as 1811, Josiah Quincy of Massachusetts declared that if Louisiana was admitted with slavery, it would be good cause for the Northern States to withdraw from the Union. Mr. Poindexter of Louisiana called him to order, and demanded his language to be put in writing, which was done. The Speaker sustained the point of order, and Mr. Quincy appealed to the House, and upon a vote being taken the Speaker was overruledthus showing the sentiment in the House of Representatives at that time to be in favor of secession.

The sole object of the Hartford Convention, held by the New England Federalists, was to take measures for secession, on account of the obstructions to their commerce by the necessities of war by a Republican administration.

It is by powers vested in the Constitution that the curse of corporate rule has corrupted the public service, and "established dominion over money, over transportation, over invention, and over land and labor."

The control given to monopolies by its authority or permission will grow still stronger; and the liberties of the people are becoming, day by day, less possible. It is the instrument of tyranny and oppression, and by its provisions the machinery of government is made to rob, plunder, impoverish, and enslave, instead of regulating the rights of the people and protecting them in their free exercise.

The facts of this history are well summed up in the following propositions by L. A. Fisher of Morris, Ill. In a letter to the author, he says:

"If I read your circular correctly, your object is to educate the people of this country in the funda mental facts of national reform guaranteed to the American people in that compact of Union, with reference to a restoration of the nation to its original republican base. If I mistake not the spirit of your field of labor, it comprises the following prop ositions:

"1. That the common blessings of Divine Providence are the indisputable equal right of all men and women to enjoy.

"2. That the denial of this right by the Crown of Great Britain constituted the main points of the struggle between the mother country and the colonists.

"3. That in the midst of this struggle, termed the Revolution, the thirteen colonies found that to carry on the war successfully it was indispensable that they unite in one body and work under one head.

"4. That such confederation was effected on the 4th of July, 1776, on terms of agreement set forth in an arranged compact, and witnessed by the autograph signatures of the contracting parties.

"5. That said act of confederation was to be perpetual, and form a nationality and government in keeping with the terms of this confederation, which guaranteed to every American citizen an equal and undisputed share in all of nature's bounties, regarded as 'endowments of the Creator.'

"6. That to accomplish the ends of this compact they saw no alternative but to cut loose from the parent stock and set up for themselves; and as a matter of necessity this determination was made part of the contract.

"7. That such confederation should be regarded as perpetual, and was so intended, stipulated, and specified, so long as the terms of confederation were sacredly regarded, forming a corporate national base under the title of The United States of North America,' and at the time assuming all the powers, rights, and immunities of nationality, and were so regarded by the nations of Europe.

8. That the terms of said compact minutely and

definitely specify that the administration of the re sultant executive department of said nationality shall be in strict unison with the charter stipula tions aforesaid, and that any deviation from the spirit or letter of said guaranties shall nullify the contract at the option of the aggrieved party.

"9. That as a matter of course the executive de tails of government were to be instituted in the usual manner, through representative legislative action. When within one year, 1777, such effort was made under the disturbed state of the country, in the presence of an overpowering foreign enemy and a large influential tory class of their own citizens, in their midst in full sympathy with the enemy and totally opposed to the independent national action already taken, it is not strange that the first attempt to institute the executive details of government should prove a failure.

"10. And further, if I read your programme correctly, your object is to enlighten the people on the crookedness of the administration after peace was established with England. That a convention was soon called at Philadelphia, ostensibly to amend the first attempt at framing a constitution. At which time the soldiery were returned to society, and busily engaged with the people in the arts of peace, in restoring the waste of an eight years' war, the aristocratic and tory class were left to manage the details of government to suit their own tory proclivities; and that they stealthily conceived the expert scheme of reversing the patriot ardor as to nullify all the essential points for which the rebellion was inaugurated, except the mere fact of independence, and thereby secure all of those royal prerogatives inherited from the Briti h Crown. This tory class found it convenient at this time to sufficiently pack