Even,however,if we concede that there was such a people as "the people of the United States,"our author's position is still untenable.I admit that the people of any country may,if they choose,alter,amend or abrogate their form of government,or establish a new one,without invoking the aid of their constituted authorities.They may do this,simply because they have the physical power to do it,and not because such a proceeding would be either wise,just,or expedient.It would be revolution in the strictest sense of the term.Be this as it may,no one ever supposed that this course was pursued in the case under consideration.Every measure,both for the calling of the convention and for the ratification of the Constitution,was adopted in strict conformity with the recommendations,resolutions and laws of Congress and the State legislatures.And as "the people of the United States"did not,in point of fact,take the subject into their own hands,independent of the constituted authorities,they could not do it by any agency of those authorities.So far as the Federal Government was concerned,the Articles of Confederation,from which alone it derived its power,contained no provision by which "the people of the United States"could express authoritatively a joint and common purpose to change their government.A law of Congress authorizing them to do so,would have been void,for want of right in that body to pass it.No mode,which Congress might have prescribed for ascertaining the will of the people upon the subject,could have had that sanction of legal authority,which would have been absolutely necessary to give it force and effect.It is equally clear that there was no right or power reserved to the States themselves,by virtue of which any such authoritative expression of the common will and purpose of all the States could have been made.The power and jurisdiction of each State was limited to its own territory;it had no power to legislate for the people of any other State.No single State,therefore,could have affected such an object;and if they had all concurred in it,each acting,as it was only authorized to act,for itself,that would have been strictly the action of the states as such,and as contradistinguished from the action of the mass of the people of all the States.If "the people of the United States"could not,by any aid to be derived from their common government,have effected such a change in their Constitution,that government itself was equally destitute of all power to do so.The only clause in the Articles of the Confederation,touching this subject,is in the following words:
"And the Articles of this Confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State,and the Union shall be perpetual;nor shall any alteration,at any time hereafter,be made in any of them,unless such alteration be agreed to in Congress of the United States and be afterwards confirmed by the legislature of every State."
Even if this power had been given to Congress alone,without subjecting the exercise of it to the negative of the States,it would still have been the power of the States in their separate and independent capacities,and not the power of the people of the United States,as contradistinguished from them.For Congress was,as we have already remarked,strictly the representative of the States;and each State,being entitled to one vote,and one only,was precisely equal,in the deliberation of that body,to each other State.Nothing less,therefore,than a majority of the States could have carried the measure in question,even in Congress.But,surely there could be no doubt that the power to change their common government was reserved to the States alone,when we see it expressly provided that nothing less than their unanimous consent,as States,should be sufficient to effect that object.
There is yet another view of this subject.It results from the nature of all government,freely and voluntarily established,that there is no power to change,except the power which formed it.It will scarcely be denied by anyone,that the confederation was a government strictly of the States,formed by them as such,and deriving all its powers from their consent and agreement.What authority was there,superior to the States,which could undo their work?What power was there,other than the States themselves,which was authorized to declare that their solemn league and agreement should be abrogated?Could a majority of the people of all the States have done it?If so,whence did they derive that right?Certainly not from any agreement among the States,or the people of all the States;
