the only way that might save slavery, and the South seceded. Secession was claimed as a right under the Constitution, and the court of arms was appealed to in maintenance of that right. The war settled the right of any State to secede, but how did it settle it? It did not take away the right of revolution, which is as sacred as the personal right of self-defence, which no law can take away. "Whenever any form of government," says the Declaration of Independence, "becomes destructive of the ends for which it is instituted among men, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new government." In the long debate and final contest against secession, this right was never denied or affected. The right of Revolution is sacred, and by no laws or institutions can it be taken away.

The State Rights controversy had been long and bitter, it ended bloody and disastrous to the disciples of Mason, Randolph and Calhoun, fatal to slavery which ever added fuel to the intellectual combat, and passion to popular agitation.

The war over, the nation had felt the shock to its foundation. Inter arma leges silent. Every nerve had been strained to its utmost for national salvation, and like an athlete, victorious from the contest, the nation felt the strength of triple brass in its sinews and assumed all the powers and prerogatives to which, by the law of nations, it was entitled.

When Mr. Stevens, in Congress, declared that they were passing laws outside of the Constitution and regardless of it, he gave expression to the national

struggle that was determined to preserve the Union and the life of the nation.

When Mr. Hoar offered a bill in Congress to place all the schools in the land under national supervision, he seemed to think that the boundary lines of the States had faded before the nation's new vigorous life, and that the States had become mere provinces of a vast empire whose chief was at Washington, and whose soldiers were in every city of the nation.

The national spirit and strength that carried on the war for the Union and triumphed in legislation, also gave us the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments.

The Constitution and twelve of the amendments were the fruits of peaceable deliberation. The time came when compromises could no longer settle the difficulties between the North and South.

The "irrepressible conflict" went on and to arms was the last resort. Then came the three amendments that have in them no elements of compromise or accommodation. Bold, sweeping, comprehensive, impartial; they embody the fruits of the conflict, are hostile to rebellion and destructive to slavery. State rights no longer cherished and slavery no longer defended, but these elements of discord swept away and the omnipotence of Congress held in check by almost nothing but the restraint of the powers of the Supreme Court.

With a liberal construction of the Fourteenth amendment to the Constitution, we might have the Federal courts adjudicating local affairs, and might soon lament because the nation's victory was a victory

over ourselves, and Congress in legislating for the enemy had swept away our local independence.

Fortunately the Supreme Court applies the new amendments to secure justice to the negro, and thus the national government is restrained toward the ends for which it was at first instituted.

It is too soon to describe the workings of the new amendments and prediction may be useless, but it is certain that the importance of the States has faded before the might of the nation, and unless the people keep a jealous guard over the paladium of local independence in affairs which have not been given up to be managed by the general government, we may some day deplore the omnipotence of Congress and the despotism of Federal power.

The sad pictures of the opponents of a centralized bureauocratic nationality are drawn after contemplating the social, moral and political degradation of a despotic government. The laws under which a nation lives are the result of national character, but they, in turn, mold or influence the entire social system.

With the destruction of local independence, with the loss of government by the people, comes an abject dependence on government, which has been well called an accursed inheritance from the days of the divine right of kings.*

No man who loves republicanism or takes an interest in the cause of humanity, can look with unconcern upon the general government doing anything which the individual or the locality can do as well.

Pres. C. W. Eliot's Address on a National University, Aug., 1873.

Self-reliance preserves liberty, union only gives strength,

The ties then that should bind the nation together are not stringent laws or standing armies, but a noble history in which all have a common pride, similar laws and institutions derived from a common British source, a commerce that unites our people into one great commercial city, every day drawn closer and closer, a true patriotism that desires to do equity to all sections of the country, and advance the true interests of all.

We are justly proud of the Union and we glory in the strength of the nation, but let us ever be vigilant and jealous of the rights of individuals and localities, hostile to every act of injustice to any man, then we shall do our part toward making national unity a blessing and not a curse.