o our independence, as a species of
feudatories for the benefit of the mother country. By popular vote, by
elastic constructions or palpable violations of the Constitution, by
unprecedented assumptions, our Federal system has been revolutionized.
It is the height of absurdity to talk of the restrictions of a written
Constitution, when a dominant majority interprets finally that
instrument, and there are no remedies to protect against invasion or
encroachment.[8] It is a mere glittering generality to boast of a
constitutional republic, if a President can violate the organic law
with impunity, or if Congress is restrained in its assumptions only by
its own sense of justice. Much recent executive, legislative, and
judicial action has tended to absorb State rights and prerogatives. Mr.
Boutwell's proposition to remand a State to territorial pupilage would
be but the legal enactment and the logical sequence of what has had the
enthusiastic approval of a large number of citizens. Encroachments have
been so numerous and violent, submission has been so tame, that
governors are coolly set aside on the demand of a petty marshal, and
legislatures on the bidding of Mr. Jones. Once States were supposed to
have the right of eminent domain; to have exclusive control of
education, of litigation among its own citizens; to determine the
elective franchise; to regulate the relations of parent and child,
husband and wife, guardian and ward; but that was in the purer days of
the republic, when States were not mere counties, but political
communities, with, a large residuum of undelegated powers. The earlier
amendments to the Constitution imposed checks and limitations upon the
general Government, because of the watchful jealousy on the part of the
States of their sovereignty and independence. Following the tendency to
centralize, to despotize, the late amendments are in the direction of
consolidation, and take away from the States what was once universally
regarded as their _exclusive_ prerogative in reference to the elective
franchise. Now, under amendments and "_appropriate_ legislation for
carrying them into effect," the _national_ Government can control
voting, make a registration of voters, and very soon, if there be no
arrest of tyranny, the ballot box will be under the guardianship of
Presidential appointees. Federal election laws thus degrade States into
petty municipalities and subvert liberty.

[8] Not only that government i