here, on a moment's reflection,
undertake to show the least resemblance on earth between what I have
called the American doctrine, and the doctrine of the sovereigns at
Laybach? What do I contend for? I say that the will of the people must
prevail, when it is ascertained; but there must be some legal and
authentic mode of ascertaining that will; and then the people may make
what government they please. Was that the doctrine of Laybach? Was not
the doctrine there held this,--that the _sovereigns_ should say what
changes shall be made? Changes must proceed from them; new constitutions
and new laws emanate from them; and all the people had to do was to
submit. That is what they maintained. All changes began with the
sovereigns, and ended with the sovereigns. Pray, at about the time that
the Congress of Laybach was in session, did the allied powers put it to
the people of Italy to say what sort of change they would have? And at a
more recent date, did they ask the citizens of Cracow what change they
would have in their constitution? Or did they take away their
constitution, laws, and liberties, by their own sovereign act? All that
is necessary here is, that the will of the people should be ascertained,
by some regular rule of proceeding, prescribed by previous law. But when
ascertained, that will is as sovereign as the will of a despotic prince,
of the Czar of Muscovy, or the Emperor of Austria himself, though not
quite so easily made known. A ukase or an edict signifies at once the
will of a despotic prince; but that will of the people, which is here as
sovereign as the will of such a prince, is not so quickly ascertained or
known; and thence arises the necessity for suffrage, which is the mode
whereby each man's power is made to tell upon the constitution of the
government, and in the enactment of laws.

One of the most recent laws for taking the will of the people in any
State is the law of 1845, of the State of New York. It begins by
recommending to the people to assemble in their several election
districts, and proceed to vote for delegates to a convention. If you
will take the pains to read that act, it will be seen that New York
regarded it as an ordinary exercise of legislative power. It applies all
the penalties for fraudulent voting, as in other elections. It punishes
false oaths, as in other cases. Certificates of the proper officers were
to be held conclusive, and the will of the people was, in this respect,
co