elected, or not; and we cannot revise and reverse their acts in
this particular, without usurping their power. Were the votes on
the adoption of our present constitution now offered here to prove
that it was or was not adopted; or those given for the governor
under it, to prove that he was or was not elected; we could not
receive the evidence ourselves, we could not permit it to pass to
the jury. And why not? Because, if we did so, we should cease to be
a mere judicial, and become a political tribunal, with the whole
sovereignty in our hands. Neither the people nor the legislature
would be sovereign. We should be sovereign, or you would be
sovereign; and we should deal out to parties litigant, here at our
bar, sovereignty to this or that, according to rules or laws of our
own making, and heretofore unknown in courts.

"In what condition would this country be, if appeals could be thus
taken to courts and juries? _This_ jury might decide one way, and
_that_ another, and the sovereignty might be found here to-day, and
there to-morrow. Sovereignty is above courts or juries, and the
creature cannot sit in judgment upon its creator. Were this
instrument offered as the constitution of a foreign state, we
might, perhaps, under some circumstances, require proof of its
existence; but, even in that case, the fact would not be
ascertained by counting the votes given at its adoption, but by the
certificate of the secretary of state, under the broad seal of the
state. This instrument is not offered as a foreign constitution,
and this court is bound to know what the constitution of the
government is under which it acts, without any proof even of that
high character. We know nothing of the existence of the so-called
'people's constitution' as law, and there is no proof before you of
its adoption, and of the election of the prisoner as governor under
it; and you can return a verdict only on the evidence that has
passed to you."

Having thus, may it please your honors, attempted to state the questions
as they arise, and having referred to what has taken place in Rhode
Island, I shall present what further I have to say in three
propositions:--

1st. I say, first, that the matters offered to be proved by the
plaintiff in the court below are not of judicial cognizance; and proof
of them, t