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Construction Construed, and Constitutions Vindicated
Construction Construed and Constitutions Vindicated Author:John Taylor Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SECTION 3. v ... SOVEREIGNTY. I Do not know how it has happened, that this word has crept into our political dialect, unless it be that mankind prefer m... more »ystery to knowledge; and that governments love obscurity better than specification. The unknown powers of sovereignty and supremacy may be relished, because they tickle the mind with hopes and fears; just as we indulge the taste with Cayenne pepper, though it disorders the "health, and finally destroys the body. Governments delight in a power to administer the palatable drugs of exclusive privileges and pecuniary gifts; and selfishness is willing enough to receive them; and this mutual pleasure may possibly have suggested the ingenious stratagem, for neutralizing constitutional restrictions by a single word, as a new chymical ingredient will often change the effects of a great mass of other matters. Neither the declaration of independence, nor the federal constitution, nor the constitution of any single state, uses this equivocal and illimitable word. The first declares the colonies " to be free and independent states." The second is ordained to "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity :" And the rest recognize governments as " the servants of the people." In none, is there the least intimation of a sovereign power; and in all, conventional powers are divided, limited and restrained. There is, I believe, an instance in a bill of rights, in which a state is declared " to be free, sovereign and independent." But it was the state and not its government which was the object of this declaration ; and the reference was to other nations. The language of all these sacred, eivil authorities, is carefully chastened of a word, at discord with their purpose of imposing restrictions upon governments, by the na...« less