for to suppose that they are the constitution and government of each, because of the whole, would be to assume, what is not true, that they were ordained and established by the American people in the aggregate, as forming one nation. This would be to reduce the several States to subordinate and local divisions; and to convert their separate constitutions and governments into mere charters and subordinate corporations: when, in truth and fact, they are equals and co-ordinates.
It, finally, involved a great change in the manner of carrying into execution the delegated powers. As a government, it was necessary to clothe it with the attribute of deciding, in the first instance, on the extent of its powers — and of acting on individuals, directly, in carrying them into execution; instead of appealing to the agency of the governments of the States — as was the case with the Congress of the confederacy.
Such are the essential distinctions between a federal government and a confederacy — and such, in part, the important changes necessarily involved, in substituting a government, in the place of the Congress of the confederacy.
It now remains to be shown, that the government is a republic — a republic — or (if the expression be preferred) a constitutional democracy, in contradistinction to an absolute democracy.
It is not an uncommon impression, that the government of the United States is a government based simply on population; that numbers are its only element, and a numerical majority its only controlling
