Here the unwritten
constitution, or the constitution written in the people
themselves, rendered practicable and dictated the written
constitution, or constitution ordained by the convention and
engrossed on parchment. It only expresses in the government the
fact which pre-existed in the national organization and life.
This division of the powers of government is peculiar to the
United States, and is an effective safeguard against both feudal
disintegration and Roman centralism. Misled by their prejudices
and peculiar interests, a portion of the people of the United
States, pleading in their justification the theory of State
sovereignty, attempted disintegration, secession, and national
independence separate from that of the United States, but the
central force of the constitution was too strong for them to
succeed. The unity of the nation was too strong to be
effectually broken. No doubt the reaction against secession and
disintegration will strengthen the tendency to centralism, but
centralism can succeed no better than disintegration has
succeeded because the General government has no subsistentia, no
suppositum, to borrow a theological term, outside or independent
of the States. The particular governments are stronger, if
there be any difference, to protect the States against
centralism than the General government is to protect the Union
against disintegration; and after swinging for a time too far
toward one extreme and then too far toward the other, the public
mind will recover its equilibrium, and the government move on in
its constitutional path.
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