the one who could lie with the straightest face and run the least risk of being caught."

To treat the Federal Constitution as a "famous treaty" in which "the thirteen sovereign and independent states of America in 1787 . adopted the Constitution of the United States" is a gross violation of history and a misstatement of facts. As a support to the idea that all treaties involve "the consequent surrender of at least some measure of sovereignty" in every treaty, the circumstances surrounding the adoption of the Federal Constitution are driven out of court, after examination.

In the first place, the American colonies never enjoyed complete sovereignty. They were always subject to some common superior. First it was the King, then the Parliament of England, then the Revolutionary Congress. The states that succeeded the colonies never had complete sovereignty. They were subject to the superior sovereignty of the Confederation, then to the Constitution. They had only qualified sovereignty as to each other. States are not sovereign and never have been. Neither are they nations. They are political communities, occupying separate territories, and possessing powers of self-government.

The people of the several states in 1787 had no power to enter into a treaty. The Confederation was a social agreement or contract between the peoples of the different states. It had sovereignty but no power from the people to enforce that sov

ereignty. The Federal Constitution derived its sovereignty solely from the people, not the states.

The Declaration of Independence was an act of inherent sovereignty of the people. The Congresses of

1775 and 1776 exercised the sovereign power of the people.

The Federal Constitution likewise imposed limitations on the states, but these limitations were the acts of the people in their sovereign power.

Says one authority: "Sovereign power in our government belongs to the people, and the government of the United States and the governments of several states are but the machinery for expounding or expressing the will of the sovereign power."

It is thus clearly seen that the Federal Constitution was not a treaty, and by its adoption sovereignties were not "surrendered by the wholesale." The people simply transferred a portion of their sovereignty to the Federal Government, granting specific powers to it, and limiting some of the powers of the states. The Federal Constitution became the Supreme Law, and was the expression of the sovereignty of the people.

The growth of the national spirit is one of the characteristics of the American Republic. In this growth, the name of John Marshall figures most conspicuously; and to Marshall the nation owes a large degree of its national sovereignty. Of it he said: "It has made simpler and more natural every step in the development of the United States toward national greatness."

In the famous Supreme Court case of McCullock vs. Maryland, one of the earlier decisions giving form and substance to national sovereignty, Chief Justice Marshall said:

"Counsel of the State of Maryland have deemed it of some importance in the construction of the Constitution, to consider that instrument not as emanating from the people, but as the act of sovereign and independent states. The powers of the general government, it has been said, are delegated by the states, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the states, who alone possess supreme domination. It would be difficult to sustain that proposition. . . . Of consequence, when people act, they act in their states. But the measures they adopt do not, on that account, cease to be the measures of the people themselves, or become the measures of the state governments. . . . The government proceeds directly from the people; is 'ordained and established' in the name of the people. To the formation of a league, such as was the Confederation, the state sovereignties were certainly competent. But when in order to form a more perfect union; it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective government possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers directly from them, was felt and acknowledged by all. . . . The government of the Union, then, is emphatically and truly a government of the people. In form and substance it emanates from them. Its powers are granted by them, and are to be exercised directly on them, and for their benefit."

...

such agreement involved "such an undignified surrender of sovereign rights."

The Federal Constitution gave the national government the power not only to tax but to collect; not only the form of sovereignty but the substance; not only authority but the power to enforce authority. Without such powers the Constitution would have been a failure. As Washington said of the Confederation: "There should be somewhere a supreme power to regulate and govern the concerns of the confederated Republic." The Federal Constitution was given that supreme power. The people, who alone possess that sovereignty, granted it. The people surrendered no part of their sovereignty.

The British-American Convention of 1817 was not a surrender of any sovereignty by the United States, nor the people thereof. It was not "an ignominious surrender to the British hion." Nor is it an argument in favor of naval disarmament, and no American navy. As well might we say that because no policemen are needed in and about the Broadway Tabernacle in New York City, none are needed down on the Bowery or in any other hoodlum district.

It is now clearly seen that throughout the development of the national spirit and national sovereignty, the United States, or the people thereof, have never surrendered national sovereignty. The glory of our Republic is written in its marvelous story of human uplift, national progress and spiritual well-being. The cynic says

there has been no spiritual progress. On the contrary, it is evident in manifold ways, and conspicuously evident as the result of sacrifice incident to the war. The manhood, the wealth of the Republic; its resources, its opportunities, all go back to the national spirit and the national sovereignty built into the structure by the wise fathers whose deeds live after them.

It is no argument in favor of the proposed League of Nations, that the United States has hitherto surrendered some of its sovereignty, and can, with safety, do it again. The assumption is not true; and the statement is an admission that the proposed Covenant will surrender some of our national sovereignty. With the admission in mind, it behooves us to examine the Covenant and ascertain wherein the United States will, if a member of the League, surrender any portion of its sovereignty.

In his great speech in the United States Senate, March 1st, 1919, Senator Knox of Pennsylvania asks this question: "Do the provisions of the proposed original Covenant strike down the precepts of the Constitution?" He answers it by adding: “A mere listing of some of the more conspicuous provisions of each shows that it does."

First, in the limitations of the size of our army and navy.

Second, in the power to declare war. Third, in the treaty provisions. Fourth, in economic provisions. Fifth, in guaranteeing the political and territorial integrity of all member nations.

"Thus," concludes Senator Knox, "this Covenant will, if it becomes operative, strike down most vital provisions of the Constitution. . . . You cannot but say that our sovereignty has, in matters of national life and death, been destroyed."

Senator Lodge said substantially the same thing in the Lodge-Lowell debate and in other addresses. The Covenant has been amended to meet some of the objections, but not all.

One of the main points of objection raised against the Covenant is that it surrenders the Monroe Doctrine. The addition of a new article to the Covenant, dealing specifically with the Monroe Doctrine, and attempting to remove it from the operation of the Covenant, is an admission that the original draft did destroy and surrender the great American policy.

But the amended Covenant, notwithstanding the claims of its promoters, does not adequately protect the Monroe Doctrine, for that Doctrine is neither an "international arrangement" nor "a regional understanding," nor is the Monroe Doctrine simply "for securing the maintenance of peace." The interpretation of this Doctrine is, by the Covenant, taken out of the hands of the United States and placed in the hands of the Council of the League.

A Paris correspondent of the New York Times, in the issue of April 30, 1919, gave what purported to be the inside interpretation of the amended Covenant in this regard. This correspondent said: "It is declared that in so far as the Monroe

Doctrine tends to that end (consistency with the terms of the Covenant), its vitality cannot be affected by the Covenant. . . . It cannot be invoked to limit action of the League of Nations, which has world-wide application."

What does that mean, but a subordination of the Monroe Doctrine to the League of Nations? And subordination is a surrender of national sovereignty.

It is perfectly clear that the proposed Covenant of the League of Nations, notwithstanding the amendments to meet many American objections, is an attempt to substitute international sovereignty for national sovereignty. That means a revolution of our form of government; and to be legal and constitutional, will certainly require amendments of the Federal Constitution. If the people are ready for that, well and good; if not, it behooves them to instruct their senators to be cautious and to go slow.

The proposed League of Nations means a radical change from nationalism to internationalism. It will mark the beginning of the breaking

down of national boundaries, of national traditions and national aspirations. It will be a long step toward world democracy or international socialism. National sovereignty will, indeed, then decline. Are the people ready for it?

The proposed Covenant of League of Nations has secured not a little support because it is assumed that it will bring about permanent peace, or be a step in that direction. All that has thus far transpired at the Peace Conference, relative to the proposed Legaue of Nations, seems to indicate that such a League will be a source of war, not peace. If this is true, the only rational reason for its existence is swept away.

The Republic of the United States has reached the parting of the ways. On the one hand is the tried road of nationalism, with its sign posts, its warnings, its experiences, its triumphs. On the other is the unknown sea of internationalism, with its storms and tempests, its rocks and shoals.

The sovereignty of the people of the United States is hanging in the balance.

"I see it suggested in some places that the United States should not accept membership in the League of Nations because it might involve some sacrifice of national sovereignty. It would be foolish to deny that if nations are to make any organization for peace each of them must be content to modify in some degree, however slight, its liberty of action. That is the inevitable result of co-operation, and I do not wish to underrate the sacrifice involved.

"But after all nothing that is worth doing in this world can be done without sacrifice, and if any real change in the present international anarchy is to take

place it can only be because the nations of the world are so convinced of the horrible evils of war that they are ready to risk something to prevent its occurrence in the future.

"Those who have seen the devastated districts of France and Belgium, or have read of the wholesale massacres in every part of Europe and Asia, and the famines which threaten the health and lives of millions of those who are least responsible for the war, will not doubt that some drastic change in international relations is essential to humanity and civilization."-Lord Robert Cecil.

TH

HE writer of "Six Lessons in Sovereignty," which appeared in the March issue of the LEAGUE OF NATIONS MAGAZINE did not suspect that any reader would take his remarks quite so seriously as Mr. Edward N. Dingley seems to have done. With many of the latter's observations in his attempt at refutation he is in full accord; but he most decidedly begs to disagree with certain others, of which more later.

The purpose underlying the "Six Lessons" was to endeavor to discriminate between genuine, wholesome and proper sovereignty and that assumed sovereignty which exists only in the imaginations of certain United States senators and their followers. The main difference of opinion between Mr. Dingley and the writer is as to the point where actual sovereignty ends and fake sovereignty begins.

No sane people would willingly surrender one jot of their genuine and proper sovereignty. But because of the supreme value of political independence or sovereignty over internal affairs and the general ignorance as to the limitations of the falsely assumed sovereignty over those affairs which also equally concern other nations, the average man goes up in the air when he is told by some prominent United States Senator that the sovereignty of his country is threatened. However, the fact

that, as the prosperity of the patent medicine industry clearly shows, an article or a cure or a notion is false and a fake does not prevent its general acceptance and use, to the discomfort of numerous patients and to the present world-wide agony be it said.

During the early years of the recent war we all remember how our sacred personal and commercial rights on the high seas were daily violated by Great Britain and her allies. Our mails were rifled and censored, our cargoes were taken into British ports and disposed of according to Allied pleasure, and many of our innocent citizens were held under arrest. So much so that for a time there was a powerful anti-British sentiment throughout our country. But under the modern conditions of the interdependence of nations the Allied policy could not have been otherwise. It was right and proper and necessary that our rights on the high seas were suspended, whether or not against our will. We gradually awoke to the solemn fact that there are serious limitations to a nation's rights when those rights are in conflict with the rights of other nations, and we wisely bowed to the inevitable. This was a tribute we paid to the common facts incident to the mutual dependence of nations, but which we rarely take account of in our political policies and actions except under duress. Because of our failure to