But if the

had not resided within the State during a year. State has the power to affix any limit at all to the enjoyment of this right, then the State must be the sole judge of the extent of such restriction. It can confine the right of voting to freeholders, as well as adults or residents for a year. The boasted power of majorities can only show itself under the law, and not against the law, in any government of laws. It can only act upon days and in places appointed by law.

But it is urged by the opposite counsel, that the great doctrine of the sovereignty of the people, and their consequent power to alter the constitution whenever they choose, is the American doctrine, in opposition to that of the Holy Alliance of Europe, which proclaims that all reforms must emanate from the throne. Let us examine this so-called American doctrine. I say that a proposition to amend always comes from the legislative body. (Mr. Whipple here examined, seriatim, the Constitution of the United States, and the constitutions of each State, to show that this principle ran through the whole of them.)

Look at the subject in another aspect. In Congress each House must agree, and even then the President may veto a bill. Sixteen millions of people in the large States may be in favor of amending the Constitution, but their will may be thwarted by four millions in the small States. What then becomes of this vaunted American doctrine of popular sovereignty, acting by majorities? There is no such thing in the United States as a forcible revolution. The Constitution forbids it. The framers of it gave to the federal government power to put down a rebellion, because they saw that remedies for all grievances were provided by law.

Mr. Webster, on the same side.

This is an unusual case. During the years 1841 and 1842, great agitation existed in Rhode Island. In June, 1842, it subsided. The legislature passed laws for the punishment of offenders, and declared martial law. The grand jury indicted Dorr for treason. His trial came on in 1844, when he was convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for life. Here is a suit in which the opposite counsel say that a great mistake has happened in the courts of Rhode Island; that Governor King should have been indicted. They wish the governor and the rebel to change places. If the court can take cognizance of this question, which I do not think, it is not to be regretted that it has been brought here. It is said to involve the fundamental principles of American liberty. This is true. It is always proper to discuss these, if the appeal be made to reason.

and not to the passions. There are certain principles of liberty which have existed in other countries, such as life, the right of property, trial by jury, &c. Our ancestors brought with them all which they thought valuable in England, and left behind them all which they thought were not. Whilst colonies, they sympathized with Englishmen in the Revolution of 1688 There was a general rejoicing. But in 1776 the America people adopted principles more especially adapted to their con dition. They can be traced through the Confederation and the present Constitution, and our principles of liberty have now be come exclusively American. They are distinctly marked. W changed the government where it required change; where w found a good one, we left it. Conservatism is visible through out. Let me state what I understand these principles to be.

The first is, that the people are the source of all politica power. Every one believes this. Where else is there any power? There is no hereditary legislature, no large property no throne, no primogeniture. Every body may buy and sell There is an equality of rights. Any one who should look to any other source of power than the people would be as much out of his mind as Don Quixote, who imagined that he saw things which did not exist. Let us all admit that the people are sovereign. Jay said that in this country there were many sovereigns and no subject. A portion of this sovereign powe has been delegated to government, which represents and speaks the will of the people as far as they chose to delegate thei power. Congress have not all. The State governments have not all. The Constitution of the United States does not speak of the government. It says the United States. Nor does it speak of State governments. It says the States; but it recog nizes governments as existing. The people must have representatives. In England, the representative system originated not as a matter of right, but because it was called by the king The people complained sometimes that they had to send up burgesses. At last there grew up a constitutional representation of the people. In our system, it grew up differently. I was because the people could not act in mass, and the right to choose a representative is every man's portion of sovereign power. Suffrage is a delegation of political power to some individual. Hence the right must be guarded and protected against force or fraud. That is one principle. Another is, that the qualification which entitles a man to vote must be prescribed by previous laws, directing how it is to be exercised, and also that the results shall be certified to some central power so that the vote may tell. We know no other principle. go beyond these, you go wide of the American track.

One principle is, that the people often limit their government; another, that they often limit themselves. They secure themselves against sudden changes by mere majorities. The fifth article of the Constitution of the United States is a clear proof of this. The necessity of having a concurrence of two thirds of both houses of Congress to propose amendments, and of their subsequent ratification by three fourths of the States, gives no countenance to the principles of the Dorr men, because the people have chosen so to limit themselves, All qualifications which persons are required to possess before they can be elected are, in fact, limitations upon the power of the electors; and so are rules requiring them to vote only at particular times and places. Our American mode of government does not draw any power from tumultuous assemblages. If any thing is, established in that way, it is deceptive. It is true that at the Revolution governments were forcibly destroyed. But what did the people then do? They got together and took the necessary steps to frame new governments, as they did in England when James the Second abdicated. William asked Parliament to assemble and provide for the case. It was a revolution, not because there was a change in the person of the sovereign, but because there was a hiatus which must be filled. It has been said by the opposing counsel, that the people can get together, call themselves so many thousands, and establish whatever government they please. But others must have the same right. We have then a stormy South American liberty, supported by arms to-day and crushed by arms tomorrow. Our theory places a beautiful face on liberty, and makes it powerful for good, producing no tumults, When it is necessary to ascertain the will of the people, the legislature must provide the means of ascertaining it. The Constitution of the United States was established in this way. It was recommended to the States to send delegates to a convention. They did so. Then it was recommended that the States should ascertain the will of the people. Nobody suggested any other mode.

The opposite counsel have cited the examples of the different States in which constitutions have been altered, Only two. provided for conventions, and yet conventions have been held in many of them. But how? Always these conventions were called together by the legislature, and no single constitution has ever been altered by means of a convention gotten up by mass meetings. There must be an authentic mode of ascertaining the public will somehow and somewhere. If not, it is a government of the strongest and most numerous. It is said, that, if the legislature refuses to call a convention, the case then

resembles the Holy Alliance of Europe, whose doctrine it was that all changes must originate with the sovereign. But there is no resemblance whatever. I say that the will of the people must prevail, but that there must be some mode of finding out that will. The people here are as sovereign as the crowned heads at Laybach, but their will is not so easily discovered. They cannot issue a ukase or edict. In 1845, New York passed a law recommending to the people to vote for delegates to a convention; but the same penalties against fraud were provided as in other elections. False oaths were punished in the same way. The will of the people was collected just as in

ordinary occasions.

What do the Constitution and laws of the United States say upon this point. The Constitution recognizes the existence of States, and guarantees to each a republican form of government and to protect them against domestic violence. The thing which is to be protected is the existing State government. This is clear by referring to the act of Congress of 1795. In case of an insurrection against a State, or the government thereof, the President is to interfere. The Constitution proceeds upon the idea, that each State will take care to establish its own government upon proper principles, and does not contemplate these extraneous and irregular alterations of existing governments.

Let us now look into the case as it was tried in the court below, and examine,

1st. Whether this court can take judicial cognizance of, and decide, the questions which are presented in the record.

2d. Whether the acts which the plaintiff below offered to prove were not criminal acts, and therefore no justification for any body.

3d. Whether in point of tact any new government was put into operation in Rhode Island, as has been alleged.

(Mr. Webster here examined the pleas, &c., and narrative of proceedings, as above set forth.) The new constitution was proclaimed on the 13th of January, 1842. On the 13th of April, officers were appointed under it, and Mr. Dorr was chosen governor. On the 3d of May the legislature met, sat that day and the next, and then adjourned to meet on the first Monday in July, in Providence. But it never met again. What became of it? The whole government went silently out of existence. In November, 1842, the people voted to adopt a constitution which had been framed under legislative authority, and in May, 1843, this new constitution went into operation and has ever since continued. If this displaced Mr. Dorr's government, then there was an interregnum in the State of nearly a year. But

between the first Monday in July, 1842, and May, 1843, what had extinguished this government of Mr. Dorr? It must have gone out of itself, and, in fact, only lasted for two days, viz. the 3d and 4th of May, 1842. In August, 1842, Dorr was indicted for treason, tried in March, 1844, and found guilty. (Mr. Webster here read an extract from the charge of Chief Justice Durfee.)

To return to the first point mentioned. Can this court, or could the court below, take cognizance of the questions which are raised in the record? If not, the proof was properly rejected.

The question which the court was called upon to decide was one of sovereignty. Two legislatures were in existence at the same time. Both could not be legitimate, If legal power had not passed away from the charter government, it could not have got into Dorr's. The position taken on the other side is that it had so passed away, and it is attempted to be proved by votes and proceedings of meetings, &c., out of doors. This court must look elsewhere, -to the Constitution and laws, and acts of the government, of the United States. How did the President of the United States treat this question? Acting under the Constitution and law of 1795, he decided that the exsting government was the one which he was bound to protect. He took his stand accordingly, and we say that this is obligatory upon this court, which always follows an executive recognition of a foreign government. The proof offered below, and rejected by the court, would have led to a different result. Its object was to show that the Dorr constitution was adopted by a majority of the people. But how could a court judge of this? Can it know how many persons were present, how many of them qualified voters, and all this to be proved by testimony? Can it order to be brought before it the minutes and registers of unauthorized officers, and have them proved by parol? The decisions of the legislature and courts of Rhode Island conclude the case. Will you reverse the judg

ment in Dorr's case?

The second proposition is a branch of the first, viz.;

If the court below had admitted the evidence offered by the other side, and the facts which they alleged had been established by proof, still they would not have afforded any ground of justification. The truth of this proposition is sufficiently manifest from these two considerations, namely, that the acts referred to were declared to be of a oriminal nature by competent authority, and no one can justify his conduct by crimi

nal acts.

3. Let us now inquire whether, in point of fact, any new gov