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Its framers at least had the wisdom to produce the right thing at the right time, and by their resolution and determined attitude to change a subject province into a free and independent state: for, carefully guarded as it is, the union with Sweden is only a source of strength and security.

It was not the intention of the framers of that instrument to make the President a mere administrative agent of Congress, but rather to set him over against that body and make him in a large measure the judge of his own authority.

"The question that underlies this controversy is this: whether we will stand by the Constitution in its original intent and spirit, or, like cravens, abandon it. I assert it here to-day, without fear of contradiction, that the amendment pending before this House is an amendment conforming exactly to the spirit of the Constitution, and according to the declared intent of its framers.

But the framers of the vindication marred their own object. They had introduced much questionable matter, and made numerous statements open to refutation: the advantage was eagerly seized by the royalists; and, notwithstanding the penalties recently enacted on account of unlicensed publications, several answers, eloquently and convincingly written, were circulated in many parts of the country.

But, though that doctrine was fully admitted by the Opposition, they made "that very admission a ground for reviving the question in the next session, by moving for a resolution which should declare that, 'being a Court of Judicature, the House of Commons, in deciding matters of election, was bound to judge according to the law of the land, and the known and established law of Parliament, which was part thereof." It was understood that this resolution, if carried, was intended as a stepping-stone to others which should condemn the decision of the previous session; yet it seemed such a truism that even the ministers could not venture to deny it; but they proposed to defeat the object of its framers by adding to it a declaration that the late decision was "agreeable to the said law of the land."

I do not believe that it was the design or intention of the signers of the Declaration of Independence or the framers of the Constitution to include negroes as citizens. * The position Lincoln has taken on this question not only presents him as claiming for them the right to vote, but their right under the divine law and the Declaration of Independence to be elected to office, to become members of the legislature, to go to Congress, to become Governors or United States Senators, or Judges of the Supreme Court. * He would permit them to marry, would he not?

If their expectation in this regard had been fully realized, a judicious use of the appointing power would have been all that was necessary to ensure a conservative court. Perhaps the framers of the Constitution did not imagine that the power to increase the number of judges would ever be needed to enable the President and Senate to secure the co-operation of the Supreme Court.

The solicitude shown by the members of this convention for the interests of the well-to-do certainly tends to justify Adam Smith's observation. The framers of the Constitution realized, however, that it would not do to carry this system of checks upon the people too far.

If, as constitutional writers have generally assumed, the framers of the Constitution intended by this provision to protect members of Congress against prosecution in the courts, it is difficult to understand why they should have omitted what had been the main feature and purpose of this provision, not only in the original Bill of Rights, but also in the state constitutions copying it and in the Articles of Confederation.

The regulating power necessarily presupposes the existence of something to be regulated. As applied to commerce, it signifies, according to the lexicographers, "to subject to rules or restrictions, as to regulate trade," etc. The Constitution itself is its own best expounder of the meaning of words employed by its framers. Thus, Congress have the power "to coin money." This is the creative power.