ociation,
become attached to forms and symbols, so as in time to believe that upon
their existence depends the substance of which they are but the signs.
Forty years ago, in the Hawaiian Islands, the death-penalty was
inflicted upon a native of the inferior caste, should he chance to pass
over the shadow of one of noble birth. So would you avenge an insult to
a shadow, while you allow the substance to be stolen from your grasp.
Our jewel, as freemen, is the right of self-government; the form of
government is a mere convenience--a machine, which may be dismembered,
destroyed, remodelled a thousand times, without detriment to the great
principle of which it is the outward sign."

"You draw a picture of anarchy that would disgrace a confederation of
petty savage tribes. What miserable apology for a government would that
be whose integrity depends upon the caprice of the governed?"

"It is as likely that a government should become tyrannical, as that a
people should become capricious. You have simply chosen an unfair word.
For _caprice_ substitute _will_, and you have my ideal of a true
republic."

"And by that ideal, one State, by its individual act, might overturn the
entire system adopted for the convenience and safety of the whole."

"Not so. It does not follow that the system should be overturned because
circumscribed in limit, more than that a business firm should
necessarily be ruined by the withdrawal of a partner. Observe, Harold,
that the General Government was never a sovereignty, and came into
existence only by the consent of each and every individual State. The
States were the sovereignties, and their connection with the Union,
being the mere creature of their will, can exist only by that will."

"Why, Beverly, you might as well argue that this pencil-case, which
became mine by an act of volition on your part, because you gave it me,
ceases to be mine when you reclaim it."

"If I had appointed you my amanuensis, and had transferred my pencil to
you simply for the purposes of your labor in my behalf, when I choose to
dismiss you, I should expect the return of my property. The States made
no gifts to the Federal Government for the sake of giving, but only
delegated certain powers for specific purposes. They never could have
delegated the power of coercion, since no one State or number of States
possessed that power as against their sister States."

"But surely, in entering into the bonds of union, they for