war,—can you say they are "the security of a state"? He thought not.
Mr. CHEVES. It is said that the powers of the general government were not sovereign, but limited. This was to deny the existence of any sovereignty which was limited as to its objects, than which nothing is, however, more common. But there is an authority on this point which Mr. C. supposed would not be controverted. He meant Mr. Hamilton's argument on the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States.
[Here Mr. C. read the following extract from that work: "The circumstance that the powers of the sovereignty are, in this country, between the national and state governments, does not afford the distinction required. It does not follow from this that each of the portions of power, delegated to the one or the other, is not sovereign with regard to its proper objects. It will only follow from it that each has sovereign power with regard to certain things, and not as to other things. To deny that the government of the United States has sovereign power as to its declared purposes and trusts, because its power does not extend to all laws, would be equally to deny that state governments have sovereign power in any case, because their power does not extend to every case."]
It was said, by the same gentleman, that the writers contemporaneous with the adoption, and the debates of the several conventions on the adoption of the Constitution, repelled the construction now contended for; but that gentleman had not produced, nor had any other gentleman produced, a sentence to that effect, except the gentleman from Tennessee, (Mr. Grundy,) who read from the Virginia debates, in the argument of Mr. Nicholas, a detached sentence, in which, speaking of that article of the Constitution which gives power to Congress "to provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions," he says they cannot call them forth for any other purpose than to execute the laws, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. But Mr. Madison, in the same debate, says, "The most effectual way to render it unnecessary, is to give the general government full power to call forth the militia, and exert the whole natural strength of the Union, when necessary." He (Mr. C.) was opposed to the latitude of the bill.
Seamen's Bill.—For the Regulation of Seamen on Board the Public Vessels, and in the Merchant Service of the United States.
House of Representatives, February, 1813.
Mr. SEYBERT. The Constitution of the United States declares. Congress shall have power "to establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies, throughout the United States." Sir, the rule only relates to the mode; it is only operative during the nascent state of the political conversion, and it ceases to have effect the moment after the process has been completed. Your Constitution only recognizes the highest grade of citizenship that can be conferred. The alien is thus made a native, as it were, and is fully vested with every right and privilege attached to the native, with the exception impressed on the Constitution. Your statutes cannot deprive any particular species of citizens of the right of personal liberty, or the locomotive faculty, because the Constitution does not characterize the citizens of the United States as native and naturalized. Our great family is composed of a class of men forming a single genus, who, to all intents and purposes, are equal, except in the instance specified—that of not being eligible to the presidency of the United States. The only exception to the rule is expressed
