which has created the Union. Hence the rule that when a question arises whether the National government possesses a particular power, proof must be given that the power was positively granted. If not granted, it is not possessed, because the Union is an artificial creation, whose government can have nothing but what the people have by the Constitution conferred. The presumption is therefore against the National government in such a case, just as it is for the State in a like case.[1]
VII. The authority of the National government over the citizens of every State is direct and immediate, not exerted through the State organization, and not requiring the co-operation of the State government. For most purposes the National government ignores the States; and it treats the citizens of different States as being simply its own citizens, equally bound by its laws. The Federal courts, revenue officers, and post-office draw no help from any State officials, but depend directly on Washington. Hence, too, of course, there is no local self-government in Federal matters. No Federal official is elected by the people of any local area. Local government is purely a State affair.
On the other hand, the State in no wise depends on the National government for its organization or its effective working. It is the creation of its own inhabitants. They have given it its constitution. They administer its government. It goes on its own way, touching the National government at but few points. That the two should touch at the fewest possible points was the intent of those who framed the Federal Constitution, for they saw that the less contact, the less danger of collision. Their aim was to keep the two mechanisms as distinct and independent of each other as was compatible with the still higher need of subordinating, for national purposes, the State to the Central government.[2]
- ↑ Congress must not attempt to interfere with the so-called “police power” of the States within their own limits. So when a statute of Congress had made it punishable to sell certain illuminating fluids inflammable at less than a certain specified temperature, it was held that this statute could not operate within a State, but only in the District of Columbia and the Territories, and a person convicted under it in Detroit was discharged (United States v. De Witt, 9 Wall. 41).
- ↑ For a comparison of the Federal system of the United States with the Federal system of the two ancient English Universities, see note to this chapter printed at the end of the volume.
