This is one of those pictures which he exhibits to the Americans in Virginia, assembled in their conventions: “What shall the states have to do? Take care of the poor, repair and make highways, erect bridges, and so on, and so on? Abolish the state legislatures at once. What purposes should they be continued for? Our legislature will be indeed a ludicrous spectacle--one hundred and eighty men marching in solemn, farcical procession, exhibiting a mournful proof of the lost liberty of their country, _without the power of restoring it_. But, sir, we have the consolation that it is a mixed government; that is, it may work sorely on your neck, but you have some comfort by saying, that it was a federal government in its origin.” (3 _Ell. Deb._ 171.) Clearly, neither Henry nor the other opponents of the new Constitution had the modern ability to discern that it only _appeared_ to deprive the state governments of much of their former powers. They could not see, they did not know, that its Fifth Article granted those state governments the omnipotence over individual liberty which the Statute of ’76 had denied to the British Parliament. And because Henry and his colleagues had not the discernment of _our_ leaders, we hear Wilson and the supporters of the Constitution defending it against the plain fact that it did rob the state governments of much of their former power. For example, we hear Wilson saying: “The secret is now disclosed, and it is discovered to be a dread, that the boasted _state sovereignties_ will, under this system, be disrobed of part of their power.... I know very well, sir, that the people have hitherto been shut out of the federal government; but it is not meant that they should any longer be dispossessed of their rights. In order to recognize this leading principle, the proposed system sets out with a declaration that its existence depends upon the supreme authority of the people alone.... When the principle is once settled that the _people_ are the source of authority, the consequence is, that _they_ may take from the subordinate governments powers with which they have hitherto trusted them, and place those powers in the general government, if it is thought that there they will be productive of more good. They can distribute one portion of power to the more contracted circle, called _state governments_; they can also furnish another proportion to the government of the United States. Who will undertake to say, as a state officer, that the people may not give to the general government what powers, and for what purposes, they please? How comes it, sir, that these state governments dictate to their superiors--to the majesty of the people?... I have no idea that a safe system of power in the government, sufficient to manage the general interest of the United States, could be drawn from any other source, or vested in any other authority, than that of the people at large; and I consider this