As the people of New England had been the most thoroughly trained in the actual experience of self government, we naturally find them acting upon and clearly stating the American legal principle that legislatures never can give ability _of that kind_ to government. The records of Concord, Massachusetts, for October 21, 1776, show how clearly this was understood by the Americans of that generation. After the Philadelphia suggestion had been made, the Massachusetts legislature framed a constitution and sent it to the Massachusetts townships for approval. On that October 21, 1776, the people of Concord refused to act upon it. Their reason was that government ability to interfere with human freedom could never come from legislatures but must always come _directly_ from the citizens themselves. Let the Americans of Concord, in their own words, impart some of their knowledge to the Americans of this generation. “Resolved secondly, that the supreme Legislative, either in their proper capacity or in joint committee, are by no means a body proper to form and establish a Constitution or form of government for reasons following, viz.: First, because we conceive that Constitution in its proper idea intends a system of principles established to secure the subject in the possession of and enjoyment of their Rights and Privileges against any encroachment of the Governing Part. Secondly, because the same body that forms a Constitution have of consequence a power to alter it. Thirdly, because a Constitution alterable by the Supreme Legislative is no security at all to the subject against the encroachment of the Governing Part on any or on all their Rights and Privileges.” (See _Constitutional Review_, April, 1918, p. 97.) The people of Concord or New England were not alone in this knowledge. On this we have the later testimony of Marshall from the Bench of the Supreme Court. Speaking of that day, a few years after 1776, when the whole American people created _their_ nation and gave enumerated powers _of that kind_ to _its_ government, he said: But when, “in order to form a more perfect Union,” it was deemed necessary to change this alliance into an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of referring it to the people, and of deriving its powers _directly_ from them, was felt and acknowledged by all. (M’Culloch v. Maryland, 4 _Wheat._ 316.) Fixing this knowledge of that day firmly in our mind, let us go on with the remarkable Americans of that generation through the next period in which the relation of government to government and of nation to nation was changed, but in which the status of the citizen of each nation and his relation to all governments remained exactly what he and his fellow citizens of that nation had made it.