The issue was fairly presented by Mr. Madison, through the Virginia Legislature, as depending upon the answers to the following questions:-- 1. What are the true principles that should be applied to the construction of the Constitution? 2. Are those who are elected by the people bound to execute it according to the intention of its framers and the understanding of those who ratified it? 3. Is it in that sense sacredly obligatory upon all who are subject to its authority? The charge presented against the Federal party and its representatives was that they had trampled upon the sanctity of the Constitution by the application to its construction of principles known to be unsound, by setting at defiance the intentions of those who made it and for whom it was made, and by prostituting it, and claiming the right to prostitute it, to the promotion of their particular views of the public interests, regardless of such intentions, however well understood. This Report stands as a perpetual record of that issue. The Republicans regarded its decision as involving the existence of republican government, inasmuch as no such government could be sustained for a moment longer than the Constitution was looked to as a sacred and inviolable line of duty for both rulers and ruled. They triumphed in the great contest, and they expelled from power the men who refused to recognize that principle in the administration of the government, and for that reason they placed in their stead those who would recognize it.