Hobbes told us long ago, and everybody now understands, that there must be a supreme authority, a conclusive power, in every State on every point somewhere. The idea of government involves it--when that idea is properly understood. But there are two classes of Governments. In one the supreme determining power is upon all points the same: in the other, that ultimate power is different upon different points--now resides in one part of the Constitution and now in another. The Americans thought that they were imitating the English in making their Constitution upon the last principle--in having one ultimate authority for one sort of matter, and another for another sort. But in truth the English Constitution is the type of the opposite species; it has only one authority for all sorts of matters. To gain a living conception of the difference let us see what the Americans did. First, they altogether retained what, in part, they could not help, the sovereignty of the separate States. A fundamental article of the Federal Constitution says that the powers not "delegated" to the central Government are "reserved to the States respectively". And the whole recent history of the Union--perhaps all its history--has been more determined by that enactment than by any other single cause. The sovereignty of the principal matters of State has rested not with the highest Government, but with the subordinate Government. The Federal Government could not touch slavery--the "domestic institution" which divided the Union into two halves, unlike one another in morals, politics, and social condition, and at last set them to fight. This determining political fact was not in the jurisdiction of the highest Government in the country, where you might expect its highest wisdom, nor in the central Government, where you might look for impartiality, but in local governments, where petty interests were sure to be considered, and where only inferior abilities were likely to be employed. The capital fact was reserved for the minor jurisdictions. Again, there has been only one matter comparable to slavery in the United States, and that has been vitally affected by the State Governments also. Their ultra-democracy is not a result of Federal legislation, but of State legislation. The Federal Constitution deputed one of the main items of its structure to the subordinate governments. One of its clauses provides that the suffrages for the Federal House of Representatives shall be, in each State, the same as for the most numerous branch of the legislature of that State; and as each State fixes the suffrage for its own legislatures, the States altogether fix the suffrage for the Federal Lower Chamber. By another clause of the Federal Constitution the States fix the electoral qualification for voting at a Presidential election. The primary element in a free government--the determination how many people shall have a share in