The Constitution itself was modeled by delegates chosen, not by citizens of the United States, _acting as individuals composing the entire nation_, but by voters acting as _citizens composing distinct and independent states to which they respectively belonged_. When the completed Constitution was referred back to the people for adoption, it was not acted upon by them as citizens of the entire nation, but it was ratified by each state, acting as a state, separate and distinct from every other state. _Therefore the Constitution itself is the result, not of a national, but of a Federal act._ Mr. Madison himself took this ground in _The Federalist_. The facts all prove it. In the exercise of its legislative powers the Federal Government is both national and Federal. The House of Representatives is a national body, because it is composed of members chosen according to population. The Senate is a Federal body, because it is chosen by the states, acting as states. The executive department of our Government also combines in itself both the national and the Federal features. The Electoral College is composed of two messengers from each state, and also of messengers equal in number to the members which the state has in the House of Representatives. The two messengers first mentioned correspond with the two Senators, and therefore represent the state in its Federal capacity. The other messengers correspond with the Representatives of the state in the Lower House, and as the Lower House is national, so those messengers are national. If the people fail to elect a President, and the election is thrown into the House of Representatives, _this House, which in its organization as a legislative body is national, at once becomes Federal, because each state has one vote, and the voice of Ohio or Pennsylvania is not more potent than that of Rhode Island or Delaware_. It is only when our Government comes to put its laws into operation that it is purely national. It is not strictly correct, politically or legally, to say that the United States is a nation, for a nation does not properly exist when the Government is one of limited power. That our Government is one of limited power, absolute only within the sphere of action granted to it by the states, cannot be denied. While secession has been forever decided as not being among the reserved rights of the states, there are very many other reserved rights which still belong to the states, and which always should be retained. As the Washington _Post_ remarked some time since: “The United States has not a single voter, and does not hold elections for any office. _All elections are state elections._” Already there has been too much concentration of power in the central Government. To take away from the states their power of selecting Senators would be nothing short of revolution, and would lead to such a consolidation of power as would entirely change the form and spirit of our Government.