Is it compatible with reason to suppose that people so chary of the
delegation of specific powers or functions could have meant to surrender
or transfer the very basis and origin of all power--their inherent
sovereignty--and this, not by express grant, but by implication?
Mr. Everett, following, whether consciously or not, in the line of Mr.
Webster's ill-considered objection to the term "compact," takes
exception to the sovereignty of the States on the ground that "the
_word_ 'sovereignty' does not occur" in the Constitution. He admits that
the States were sovereign under the Articles of Confederation. How could
they relinquish or be deprived of their sovereignty without even a
mention of it--when the tenth amendment confronts us with the
declaration that _nothing_ was surrendered by implication--that
everything was reserved unless expressly delegated to the United States
or prohibited to the States? Here is an attribute which they certainly
possessed--which nobody denies, or can deny, that they _did_
possess--and of which Mr. Everett says no mention is made in the
Constitution. In what conceivable way, then, was it lost or alienated?
Much has been said of the "prohibition" of the exercise by the States of
certain functions of sovereignty; such as, making treaties, declaring
war, coining money, etc. This is only a part of the general compact, by
which the contracting parties covenant, one with another, to abstain
from the separate exercise of certain powers, which they agree to
intrust to the management and control of the union or general agency of
the parties associated.
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