Mr. Motley thus dilates on the
subject:
"Could language be more imperial? Could the claim to State
'sovereignty' be more completely disposed of at a word? How can
that be sovereign, acknowledging no superior, supreme, which has
voluntarily accepted a supreme law from something which it
acknowledges as superior?"[74]
The mistake which Mr. Motley--like other writers of the same
school--makes is one which is disposed of by a very simple correction.
The States, which ordained and established the Constitution, _accepted_
nothing besides what they themselves _prescribed_. They acknowledged no
superior. The supremacy was both in degree and extent only that which
was delegated by the States to their common agent.
There are some other considerations which may conduce to a clearer
understanding of this supremacy of the Constitution and the laws made in
pursuance thereof:
1. In the first place, it must be remembered that, when the Federal
Constitution was formed, each then existing State already had its own
Constitution and code of statute laws. It was, no doubt, primarily with
reference to these that the provision was inserted, and not in the
expectation of future conflicts or discrepancies. It is in this light
alone that Mr. Madison considers it in explaining and vindicating it in
the "Federalist."[75]
2. Again, it is to be observed that the supremacy accorded to the
general laws of the United States is expressly limited to those enacted
in conformity with the Constitution, or, to use the exact language,
"made in pursuance thereof.
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