As a British author,[79]
referring to the old Teutonic system, has expressed the same idea, the
States are the integers, the United States the multiple which results
from them. The Government of the United States derives its existence
from the same source, and exercises its functions by the will of the
same sovereignty that creates and confers authority upon the State
governments. The people of each State are, in either case, the source.
The only difference is that, in the creation of the State governments,
each sovereign acted alone; in that of the Federal Government, they
acted in cooeperation with the others. Neither the whole nor any part of
their sovereignty has been surrendered to either Government.
To whom, in fine, _could_ the States have surrendered their sovereignty?
Not to the mass of the people inhabiting the territory possessed by all
the States, for there was no such community in existence, and they took
no measures for the organization of such a community. If they had
intended to do so, the very style, "United States," would have been a
palpable misnomer, nor would treason have been defined as levying war
against _them_. Could it have been transferred to the Government of the
Union? Clearly not, in accordance with the ideas and principles of those
who made the Declaration of Independence, adopted the Articles of
Confederation, and established the Constitution of the United States;
for in each and all of these the corner-stone is the inherent and
inalienable sovereignty of the people.
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