6. That the "people" who organized the first confederation, the people
who dissolved it, the people who ordained and established the
Constitution which succeeded it, the only people, in fine, known or
referred to in the phraseology of that period--whether the term was used
collectively or distributively--were the people of the respective
States, each acting separately and with absolute independence of the
others.
7. That, in forming and adopting the Constitution, the States, or the
people of the States--terms which, when used with reference to acts
performed in a sovereign capacity, are precisely equivalent to each
other--formed a new _Government_, but no new _people_; and that,
consequently, no new sovereignty was created--for sovereignty in an
American republic can belong only to a people, never to a
government--and that the Federal Government is entitled to exercise only
the powers delegated to it by the people of the respective States.
8. That the term "people," in the preamble to the Constitution and in
the tenth amendment, is used distributively; that the only "people of
the United States" known to the Constitution are the people of each
State in the Union; that no such political community or corporate unit
as one people of the United States then existed, has ever been
organized, or yet exists; and that no political action by the people of
the United States in the aggregate has ever taken place, or ever can
take place, under the Constitution.
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