The exercise of these
first-named powers was prohibited to the States under the old compact,
"without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled," but no
one has claimed that the Confederation had thereby acquired sovereignty.
Entirely in accord with these truths are the arguments of Mr. Madison in
the "Federalist," to show that the great principles of the Constitution
are substantially the same as those of the Articles of Confederation. He
says:
"I ask, What are these principles? Do they require that, in the
establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded
as distinct and independent sovereigns? They _are_ so regarded
by the Constitution proposed.... Do these principles, in fine,
require that the powers of the General Government should be
limited, and that, beyond this limit, the States should be left
in possession of their sovereignty and independence? We have
seen that, in the new Government as in the old, the general
powers are limited; and that the States, in all unenumerated
cases, are left in the enjoyment of their sovereign and
independent jurisdiction."
"The truth is," he adds, "that the great principles of the Constitution
proposed by the Convention may be considered _less as absolutely new,
than as the expansion of principles which are found in the Articles of
Confederation_."[90]
In the papers immediately following, he establishes this position in
detail by an analysis of the principal powers delegated to the Federal
Government, showing that the spirit of the original instructions to the
Convention had been followed in revising "the Federal Constitution" and
rendering it "adequate to the exigencies of government and the
preservation of the Union.
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