On this mass
of reserved powers, those which the States declined to grant, the
Federal Government was expressly forbidden to intrude. Of what value
would this prohibition have been, if three fourths of the States could,
without the assent of a particular State, invade the domain which that
State had reserved for its own exclusive use and control?
It has heretofore, I hope, been satisfactorily demonstrated that the
States were sovereigns before they formed the Union, and that they have
never surrendered their sovereignty, but have only intrusted by their
common agent certain functions of sovereignty to be used for their
common welfare.
Among the powers delegated was one to amend the Constitution, which, it
is submitted, was merely the power to amend the delegated grants, and
these were obtained by the separate and independent action of each State
acceding to the Union. When we consider how carefully each clause was
discussed in the General Convention, and how closely each was
scrutinized in the conventions of the several States, the conclusion can
not be avoided that all was specified which it was intended to bestow,
and not a few of the wisest in that day held that too much power had
been conferred.
Aware of the imperfection of everything devised by man, it was foreseen
that, in the exercise of the functions intrusted to the General
Government, experience might reveal the necessity of modification--i.
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