kingdom. On the 29th of June, in the same year, she performed the highest function of independent sovereignty by adopting and ordaining a constitution, prescribing an oath of fealty and allegiance for all who might hold office under her authority, and that remained as the organic law of the Old Dominion until 1829.
The Declaration of Independence, subsequently on the 4th of July, was an act of Congress declaring absolution of the colonies from allegiance to the crown and government of Great Britain and that they were ‘free and independent States.’ The Congress which made this Declaration was appointed by the colonies in their separate and distinct capacity. They voted on its adoption in their separate character, each giving one vote by all its own representatives who acted in strict obedience to specific instructions from their respective colonies, and the members signed the Declaration in that way. The members had authority to act in the name of their own colony and not of any other, and were representatives only of the colony which appointed them. Judge Story, in his ‘Commentaries on the Constitution,’ reasons upon this instrument as having the effect of making the colonies ‘one people,’ merging their existence as separate communities into one nation. The Declaration of Independence is often quoted as an authoritative political document defining political rights and duties, as on a parity with the Constitution, and as binding parties and people and courts and States by its utterances. The platform of the Republican party in 1856 and 1860 affirms the principles of this Declaration to be essential to the preservation of our republican institutions, the Constitution and the rights of the States, when, in truth and in fact, its main and almost its sole object was to declare and justify the separation from, and the independence of, the British crown. In no sense was the paper or the act intended as a bill of rights, or to enunciate the fundamental principles of a republic, or to define the status of the colonies, except in their relation to the mother country. No true American will underrate the significance or the importance of the act of separation from a foreign empire, or hold otherwise than with the highest respect the reasons which our fathers gave in vindication of their momentous and courageous action. Refusing to be subject to the authority of the crown and the parliament was a heroic undertaking dictated by the loftiest patriotism and a genuine love of liberty. Putting into the minds and hearts of our ancestors more far reaching and prescient purposes than they possessed will not magnify their virtues nor enhance their merit. They met the issues presented with the sagacity of statesmen and were not guilty of the folly of propagandism of the French revolutionists, a few years later. The colonies being distinct and separate communities, with sovereignty vested in the British crown, when the tie which bound them to that sovereignty was severed, upon each colony respectively was devolved that sovereignty and each emerged from provincial dependence into an independent and sovereign State. A conclusive proof of the relation of the colonies to one another and to the revolutionary government is to be found in the recommendation in 1776 for the passing of laws for the punishment of treason, and it was declared that the crime should be considered as committed against the colonies individually and not against them all as united together. The joint expression of separate wills in reference to continued union with England expressed no opinion and suggested no action on the subject of a common government, or of forming a closer union. It completed the severance of the rapidly disuniting ties which bound to the government across the seas. Some of the colonies, prior to the 4th of July, had declared their independence and established State constitutions, and now all, by a more public and stronger and more effective affirmation, united in doing what had by some been separately resolved upon. Ceasing to be dependent communities involved no change in relations with one another beyond what was necessarily incident to separation from the parent country. The supremacy which had previously existed in Great Britain, separately over each colony and not jointly over all, having ceased, each became a free and independent State, taking to herself what applied to and over herself. The Declaration of Independence is not a form of government, not an enumeration of popular rights, not a compact between States, but was recognized in its fullest demands, when, in 1782, Great Britain acknowledged New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, South Carolina, Georgia and the other colonies to be ‘free, sovereign and independent States.’
Stress is laid on the revolutionary government and on the Declaration of Independence by those who are anxious to establish the theory of a national or consolidated government, reducing the States to mere dependencies upon central power. As has been shown, the contention, derived from those sources, is without legal or historical foundation; but the temporary government, largely for war purposes, was superseded by the Articles of Confederation, which, because of the reluctance of the States to delegate their powers, did not become obligatory until 1781, as their ratification by all the States was a condition precedent to their having any binding force. These articles, in explicit terms, incapable of misinterpretation, declare that ‘each State retains its sovereignty, freedom and independence and every power, jurisdiction and right, which is not by this confederation expressly delegated to the United States in Congress assembled.’ There can be no mistake here as to the reservation of entire freedom, entire independence, entire sovereignty. These were retained without qualification or limitation, and the use of the word ‘retains’ is the clearest assertion that these unsurrendered prerogatives were possessed under the previous government.
This historical review was not necessary except argumentatively as throwing light on the real facts, and as raising the strong presumption, to be rebutted only by irrefragable proof, that a state once sovereign has not voluntarily surrendered that ultimate supreme power of self-government or self-existence. While in a colonial condition the people of the several States were in no proper political sense a nation, or ‘one people;’ by the declaration and the treaty of peace each State became a complete sovereignty within its own limits; the revolutionary government was a government of the States as such through Congress as the common agent, and by the Articles of Confederation each state expressly reserved its entire sovereignty and independence. In all this succession of history there was no trend to consolidation and the most conspicuous; feature was the jealous retention by the States of their separate sovereignty.
Equality and sovereignty of the States.
In forming the Constitution of the United States, from whose ratification our ‘more perfect union’ resulted. did the States surrender their equality and sovereignty and transfer to a central government the powers and rights which in all previous history had been so carefully maintained? This is the crucial question determining the right of the Southern States in 1860 and 1861 to secede from the Union and to establish for their own defense and welfare a new federal union. Obviously this question should be approached and considered and decided. not by prejudice, or passion or sectionalism, or interest, or expediency, or wishes of men; but by the Constitution, in its proper meaning as to rights and powers delegated and rights and powers reserved. Whether secession was wise or unwise, expedient or inexpedient, approved or disapproved by a majority of the States, or of the inhabitants, has no relevancy, nothing whatever to do with this discussion. The naked matter is one of right. Was there a supremacy in Congress, or in any other department of the government of the Union, or did the States assert and retain their sovereignty, as against the world?
The States were not created by the government of the Union, but antedated and created that organism. Our systems of government are singularly complex and hence unintelligible to many foreigners. There are two divisions of power—that between the people and their governments, and that between the State governments and the government of the Union. The system is compounded of the separate governments of the several States and the one common government of all the members of the Union, called the government of the United States. Each was formed by written constitutions; those of the several States by the people of each acting separately and in their sovereign character, and that of the United States by the same, acting in the same character. but jointly and in concert instead of separately. Both governments derive their power from the same source and were ordained and established by the same authority. These governments are co-ordinate and there is a subordination of both to the people of the respective states. Limited rights are delegated by the people to their governments, or trustees, and all the residue of the attributes of sovereignty are retained. The division of the powers into such as are delegated specifically to the common and joint government of all the States, to be exercised for the benefit and safety of each and all; and the reservation of all to the States respectively,