This Constitution was adopted for the purpose of remedying all defects of the Confederation, and in this it has succeeded beyond any calculation that could have been formed of any human institution.  By binding the States together the Constitution performs the great office of the Confederation; but it is in that sense only that it has any of the properties of that compact, and in that it is more effectual to the purpose, as it holds them together by a much stronger bond; and in all other respects in which the Confederation failed the Constitution has been blessed with complete success.  The Confederation was a compact between separate and independent States, the execution of whose articles in the powers which operated internally depended on the State governments.  But the great office of the Constitution, by incorporating the people of the several States to the extent of its powers into one community and enabling it to act directly on the people, was to annul the powers of the State governments to that extent, except in cases where they were concurrent, and to preclude their agency in giving effect to those of the General Government.  The Government of the United States relies on its own means for the execution of its powers, as the State governments do for the execution of theirs, both governments having a common origin or sovereign, the people—­the State governments the people of each State, the National Government the people of every State—­and being amenable to the power which created it.  It is by executing its functions as a Government thus originating and thus acting that the Constitution of the United States holds the States together and performs the office of a league.  It is owing to the nature of its powers and the high source from whence they are derived—­the people—­that it performs that office better than the Confederation or any league which ever existed, being a compact which the State governments did not form, to which they are not parties, and which executes its own powers independently of them.

There were two separate and independent governments established over our Union, one for local purposes over each State by the people of the State, the other for national purposes over all the States by the people of the United States.  The whole power of the people, on the representative principle, is divided between them.  The State governments are independent of each other, and to the extent of their powers are complete sovereignties.  The National Government begins where the State governments terminate, except in some instances where there is a concurrent jurisdiction between them.  This Government is also, according to the extent of its powers, a complete sovereignty.  I speak here, as repeatedly mentioned before, altogether of representative sovereignties, for the real sovereignty is in the people alone.