of Congress are expressly declared to be subject “to the revision and control of the Congress.”  But there is another instance still.  According to the Constitution, “Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State”:  but here mark the controlling power of Congress, which is authorized to “prescribe the manner in which such acts, records, and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.”

SUPREMACY OF THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.

But there are five other provisions of the Constitution by which its supremacy is positively established. 1.  “The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.”  As Congress has the exclusive power to establish “an uniform rule of naturalization,” it may, under these words of the Constitution, secure for its newly entitled citizens “all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States,” in defiance of State Rights. 2.  “New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union.”  According to these words, the States cannot even determine their associates, but are dependent in this respect upon the will of Congress. 3.  But not content with taking from the States these important powers of sovereignty, it is solemnly declared that the Constitution, and the laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties under the authority of the United States, “SHALL BE THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.”  Thus are State Rights again subordinated to the National Constitution, which is erected into the paramount authority. 4.  But this is done again by another provision, which declares that “the members of the several State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution”; so that not only State laws are subordinated to the National Constitution, but the makers of State laws, and all other State officers, are constrained to declare their allegiance to this Constitution, thus placing the State, alike through its acts and its agents, in complete subordination to the sovereignty of the United States. 5.  But this sovereignty is further proclaimed in the solemn injunction, that “the United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion.”  Here are duties of guaranty and protection imposed upon the United States, by which their position is fixed as the supreme power.  There can be no such guaranty without the implied right to examine and consider the governments of the several States; and there can be no such protection without a similar right to examine and consider the condition of the several States:  thus subjecting them to the rightful supervision and superintendence of the National Government.