either in substance or in name outside of the Union, whence this magical omnipotence of “State rights,” asserting a claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself?  Much is said about the “sovereignty” of the States; but the word even is not in the national Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions.  What is “sovereignty” in the political sense of the term?  Would it be far wrong to define it as “a political community without a political superior”?  Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was a sovereignty.  And even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union; by which act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States, and the laws and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution, to be for her the supreme law of the land.  The States have their status in the Union, and they have no other legal status.  If they break from this, they can only do so against law and by revolution.  The Union, and not themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty.  By conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence or liberty it has.  The Union is older than any of the States, and, in fact, it created them as States.  Originally some dependent colonies made the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off their old dependence for them, and made them States, such as they are.  Not one of them ever had a State constitution independent of the Union.  Of course, it is not forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they entered the Union nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming into the Union.

Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in and by the national Constitution; but among these surely are not included all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at most, such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers; and certainly a power to destroy the government itself had never been known as a governmental, as a merely administrative power.  This relative matter of national power and State rights, as a principle, is no other than the principle of generality and locality.  Whatever concerns the whole should be confided to the whole—­to the General Government; while whatever concerns only the State should be left exclusively to the State.  This is all there is of original principle about it.  Whether the national Constitution in defining boundaries between the two has applied the principle with exact accuracy, is not to be questioned.  We are all bound by that defining, without question.