"What then is the extent of jurisdiction which a State possesses?We answer without hesitation the Jurisdiction of a State Is co-extensive with its legislative power."(5Wheat.,375;Baldwin,87,88.)The right of soil and general jurisdiction over the whole territory,within the boundaries of the several States,was invested In the people of each State,as absolute sovereigns of both;neither right can be exercised but by a grant from them,and what is not given away by cession,still remains with them."(Baldwin,99;2Peters,468.)In 1795,Georgia,which had ceded none of its territory,made sale of a large tract,on the Yazoo River.The United States denied the right of Georgia to make such sale.The question was brought before the Supreme Court in the case of Fletcher P.Peck,and the Court decided that the title of the land was in Georgia.(6Cranch 142.)
Referring to the formation of the Union,the Court held that:"A judicial system was to be prepared,not for a consolidated people,but for distinct societies,already possessing distinct systems.(10Wheaton,46)"The power having existed prior to the Constitution,and not having been prohibited by that instrument,remains with the States."(5Wheaton,16,17;2Peters,466.)?[C.C.B.]
16.The phrase "to form a more perfect union"has been sometimes quoted to prove that the new Constitution was designed to alter fundamentally the confederate nature of the Union.But it is surprising that any gentleman capable of comprehending the force of language should make such a mistake as to imagine that the phrase "more perfect union"is implied a consolidation of the States.UNION and CONSOLIDATION
are words of a very different signification.The object was not to sink the Union in consolidation,but to "form a MORE PERFECT Union."The name of our federation is not CONSOLIDATED STATES but UNITED STATES.A number of States held together by coercion,or the point of the bayonet,would not be a UNION.Union is necessarily voluntary ?the act of choice,free association.Nor can this VOLUNTARY system be changed to one of force without the destruction of "THE UNION."The Austrian Empire is composed of several States,as the Hungarians,the Poles,the Italians,etc.,but it cannot be called a UNION ?it is a despotism.Is the relation between Russia,and bayonet-held Poland aUNION?Is It not an insult and a mockery to call the compulsory relation between England and Ireland a UNION?In all these cases there is only such a union as exists between the talons of the hawk and the dove,or between the jaws of the wolf and the lamb.A UNION OF STATES necessarily implies separate sovereignties,voluntarily acting together.
And to bruise these distinct sovereignties into one mass of power is,simply,to destroy the Union ?to overthrow our system of government.The Supreme Court has always been clear enough on this point:"No political dreamer was ever wild enough to think of breaking down the lines which separate the States,and of compounding the American people Into one common mass.
Of consequence,when they act,they ad in their States,"(4Wheaton,403 McCullough v.Maryland)?[C.C.B.]
17.The phrase,"WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES,"in the preamble to the Constitution,railed upon by the friends of the monarchist principles of government,to prove the consolidated nature of Federal Union,has been twisted into most absurd shapes.The phrase is,WE,THE PEOPLE OF THE STATES,not the people of AMERICA.The very phrase shows the Federal Union to be a government of States,and not of the people of all America,as a consolidated body."UNITED STATES"has a very different legal signification to that of consolidated States."The people of the United States,"in the preamble of the Constitution,has the same meaning as "the people of the several STATES,"In the second section of Article First of the same instrument The idea of severalty or separateness,and not that of consolidation,is clearly implied.Indeed,this is the grammatical meaning of the phrase.The qualifying adjective "united"is annexed to the word states,and not to the word "people."It is precisely the same meaning as the phrase "Les Etas Unis"in the French language,i.e.,the "states united."When Patrick Henry Indignantly asked,"What right had the framers of the Constitution to say,'We,the people,'instead of "we,the States?'"Mr.Madison replied:"Who are the parties to the government?The people;but then not the people as composing ONE GREAT
BODY;but the people as composing THIRTEEN SOVEREIGNTIES."The Constitution of the United States is a grant by grantors to a grantee.The grantors are the "several States,"not as a consolidated people,but as separate and independent sovereignties ?"the people"as organized into "several"
distinct sovereign communities.Thus the Supreme Court of the United States declares that "the States form a confederated government;yet the several States retain their individual sovereignties,and with respect to their municipal regulations,are to each other sovereign."(2Peters,690;12 Wheaton,334.)Again:"The powers retained by the States proceed not from the PEOPLE OF AMERICA,but from the people of the SEVERAL STATES,and remain after the adoption of the Constitution what they were before."(4Wheaton,193,17,54;203,9.)Thus all authority proven that the Government of the Union Is one of the STATES united,and not of the People consolidated.?[C.C.B.]
18.This assertion of Judge Story is contradicted,not only by the organization of the government,but by the uniform language of those who framed and adopted it.Both Hamilton and Madison constantly spoke of the Union as a "compact."In the Eighty-fifth Article of the Federalist,Hamilton calls the Constitution a "compact,"
and says that thirteen Independent States are "the parties to the compact."
