Declaration of Independence. Therein the "United Colonies" were declared
to be "free and independent States;" but even then the object plainly
was not to declare their independence of _one another_ or of the
_Union_, but directly the contrary, as their mutual pledge and their
mutual action before, at the time, and afterwards abundantly show. The
express plighting of faith by each and all of the original thirteen in
the Articles of Confederation, two years later, that the Union shall be
perpetual is most conclusive. Having never been States, 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 a "sovereignty"
in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong to define it
"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 and 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