this country,
and which the men who made the Constitution, with their recent
reminiscences of the Revolution, the battles of which they had fought
with halters around their necks, would have been the last to prescribe.
Could any assertion be less credible than that they proceeded to
institute another supreme government which it would be treason to
resist?

This confusion of ideas pervades the treatment of the whole subject of
sovereignty. Mr. Webster has said, and very justly so far as these
United States are concerned: "The sovereignty of government is an idea
belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in
North America. Our governments are all limited. In Europe sovereignty is
of feudal origin, and imports no more than the state of the sovereign.
It comprises his rights, duties, exemptions, prerogatives, and powers.
But with us all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign, and
they erect what governments they please, and confer on them such powers
as they please. None of these governments are sovereign, in the European
sense of the word, all being restrained by written constitutions."[77]

But the same intellect, which can so clearly discern and so lucidly
define the general proposition, seems to be covered by a cloud of thick
darkness when it comes to apply it to the particular case in issue.
Thus, a little afterward, we have the following:

"There is no language in the whole Constitution applicable to a
confederation of States. If the States be parties, as States,
what are their rights, and what their respective covenants and
stipulations? and where are their rights, covenants, and
stipulations expressed? In the Articles of Confederation they
did make promises, and did enter into engagements, and did
plight the faith of each State for their fulfillment; but in the
Constitution there is nothing of that kind. The reason is that,
in the Constitution, it is the people who speak and not the
States. The people ordain the Constitution, and therein address
themselves to the States and to the Legislatures of the States
in the language of injunction and prohibition."[78]

It is surprising that such inconsistent ideas should proceed from a
source so eminent. Its author falls into the very error which he had
just before so distinctly pointed out, in confounding the people of the
States with their governments. In the vehemence of his hostility