e and
in other respects, that is consistent with the safety and the rights of
others and the weal of the community, but political sovereignty, which
is the source and origin of all the powers of _government_--legislative,
executive, and judicial--belongs to, and inheres in, the people of an
organized political community. It is an attribute of the _whole people_
of such a community. It includes the power and necessarily the duty of
protecting the rights and redressing the wrongs of individuals, of
punishing crimes, enforcing contracts, prescribing rules for the
transfer of property and the succession of estates, making treaties with
foreign powers, levying taxes, etc. The enumeration of particulars might
be extended, but these will suffice as illustrations.

These powers are of course exercised through the agency of governments,
but the governments are _only_ agents of the sovereign--responsible to
it, and subject to its control. This sovereign--the people, in the
aggregate, of each political community--delegates to the government the
exercise of such powers, or functions, as it thinks proper, but in an
American republic never transfers or surrenders sovereignty. _That_
remains, unalienated and unimpaired. It is by virtue of this sovereignty
alone that the Government, its authorized agent, commands the obedience
of the individual citizen, to the extent of its derivative, dependent,
and delegated authority. The ALLEGIANCE of the citizen is due to the
sovereign alone.

Thus far, I think, all will agree. No American statesman or publicist
would venture to dispute it. Notwithstanding the inconsiderate or
ill-considered expressions thrown out by some persons about the unity of
the American people from the beginning, no respectable authority has
ever had the hardihood to deny that, before the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, the only sovereign political community was the people of
the State--the people of _each State_. The ordinary exercise of what are
generally termed the powers of sovereignty was by and through their
respective governments; and, when they formed a confederation, a portion
of those powers was intrusted to the General Government, or agency.
Under the Confederation, the Congress of the United States represented
the collective power of the States; but the people of each State alone
possessed sovereignty, and consequently were entitled to the allegiance
of the citizen.

When the Articles of Confederation