but only by being merged in or subjected to another.
Independent sovereign states cannot by convention, or mutual agreement,
form themselves into a single sovereign state, or nation. The compact,
or agreement, is made by sovereign states, and binds by virtue of the
sovereign power of each of the contracting parties. To destroy that
sovereign power would be to annul the compact, and render void the
agreement. The agreement can be valid and binding only on condition
that each of the contracting parties retains the sovereignty that
rendered it competent to enter into the compact, and states that retain
severally their sovereignty do not form a single sovereign state or
nation. The states in convention cannot become a new and single
sovereign state, unless they lose their several sovereignty, and merge
it in the new sovereignty; but this they cannot do by agreement,
because the moment the parties to the agreement cease to be sovereign,
the agreement, on which alone depends the new sovereign state, is
vacated, in like manner as a contract is vacated by the death of the
contracting parties.

That a nation may voluntarily cede its sovereignty is frankly admitted,
but it can cede it only to something or somebody actually existing, for
to cede to nothing and not to cede is one and the same thing. They can
part with their own sovereignty by merging themselves in another
national existence, but not by merging themselves in nothing; and, till
they have parted with their own sovereignty, the new sovereign state
does not exist. A prince can abdicate his power, because by abdicating
he simply gives back to the people the trust he had received from them;
but a nation cannot, save by merging itself in another. An independent
state not merged in another, or that is not subject to another, cannot
cease to be a sovereign nation, even if it would.

That no sovereign state can be formed by a agreement or compact has
already been shown in the refutation of the theory of the origin of
government in convention, or the so-called social compact. Sovereign
states are as unable to form themselves into a single sovereign state
by mutual compact as are the sovereign individuals imagined by
Rousseau. The convention, either of sovereign states or of sovereign
individuals, with the best will in the world, can form only a compact
or agreement between sovereigns, and an agreement or compact, whatever
its terms or conditions, is only an alliance