United
States having succeeded to the British sovereignty in the
Anglo-American colonies, they came into possession of full national
sovereignty, and have alone held and exercised it ever since
independence became a fact. The States severally succeeding only to
the colonies, never held, and have never been competent to delegate
sovereign powers.

The old Articles of Confederation, it is conceded, were framed on the
assumption that the States are severally sovereign; but the several
States, at the same time, were regarded as forming one nation, and,
though divided into separate States, the people were regarded as one
people. The Legislature of New York, as early as 1782, calls for an
essential change In the Articles of Confederation, as proved to be
inadequate to secure the peace, security, and prosperity of "the
nation." All the proceedings that preceded and led to the call of the
convention of 1781 were based on the assumption that the people of the
United States were one people. The States were called united, not
confederated States, even in the very Articles of Confederation
themselves, and officially the United States were called "the Union."
That the united colonies by independence became united States, and
formed really one and only one people, was in the thought, the belief,
the instinct of the great mass of the people. They acted as they
existed through State as they had previously acted through colonial
organization, for in throwing off the British authority there was no
other organization through which they could act. The States, or people
of the States, severally sent their delegates to the Congress of the
United States, and these delegates adopted the rule of voting in
Congress by States, a rule that might be revived without detriment to
national unity. Nothing was more natural, then, than that Congress,
composed of delegates elected or appointed by States, should draw up
articles of confederation rather than articles of union, in order, if
for no other reason, to conciliate the smaller States, and to prevent
their jealousy of the larger States such as Virginia, Massachusetts,
and Pennsylvania.

Moreover, the Articles of Confederation were drawn up and adopted
during the transition from colonial dependence to national
independence. Independence was declared in 1776, but it was not a fact
till 1782, when the preliminary treaty acknowledging it was signed at
Paris. Till then the United States were n