t the Government
"was instituted by a number of _sovereign States_."[69] Oliver
Ellsworth, of the same State, spoke of the States as "sovereign
bodies."[70] These were all eminent members of the Convention which
formed the Constitution.

There was scarcely a statesman of that period who did not leave on
record expressions of the same sort. But why multiply citations? It is
very evident that the "men of those days" entertained very different
views of sovereignty from those set forth by the "new lights" of our
day. Far from considering it a term of feudal origin, "purely
inapplicable to the American system," they seem to have regarded it as a
very vital principle in that system, and of necessity belonging to the
several States--and I do not find a single instance in which they
applied it to any political organization, except the States.

Their ideas were in entire accord with those of Vattel, who, in his
chapter "Of Nations or Sovereign States," writes, "Every _nation_ that
governs itself, under what form soever, without any dependence on
foreign power, is a _sovereign state_."[71]

In another part of the same chapter he gives a lucid statement of the
nature of a confederate republic, such as ours was designed to be. He
says:

"Several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves
together by a perpetual confederacy, without each in particular
ceasing to be _a perfect state_. They will form together a
federal republic: the deliberations in common will offer no
violence to _the sovereignty of each member_, though they may,
in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it,
in virtue of voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to
be free and independent, when he is obliged to fulfill the
engagements into which he has very willingly entered."[72]

What this celebrated author means here by a person, is explained by a
subsequent passage: "The law of nations is the law of sovereigns; states
free and independent are moral persons."[73]

[Footnote 60: "Principes du Droit Politique," chap. v, section I; also,
chap. vii, section 1.]

[Footnote 61: Ibid., chap. vii, section 12.]

[Footnote 62: "Rebellion Record," vol. i, Documents, p. 211.]

[Footnote 63: Elliott's "Debates," vol. iii, p. 114, edition of 1836.]

[Footnote 64: "Federalist," No. xl.]

[Footnote 65: Ibid, No. lxxxi.]

[Footnote 66: See Elliott's "Debates," vol. v, p. 266.]

[Footnote 67: I