are,
unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected
by this supreme law. But the State legislatures, as political bodies,
however sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people. So far as the
people have given power to the general government, so far the grant is
unquestionably good, and the government holds of the people, and not of
the State governments. We are all agents of the same supreme power, the
people. The general government and the State governments derive their
authority from the same source. Neither can, in relation to the other,
be called primary, though one is definite and restricted, and the other
general and residuary. The national government possesses those powers
which it can be shown the people have conferred on it, and no more. All
the rest belongs to the State governments, or to the people themselves.
So far as the people have restrained State sovereignty, by the
expression of their will, in the Constitution of the United States, so
far, it must be admitted, State sovereignty is effectually controlled. I
do not contend that it is, or ought to be, controlled farther. The
sentiment to which I have referred propounds that State sovereignty is
only to be controlled by its own "feeling of justice"; that is to say,
it is not to be controlled at all, for one who is to follow his own
feelings is under no legal control. Now, however men may think this
ought to be, the fact is, that the people of the United States have
chosen to impose control on State sovereignties. There are those,
doubtless, who wish they had been left without restraint; but the
Constitution has ordered the matter differently. To make war, for
instance, is an exercise of sovereignty; but the Constitution declares
that no State shall make war. To coin money is another exercise of
sovereign power; but no State is at liberty to coin money. Again, the
Constitution says that no sovereign State shall be so sovereign as to
make a treaty. These prohibitions, it must be confessed, are a control
on the State sovereignty of South Carolina, as well as of the other
States, which does not arise "from her own feelings of honorable
justice." The opinion referred to, therefore, is in defiance of the
plainest provisions of the Constitution.

There are other proceedings of public bodies which have already been
alluded to, and to which I refer again for the purpose of ascertaining
more fully what is the length and breadth of that doc