the United States which shall be made
in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under
the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in
the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Certainly the Government of the United States is a limited government,
and so is every State government a limited government. With us this idea
of limitation spreads through every form of administration--general,
State, and municipal--and rests on the great distinguishing principle of
the recognition of the rights of man. The ancient republics absorbed
the individual in the state--prescribed his religion and controlled
his activity. The American system rests on the assertion of the equal
right of every man to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, to
freedom of conscience, to the culture and exercise of all his faculties.
As a consequence the State government is limited--as to the General
Government in the interest of union, as to the individual citizen in the
interest of freedom.

States, with proper limitations of power, are essential to the existence
of the Constitution of the United States. At the very commencement, when
we assumed a place among the powers of the earth, the Declaration of
Independence was adopted by States; so also were the Articles of
Confederation; and when "the people of the United States" ordained and
established the Constitution it was the assent of the States, one by
one, which gave it vitality. In the event, too, of any amendment to the
Constitution, the proposition of Congress needs the confirmation of
States. Without States one great branch of the legislative government
would be wanting. And if we look beyond the letter of the Constitution
to the character of our country, its capacity for comprehending within
its jurisdiction a vast continental empire is due to the system of
States. The best security for the perpetual existence of the States is
the "supreme authority" of the Constitution of the United States. The
perpetuity of the Constitution brings with it the perpetuity of the
States; their mutual relation makes us what we are, and in our political
system their connection is indissoluble. The whole can not exist without
the parts, nor the parts without the whole. So long as the Constitution
of the United States endures, the States will endure. The destruc