al interest and protection. This mutual interest
requires certain rules for the protection of the weak from the
encroachments of the strong in the society, as well as from outside
enemies. These rules take the form of laws. These laws must be
administered; their administration requires power. This power is placed
in the hands of certain members of this society, community, or State, as
the case may be, for the good of the whole State, and each individual
claiming protection from the State, or whose interest is promoted by
being a member thereof, is under moral as well as legal obligations to
submit to this authority thus exercised by the chosen executors of the
public will. Rights that might pertain to one man on an island by
himself, do not attach to man in civilized communities. There he must
not go beyond the landmarks established by law, and he agrees to this
arrangement by remaining in the State or community. The same principle
is equally applicable to the States of the American Union. Before the
adoption of the Federal Constitution, they were separate, distinct, and
so far as any central head or supreme governing power was concerned,
independent States, or, in fact, sovereignties. True, they had tried to
get along under a sort of confederation agreement, a kind of temporary
alliance for offensive and defensive ends, but which failed from its own
inherent weakness, from the lack of that cohesiveness which nothing but
centralization can give. Prior to the adoption of the Federal
Constitution, these different States were like so many different
individuals outside of any regular society; were merely so many isolated
aggregations of non-nationalized individuals. Experience showed them
their unfortunate condition; as separate States they had no strength to
repel a common enemy, no credit, no money, no authority, commanded no
respect. So it is with an individual outside of society. These States
were then in the enjoyment--no, not in the enjoyment but merely in
possession--of State rights to the fullest extent. They had the right to
be poor; the right to be weak; the right to get in debt; the right to
issue bills of credit, (was any one found who thought it right to take
them?) the right to wage war with any of their neighbors; the right to
do any and all acts pertaining to an independent sovereignty; but these
rights were not all that the people of these States desired; and after
trying the independent and the confederate S