, and yet
not one of the States has been deprived of the powers necessary
to local self-government. To States belong all matters of
strictly local interest, such as the incorporation of towns and
cities, the settlement of county and other boundaries; laws of
marriage, divorce, protection of life and property, etc. It has
been said, the ordaining and establishment of a constitution for
the government of a State is always the act of a State in its
highest sovereign capacity, but if any question as to nationality
ever existed, it was settled by the war. Even State constitutions
were found unable to stand when in conflict with a law of the
United States or an amendment to its constitution. All are bound
by the authority of the nation.

This theory of State sovereignty must have a word. When the Union
was formed several of the States did not even frame a
constitution. It was in 1818 that Connecticut adopted her first
State constitution. Rhode Island had no constitution until 1842.
Prior to these years the government of these States was
administered under the authority of royal charters brought out
from England.

Where was their State sovereignty? The rights even of suffrage
enjoyed by citizens of these States during these respective
periods of forty-two and sixty-six years, were either secured
them by monarchial England or republican United States. If by the
latter all voters in these two States during these years were
United States voters. It is a historical fact that no State save
Texas was ever for an hour sovereign or independent. The
experience of the country proves there is but one real
sovereignty. It has been said, with truth,

There is but one sovereign State on the American continent
known to international or constitutional law, and that is
the republic itself. This forms the United States and should
be so called.

I ask for a sixteenth amendment because this republic is a nation
and not a confederacy of States. I ask it because the United
States not only possesses inherent power to protect its citizens
but also because of its national duty to secure to all its
citizens the exercise of their rights of self-government. I ask
it because having created classes of voters in numberless
instances, it is