conclusions must follow, viz., 1st, that it has no citizens; or, 2d,
that it has left an unrestrained power in the _state_ governments to
determine who may, and who may not, be citizens of the _United States_
government. If the first of these conclusions be adopted, viz., that the
constitution has no citizens, then it follows that there is really no
United States government, except on paper--for there would be as much
reason in talking of an army without men, as of a government without
citizens. If the second conclusion be adopted, viz., that the state
governments have the right of determining who may, and who may not be
citizens of the United States government, then it follows that the state
governments may at pleasure destroy the government of the United States,
by enacting that none of their respective inhabitants shall be citizens
of the United States.

This latter is really the doctrine of some of the slave states--the
"state-rights" doctrine, so called. That doctrine holds that the general
government is merely a confederacy or league of the several states, _as
states_; not a government established by the people, _as people_. This
"state-rights" doctrine has been declared unconstitutional by reiterated
opinions of the supreme court of the United States;[22] and, what is of
more consequence, it is denied also by the preamble to the constitution
itself, which declares that it is "the people," (and not the state
governments,) that ordain and establish it. It is true also that the
constitution was ratified by conventions of the people, and not by the
legislatures of the states. Yet because the constitution was ratified by
conventions of the states _separately_, (as it naturally would be for
convenience, and as it necessarily must have been for the reason that
none but the people of the respective states could recall any portion of
the authority they had, delegated to their state governments, so as to
grant it to the United States government,)--yet because it was thus
ratified, I say, some of the slave states have claimed that the general
government was a league of states, instead of a government formed by
"the people." The true reason why the slave states have held this
theory, probably is, because it would give, or appear to give, to the
states the right of determining who should, and who should not, be
citizens of the United States. They probably saw that if it were
admitted that the constitution of the United States