American took its place. Did the sovereignty,
which before independence was in Great Britain, pass from Great Britain
to the States severally, or to the States united? It might have passed
to them severally, but did it? There is no question of law or
antecedent right in the case, but a simple question of fact, and the
fact is determined by determining who it was that assumed it, exercised
it, and has continued to exercise it. As to this there is no doubt.
The sovereignty as a fact has been assumed and exercised by the United
States, the States united, and never by the States separately or
severally. Then as a fact the sovereignty that before independence was
in Great Britain, passed, on independence to the States united, and
reappears in all its vigor in the United States, the only successor to
Great Britain known to or recognized by the civilized world.

As the colonial people were, though distributed in distinct colonies,
still one people, the people of the United States, though distributed
into distinct and mutually independent States, are yet one sovereign
people, therefore a sovereign state or nation, and not a simple league
or confederacy of nations.

There is no doubt that all the powers exercised by the General
Government, though embracing all foreign relations and all general
interests and relations of all the States, might have been exercised by
it under the authority of a mutual compact of the several States, and
practically the difference between the compact theory and the national
view would be very little, unless in cases like that of secession. On
the supposition that the American people are one political people, the
government would have the right to treat secession, in the sense in
which the seceders understand it, as rebellion, and to suppress it by
employing all the physical force at its command; but on the compact
theory it would have no such right. But the question now under
discussion turns simply on what has been and is the historical fact.
Before the States could enter into the compact and delegate sovereign
powers to the Union, they must have severally possessed them. It is
historically certain that they did not possess them before
independence; they did not obtain them by independence, for they did
not severally succeed to the British sovereignty, to which they
succeeded only as States united. When, then, and by what means did
they or could they become severally sovereign States? The