th the other United States, supreme political
sovereignty, jointly in all general matters, and individually in all
private and particular matters.

The Territory gives up no sovereign powers by coming into the Union,
for before it came into the Union it had no sovereignty, no political
rights at all. All the rights and powers it holds are held by the
simple fact that it has become a State in the Union. This is as true
of the original States as of the new States; for it has been shown in
the chapter on The United States, that the original British sovereignty
under which the colonies were organized and existed passed, on the fact
of independence, to the States United, and not to the States severally.
Hence if nine States had ratified the constitution, and the other four
had stood out, and refused to do it, which was within their competency,
they would not have been independent sovereign States, outside of the
Union, but Territories under the Union.

Texas forms the only exception to the rule that the States have never
been independent of the Union. All the other new States have been
formed from territory subject to the Union. This is true of all the
States formed out of the Territory of the Northwest, and out of the
domain ceded by France, Spain, and Mexico to the United States. All
these cessions were held by the United States as territory immediately
subject to the Union, before being erected into States; and by far the
larger part is so held even yet. But Texas was an independent foreign
state, and was annexed as a State without having been first subjected
as territory to the United States. It of course lost by annexation its
separate sovereignty. But this annexation was held by many to be
unconstitutional; it was made when the State sovereignty theory had
gained possession of the Government, and was annexed as a State instead
of being admitted as a State formed from territory belonging to the
United States, for the very purpose of committing the nation to that
theory. Its annexation was the prologue, as the Mexican war was the
first act in the secession drama, and as the epilogue is the
suppression of the rebellion on Texan soil. Texas is an exceptional
case, and forms no precedent, and cannot be adduced as invalidating the
general rule. Omitting Texas, the simple fact is, the States acquire
all their sovereign powers by being States in the Union, instead of
losing or surrendering them.

Our American sta