s" were declared to be "free and
independent States"; but even then the object plainly was not to declare
their independence of one another or of the Union, but directly the
contrary, as their mutual pledge and their mutual action before, at the
time, and afterward, abundantly show. The express plighting of faith by
each and all of the original thirteen in the Articles of Confederation,
two years later, that the Union shall be perpetual, is most conclusive.
Having never been States either in substance or in name outside of the
Union, whence this magical omnipotence of "State rights," asserting a
claim of power to lawfully destroy the Union itself? Much is said about
the "sovereignty" of the States; but the word even is not in the national
Constitution, nor, as is believed, in any of the State constitutions. What
is "sovereignty" in the political sense of the term? Would it be far wrong
to define it as "a political community without a political superior"?
Tested by this, no one of our States except Texas ever was a sovereignty.
And even Texas gave up the character on coming into the Union; by which
act she acknowledged the Constitution of the United States, and the laws
and treaties of the United States made in pursuance of the Constitution,
to be for her the supreme law of the land. The States have their status in
the Union, and they have no other legal status. If they break from this,
they can only do so against law and by revolution. The Union, and not
themselves separately, procured their independence and their liberty. By
conquest or purchase the Union gave each of them whatever of independence
or liberty it has. The Union is older than any of the States, and, in
fact, it created them as States. Originally some dependent colonies made
the Union, and, in turn, the Union threw off their old dependence for
them, and made them States, such as they are. Not one of them ever had
a State constitution independent of the Union. Of course, it is not
forgotten that all the new States framed their constitutions before they
entered the Union nevertheless, dependent upon and preparatory to coming
into the Union.

Unquestionably the States have the powers and rights reserved to them in
and by the national Constitution; but among these surely are not included
all conceivable powers, however mischievous or destructive, but, at most,
such only as were known in the world at the time as governmental powers;
and certainly a power to dest