change its form or
transfer its powers to another government: this highest act of
sovereignty can only be performed by the people of a State; and it was
by the people of every State, acting in convention as separate and
distinct communities, that the Constitution was ratified and rendered
binding upon the people of all the States; and, in the language of Mr.
Jefferson, the Government thus formed was 'authorized to act immediately
on the people and by its own officers.' Was it then a league only? No,
it was what its framers, the people, as we have seen, and not the
governments of all the States, called it, a 'Constitution'--a
'Government;' and it is an overthrow of fundamental principles to say
that a 'constitution,' a 'government,' which is made 'the supreme law'
in all the States, could be created by any power less than the people of
the several States, but as the people of the States, and not in their
aggregate capacity. Whatever may be the theories of the advocates of
consolidation on the one hand, or nullification on the other, this is
certainly a true history of the manner in which the Government of the
Union was formed. The Constitution itself expressly declares that it
could be created only by 'the ratifications of the conventions of the
States;' and this Constitution was expressly rendered 'the supreme law
of the land,' 'anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the
contrary notwithstanding,'--as if the government of a State could render
their own constitution subordinate to another constitution. A return
then having taken place, in forming the Constitution, to the people of
all the States, as the primary fountain of power, they might have vested
all their sovereignty, or but a part of it, in one government; and they
might have given, in either event, the same power which exists in
ordinary governments of enforcing its laws when sustained as
constitutional by all its departments, subject only to the natural
rights of the people to revolutionize the government in case of
intolerable oppression. Certain important powers and attributes of
sovereignty the people of the States gave to this new government. They
made this government 'supreme' in the exercise of its powers in all the
States. They gave this government the sole power 'to declare war.' Did
the State then remain an absolute sovereign in that respect, and with
absolute power to judge if the object of the war was constitutional, and
annul the decla