Supreme Court is the appointed arbiter of all controversies
between a State and the general government. Why, then, do they not
leave this controversy to that tribunal? Why do they not confide to
them the abrogation of the ordinance, and the laws made in pursuance of
it, and the assertion of that supremacy which they claim for the laws
of Congress? The State stands pledged to resist no process of the
court. Why, then, confer on the President the extensive and unlimited
powers provided in this bill? Why authorize him to use military force
to arrest the civil process of the State? But one answer can be given:
That, in a contest between the State and the general government, if the
resistance be limited on both sides to the civil process, the State, by
its inherent sovereignty, standing upon its reserved powers, will prove
too powerful in such a controversy, and must triumph over the Federal
government, sustained by its delegated and limited authority; and in
this answer we have an acknowledgment of the truth of those great
principles for which the State has so firmly and nobly contended....

Notwithstanding all that has been said, I may say that neither the
Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton), nor any other who has spoken on
the same side, has directly and fairly met the great question at issue:
Is this a Federal Union? a union of States, as distinct from that of
individuals? Is the sovereignty in the several States, or in the
American people in the aggregate? The very language which we are
compelled to use when speaking of our political institutions affords
proof conclusive as to its real character. The terms union, federal,
united, all imply a combination of sovereignties, a confederation of
States. They never apply to an association of individuals. Who ever
heard of the United State of New York, of Massachusetts, or of
Virginia? Who ever heard the term federal or union applied to the
aggregation of individuals into one community? Nor is the other point
less clear--that the sovereignty is in the several States, and that our
system is a union of twenty-four sovereign powers, under a
constitutional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty between the
States severally and the United States? In spite of all that has been
said, I maintain that sovereignty is in its nature indivisible. It is
the supreme power in a State, and we might just as well speak of half a
square, or half of a triangle, as of half a sovere