230 



union, there are always several communities or peoples occupying a com- 

 mon territory, namely, the community or people of the federal State, and 

 the communities or peoples of the several States ; and thus, in each of 

 the constituent States, there are two peoples or communities, consisting 

 of the same individuals, or rather, one people or community and part of 

 another ; that is to say, the people or community constituting the con- 

 stituent State, and the part of the federal people or community occupy- 

 ing the same territory. 



Of this kind of State, the most instructive instance is that of the 

 United States of America, the general nature of which is sufficiently 

 familiar, and from which our description of the federal State has, in 

 effect, been taken ; and which we will further consider. Briefly, this 

 State was voluntarily formed by several independent States, upon the 

 principles agreed upon and inserted in the Constitution ; which thus con- 

 stituted, not only a national Constitution, but a contract or obligatory 

 agreement between the several States. By the provisions of that instru- 

 ment, certain powers were conferred upon the federal government, and 

 it was expressly provided, that "powers not delegated to the United 

 States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 

 to the States respectively, or to the people."* Hence, the obvious dis- 

 tinction, universally recognized by all competent jurists and publicists, 

 between the federal constitution and those of the several States ; the 

 former is an express grant of powers to the federal government, which is 

 vested with no powers except such as are granted to it, either expressly 

 or by implication ; the latter is a mere limitation upon the general sov- 

 ereign powers vested in the State. Hence, it follows that each govern- 

 ment is paramount, supreme or sovereign with reference to matters within 

 its own sphere of rights ; but any act of the federal government, or of a 

 State government, in excess of its powers, is absolutely void, and may 

 be disregarded, not only by any State or by the federal government, but 

 by any individual. Hence, also (which is but another statement of tiie 

 same proposition), the sovereign or supreme political powers are divided 

 between the federal and the State government-^, each being sovereign in its 

 own sphere. All this, though often iguorantly disputed, has uniformly 

 been asserted by the Supreme Court of the United States, as well as by 

 jurists generally, and, as is well known to all lawyers, is the established 

 law of the land, (d) 



This view of the nature of the federal State is at once simple and 

 entirely rational, and, it may be added, is the view generally entertained 

 by American lawyers and jurists of all political faiths. But, outside of 

 the legal profession, it is generally repudiated by American writers north 

 of Mason and Dixon's line ; and the opposite doctrine — namely that the 

 federal government is alone supreme, and the States entirelj' subordinate 

 — is generally received among the writers of that section of the country, 

 and has in fact colored, not only their political, and even their hisloii- 



* Const. U. S , Amend. XII. 



