Stephen Johnson Field

“ The presence of the marshal with a posse to attempt it would be a painful exhibition of weakness. Would the court call upon the general government to sent an army into the state to force upon it a governor who has been declared by its duly constituted authorities not to be entitled to the office, and to oust the one who has been declared by them to be entitled to it? ”

“ The fact that one of the qualifications prescribed by the state for its officers can only be ascertained and established by considering the provisions of a law of the United States in no respect authorizes an interference by the general government with the state action. Because an officer of a state must be a citizen of the United States, it does not follow that the tribunals of the United States can alone determine that fact, and that the decision of the state in respect to it can be supervised and controlled by the federal authorities. ”

“ I agree that the states of the American Union are not in all respects independent political communities; I agree that they do not possess that supreme political authotity which would entitle them to be called 'sovereign states,' in the full sense of those terms, as they are often designated. They are qualified sovereignties, possessing only the powers of an independent political organization which are not ceded to the general government or prohibited to them by the constitution. ”