Sovereign state

“ We have in this country an authority much higher than that of sovereign States. It is the authority of the sovereign people of each State. In their State conventions they ratified the Constitution of the United States; and so far as that Constitution has deprived the States of any of the attributes of sovereignty, they are bound by it, because such was the will of the people. ”

“ A spirit of strict deference to the sovereign rights and dignity of every State, rather than a disposition to subordinate the States into a provincial relation to the central authority, should characterize all our exercise of the respective powers temporarily vested in us as a sacred trust from the generous confidence of our constituents. ”

“ Through the structure of its government, and the character of those who exercise government authority, a State defines itself as a sovereign. "It is obviously essential to the independence of the States, and to their peace and tranquility, that their power to prescribe the qualifications of their own officers . ”

“ Whatever may be the internal organization of the government of any state, if it has the sole power of governing itself and is not dependent upon any foreign state, it is called a sovereign state; that is, it is a state having the same rights, privileges, and powers, as other independent states. It is in this sense, that the term is generally used in treatises and discussions on the law of nations. A full consideration of this subject will more properly find place in some future page. [36] ”

“ The sovereignty of government is an idea belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. Our governments are all limited. In Europe, sovereignty is of feudal origin, and imports no more than the state of the sovereign. It comprises his rights, duties, exemptions, prerogatives, and powers. But with us, all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign ”

“ Each State in the Union has its own Governor, House of Representatives, Senate, and Judiciary, and is in every respect a sovereign State—they like the word as much as they pretend to dislike the reality—acting perfectly independently within its limits, except in such cases as were mutually agreed upon by the terms of the Union, and to some of which we shall refer by and by. This sovereignty of individual States renders the elective franchise different in different States. ”

“ The organ or organs which exercise for the State powers connected with sovereignty are said to be sovereign themselves, yet it is obvious that this sovereignty of the organ is derived from the sovereignty of the State. And it is likewise obvious that the sovereignty of a State may be exercised by the combined action of several organs, as, for instance, in Great Britain, King and Parliament are the joint administrators of the sovereignty of the State. ”

“ The argument assumes that the States were originally each in its individuality a sovereign state, but by the convention which framed the constitution, each surrendered its sovereignty to the whole, and thus several sovereign states became one sovereign political people, governing in general matters through the General government, and in particular matters through particular or State governments. ”

“ And the government of the United States being federal, and instituted by a number of sovereign states for the better security of their rights, and advancement of their interests, they may be considered as so many pillars to support it, and by the exercise of the state governments, peace and good order may be preserved in the places most remote from the seat of the federal government, as well as at the centre. ”

“ The second great compromise of the American constitution consists in the series of arrangements by which sovereignty is divided between the states and the federal government. In all domestic legislation and jurisdiction, civil and criminal, in all matters relating to tenure of property, marriage and divorce, the fulfilment of contracts and the punishment of malefactors, each separate state is as completely a sovereign state as France or Great Britain. In speaking to a British audience a concrete illustration may not be superfluous. ”

“ The identity of a State consists in its having the same origin or commencement of existence; and its difference from all other States consists in its having a different origin or commencement of existence.... The habitual obedience of the members of any political society to a superior authority must have once existed in order to constitute a sovereign State. ”

“ What government is to be regarded here as representative of a foreign sovereign state is a political rather than a judicial question, and is to be determined by the political department of the government. ”

“ The circumstance that the powers of the sovereignty are, in this country, between the national and state governments, does not afford the distinction required. It does not follow from this that each of the portions of power, delegated to the one or the other, is not sovereign with regard to its proper objects. ”

“ Again, if several hitherto independent States enter into a Federal State, they transfer a part of their sovereignty to the Federal State and become thereby part-Sovereign States. On the other hand, if a vassal State or a State under protectorate is freed from the suzerainty or protectorate, it is thereby affected as an International Person, because it turns now into a full Sovereign State. ”

“ The primary point of agreement in all these authorities is, that in contemplation of international law a state is absolutely sovereign, acknowledging no superior on earth. In that sense the United States is a state, a sovereign state, just as Great Britain, France, and Russia are states. ”

“ Nay the state, by which we mean the people composing the state, may divide its sovereign powers among various functionaries, and each in the limited sense would be sovereign in respect to the powers, confided to each; and dependent in all other cases. [34] Strictly speaking, in our republican forms of government, the absolute sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation; and the residuary sovereignty of each state, not granted to any of its public functionaries, is in the people of the state. ”

“ But sovereignty, it has been shown, is not in the government, but in the state, and the state is inseparable from the public domain. The people organized and held by the domain or national territory, are under God the sovereign nation, and remain so as long as the nation subsists without subjection to another. The government, as distinguished from the state or nation, has only a delegated authority, governs only by a commission from the nation. ”

“ The sovereign is the people as the state or body politic, and as the king holds from God only through the people, he is not properly sovereign, and is to be ranked with the ministry or government. Yet when the state delegates the full or chief governing power to the king, and makes him its sole or principal representative, he may, with sufficient accuracy for ordinary purposes, be called sovereign. ”

“ I hope the time may come again when a better comprehension of the theory of our Government, and the inalienable rights of the people of the States, will prevent any one from denying that each State is a sovereign, and thus may reclaim the grants which it has made to any agent whomsoever. ”

“ In the teeth of the facts, our early history presents a great variety of assertions of State independence by leading men, State Legislatures, or State constitutions, which still form the basis of the argument for State sovereignty. The State constitutions declared the State to be sovereign and independent, even though the framers knew that the existence of the State depended on the issue of the national struggle against the mother country. ”

“ Now, the Constitution of the country is a complex one. There are two sovereigns in every State, exercising allegiance over the inhabitants of the State. The one sovereign is the United States of America, and the other sovereign is the State in which the citizen lives. ”

“ The states are, unquestionably, sovereign, so far as their sovereignty is not affected by this supreme law. But the state legislatures, as political bodies, however sovereign, are yet not sovereign over the people.... ”

“ Each state is sovereign and independent to a certain degree, and the states have a right, and they will regulate their own internal affairs as to themselves appears proper; and shall we refuse to eat, or to drink, or to be united, with those who do not think, or act, just as we do? ”

“ Hence, while the sovereignty resides inherently and inalienably in the people, it is a perversion of language to denominate the State, as a body politic or government, sovereign and independent.—Ibid., p. ”

“ By what means was the government, which was now, as all admitted, a mere federal league between sovereign States, to become, in any just sense, national? The idea of a nation implies the existence of a people united in their political rights, and possessed of the same political interests. ”

“ To state the matter shortly, the sovereign has, under a constitutional monarchy such as ours, three rights—the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. ”

“ He need, not, however, have gone beyond our own Confederation, which, although a compact among sovereign States, in the strictest sense, was yet treated as a government by the people at home, and recognized as such by all foreign powers. ”

“ The one, emanating from the people, as forming a sovereign community, creates the government — the other, as a representative appointed to execute its powers, enacts laws to regulate and control the conduct of the people, regarded as individuals. This division between the two powers — thus necessarily incident to the separation from the parent country — constitutes an element in our political system as essential to its formation, as the great and primary territorial division of independent and sovereign States. ”

“ The people of the United Colonies made the United Colonies free and independent states, and absolved them from allegiance to the British crown. The Declaration of Independence has accordingly always been treated as an act of paramount and sovereign authority, complete and perfect per se, and ipso facto working an entire dissolution of all political connection with, and allegiance to, Great Britain ”

“ From the differences existing between feudal sovereignties and Governments founded on compacts, it necessarily follows that their respective prerogatives must differ. Sovereignty is the right to govern; a nation or State-sovereign is the person or persons in whom that resides. In Europe the sovereignty is generally ascribed to the Prince ”

“ Let the great interests of the state depend
Upon the thousand chances that may sway
A piece of human frailty! Swear to me
That ye will seek hereafter in yourselves
The means of sovereign rule: our narrow space,
So happy in its confines, so compact,
Needs not the magic of a single name
Which wider regions may require to draw
Their interests into one; ”

“ Under the benignant providence of Almighty God the representatives of the States and of the people are again brought together to deliberate for the public good. The gratitude of the nation to the Sovereign Arbiter of All Human Events should be commensurate with the boundless blessings which we enjoy.
Peace, plenty, and contentment reign throughout our borders, and our beloved country presents a sublime moral spectacle to the world. ”

“ In this extraordinary production that high functionary affects total ignorance of the existence of an independent Government, which, possessing the entire and enthusiastic devotion of its people, is exercising its functions without question over seven sovereign States, over more than 5,000,000 of people, and over a territory whose area exceeds half a million of square miles. ”

“ National politics have from the start aimed primarily at efficiency—that is, at the successful use of the force resident in the state to accomplish the purposes desired by the Sovereign authority. ”

“ The sovereignty of a nation or state, considered with reference to its association, as a body politic, may be absolute and uncontrollable in all respects, except the limitations which it chooses to impose upon itself. But the sovereignty of the government, organized within the state, may be of a very limited nature. ”

“ It is never easy to point out in our complex modern governments the exact organs in which sovereignty is lodged. On the whole, however, it is always safe to ascribe sovereignty to the highest91 originative or law-making body of the state,—the body by whose determinations both the tasks to be carried out by the Administration and the rules to be applied by the courts are fixed and warranted. ”

“ While the government which the Constitution 145 established is one of enumerated powers, as to those powers it is a sovereign government, both in its choice of the means by which to exercise its powers and in its supremacy over all colliding or antagonistic powers. ”

“ Each citizen owed his allegiance to his own state and each state had its obligations to the confederation. Under our constitutional system in every part of the territory of every state there are two sovereigns, and every citizen owes allegiance to both sovereigns—to his state and to his nation. ”