States of the United States

“ The Federal Government is, as the term imports, a confederation of States, and the People of each State have transferred to the United States, such a portion of their power as is, in the Constitution specified, to be exercised by Congress, and have reserved the Remainder to the States, to be exercised by their respective Legislatures ... ”

“ There are now twenty-four states in the Union, and each has, in its sovereign capacity, a right to decide for itself in the last resort, what is the true construction of the constitution; what are its powers; and what are the obligations founded on it. We may, then, have, in the free exercise of that right, twenty-four honest, but different expositions of every power in that constitution, and of every obligation involved in it. What one state may deny, another may assert; what one may assert at one time, it may deny at another time. ”

“ It is my first wish to see the United States assume and merit the character of one great Nation, whose territory is divided into different States merely for more convenient government and the more easy and prompt administration of justice,—just as our several States are divided into counties and townships for the like purposes. ”

“ The states that unite to make the federation, while they keep certain powers in their own hands, give up certain other powers to a central body, a body which speaks and acts in the name, not of this or that state, but of the whole body of states. And the powers that they give up to this central body are those powers which are strictly national, those in the exercise of which the nation, as such, comes across the other nations and powers of the world.52 This nation, any other nation, cannot have any dealings with the State of New York; all its dealings must be with the United States of America. ”

“ Our Federal Republic.—It has been emphasized in the course of our study that the States are important parts in the political system which we call the Republic of the United States. The States are not mere administrative divisions of the nation; they do not stand in the same relation to the National government that counties bear to the State. They do not derive their powers from the National government ”

“ A remarkable phenomenon of the last hundred years is the impetus that has been given to the development of Federal institutions. There are to-day contemporaneously existing no less than eight distinct Federal Governments. First and foremost is the United States of America, where we have an example of the Federal Union in the most perfect form yet attained. ”

“ The inhabitants of the ceded territory shall be incorporated in the Union of the United States, and admitted as soon as possible, according to the principles of the Federal Constitution, to the enjoyment of all the rights, advantages, and immunities of citizens of the United States. ”

“ A state, in the ordinary sense of the Constitution, is a political community of free citizens, occupying a territory of defined boundaries, and organized under a government sanctioned and limited by a written constitution, and established by the consent of the governed. It is the union of such states, under a common constitution, which forms the distinct and greater political unit, which that Constitution designates as the United States, and makes of the people and states which compose it one people and one country. ”

“ The government of the United States is denominated a "Federal Republic." Each state has a constitution for the management of its own internal affairs; and, by the federal constitution, they are all formed into one united body. ”

“ Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, California, even the little States like Rhode Island and Maryland, are political entities just as real, just as conscious of their own being, as the United States, of which each of them forms an integral part. They have their own laws, their own courts, their own systems of domestic taxation, their own flags, their own militia, their own schools and universities. “The American citizen.” ”

“ Territorial Form of Government in the United States.—The American Union is composed of a number of states or commonwealths which, while differing vastly in wealth and population, are on absolutely equal footing in the Union. The inhabitants of these states form politically the American sovereignty. They elect the president and Congress, and through their state legislatures may change or amend the form of the American state itself. ”

“ The weak parts, which are the Southern States. Will it be safe to leave the United States at the mercy of one third of the states—a number which may comprise a very small proportion of the American people? ”

“ Each of these States has within it resources the development of which will employ the energies of and yield a comfortable subsistence to a great population. The smallest of these new States, Washington, stands twelfth, and the largest, Montana, third, among the forty-two in area. The people of these States are already well-trained, intelligent, and patriotic American citizens, having common interests and sympathies with those of the older States and a common purpose to defend the integrity and uphold the honor of the nation. ”