but, if not supported by the physical power of the last resort, must ultimately yield, whenever the will and power of the people are brought authoritatively to bear against it. This is the only absolute and inalienable sovereignty, -— the controlling power in the last resort, under whatever form of government.

§ 25. The terms imply unity, -aggregate or corporate unity, which, in the case of a whole people, is nationality. The unity or nationality of a whole people involves individuality, equality, and independence among the nations, and sovereignty or uncontrollable power in the last resort among themselves. These first words of the Constitution, therefore, "we, the people," authoritatively assume the integrity or unity, the nationality, independence, and sovereignty of the people. These ideas were none of them thought to require either elucidation, exhibition, vindication, or even assertion; but are quietly assumed and acted upon, in the simple formulary, "we, the people," which includes them all.

§ 26. The people, then, are a nation. They became such by separating themselves from the nationality of Great Britain, - first temporarily, in 1774, when they formed their Union, by which they became "one people," a body politic, though only for the single purpose of defending their rights and liberties, which they hoped and expected would be speedily accomplished, and then their former position resumed; afterwards

permanently, in 1776, by their Declaration of Independence, absolute and final. Under the former, they levied and carried on war; raised, equipped, and supported armies and navies; regulated commerce with foreign nations; suppressed among themselves the authority of the British crown and parliament; and performed many other acts of unequivocal nationality and sovereignty. By the Declaration of 1776, they confirmed their position as "one people," united, independent, and sovereign, and rendered it perpetual and irrevocable; absolving themselves "from all allegiance to the British crown," and dissolving "all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain;" and assuming "full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." Thus the "good people" became, by the formal act of their "Representatives in Congress assembled," in the language of the Declaration, permanently "one people," a nation, "a free people," "independent," and, of course, sovereign.

§ 27. The words, "we, the people," in the Constitution, re-affirm, in effect, all these particulars in the Declaration,— union, nationality, independence, and sovereignty. They, however, necessarily suggest the question, Who are the people? who constitute the nation? who are the actual members of the body politic, its

component materials? Prior to 1774, they were all his Britannic Majesty's subjects, inhabiting a certain locality, claiming the rights of nativeborn subjects, and all the liberties of the British Constitution; and were professedly governed as such. For the avowed and sole, but as they supposed temporary, purpose of a mutual defence of those rights and liberties, they became, by their own act, the "United Colonies of America." Under this organization and the authority of the Continental Congress, "the people" carried on a defensive war against the aggressions of Great Britain, and did all other necessary acts of independent nationality and sovereignty,' till 1776. On the fourth day of July of that year, by the "Declaration of Independence," the "Delegates of the United Colonies, . . . in the name and by the authority of the good people" thereof, became "the Representatives of the United States of America," and solemnly declared them to be "free and independent," and entitled to "do all acts and things" which other independent nations have a right to do; which necessarily includes all power, external and internal, implied in the absolute sovereignty of nations. In this manner they assumed permanently an equal station among the nations of the earth. The several constituencies, in their

1 Nov. 1, 1775, Congress "Resolved that no produce of the United Colonies be exported . . . before the first day of March next, without the permission or order of this Congress."

separate local organizations, had authorized their respective delegates to unite in this general Declaration;1 but none of them had ever intended to make, or attempt to maintain, such a declaration on their own individual account, or sought any independence of each other. They all united in this aggregate Declaration, "in the name of all the good people," of their independence of Great Britain, and all the world beside, but remained united among themselves; and so became permanently a body politic, an aggregate nation, and the separate colonies thereby subordinate portions of the new American State, as they had been before of the "State of Great Britain."

§ 28. Nothing would appear more reasonable or certain than that, by this act, the whole national sovereignty, the absolute right to govern in the last resort, the real succession to the British crown and government, descended and remained upon the people of the United States as a nation; and the component parts took and retained, as they had before, such subordinate position as suited the real sovereign to confer or acquiesce in. The separate colonies, or the individual states, do not speak, and are not mentioned in the Declaration; nor is the Declaration signed by delegates from the separate colonies, representing local districts, and binding their local constituencies, but is signed first by the President, and then by all the members promiscuously, in a mass, as the "Representatives of

1 See note at the end of this chapter.

the United States of America," the nation, as they announce themselves to be in the body of the paper; and the whole people are uniformly represented as "one people" acting together as a body corporate, a nation, a "free people," whom the king is "unfit" to govern. They dissolve their connection with Great Britain, and assert their "full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do;" which includes, of course, the establishment or continuance of subordinate institutions, and whatever else the British government had rightfully done, or any other legitimate government could so do.

§ 29. This was not only the theory of our system from the beginning, but the practice was in conformity to it, as well before as after our national position became permanent by the Declaration of 1776. Our local governments were all of them formed and administered, after the renunciation of the king's authority, by the express advice and sanction of the Congress, first of the United Colonies, and then of the United States. Governments so formed could have no rightful power to act in derogation of the general sovereignty of the nation under which they were organized, any more than the present local governments could repudiate or counteract the Constitution and government of the United States, in subordination to which