the several States monarchy is denounced, but democracy is
nowhere proclaimed or insisted on. Marked differences in the
degrees of popular control existed in the country in 1789; and
though time is lessening them, are still to be found among us.

The close consideration of all these facts, we feel persuaded
will give a coloring to some of the most important interests of
the country, differing essentially from those that have been
loosely adopted in the conflicts of parties, and many heresies
appear to us to have crept into the political creed of the
Republic, purely from the struggles of faction. When men have a
specific and important purpose in view, it is but natural they
should bend most of its collateral connections to the support of
their own objects. We conceive that the Constitution has thus
been largely misinterpreted, and they who live at the epoch of
the renowned "equilibrium" and of the "rights of the people of
the Sovereign States," will have seen memorable examples of the
truth of this position.

The first popular error, then, that we shall venture to assail,
is that connected with the prevalent notion of the sovereignty of
the States. We do not believe that the several States of this
Union are, in any legitimate meaning of the term, sovereign at
all. We are fully aware that this will be regarded as a bold, and
possibly as a presuming proposition, but we shall endeavor to
work it out with such means as we may have at command.

We lay down the following premises as too indisputable to need
any arguments to sustain them: viz., the authority which formed
the present Constitution of the United States had the legal power