distinct from that of individuals? Is the sovereignty in the
several States, or in the American people in the aggregate? The
very language which we are compelled to use when speaking of our
political institutions affords proof conclusive as to its real
character. The terms union, federal, united, all imply a
combination of sovereignties, a confederation of States. They
never apply to an association of individuals. Who ever heard of
the United State of New York, of Massachusetts, or of Virginia?
Who ever heard the term federal or union applied to the
aggregation of individuals into one community? Nor is the other
point less clear--that the sovereignty is in the several States,
and that our system is a union of twenty-four sovereign powers,
under a constitutional compact, and not of a divided sovereignty
between the States severally and the United States? In spite of
all that has been said, I maintain that sovereignty is in its
nature indivisible. It is the supreme power in a State, and we
might just as well speak of half a square, or half of a triangle,
as of half a sovereignty. It is a gross error to confound the
*exercise* of sovereign powers with *sovereignty* itself, or the
*delegation* of such powers with the *surrender* of them. A
sovereign may delegate his powers to be exercised by as many
agents as he may think proper, under such conditions and with
such limitations as he may impose; but to surrender any portion
of his sovereignty to another is to annihilate the whole. The
Senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton) calls this metaphysical
reasoning, which he says he cannot comprehend. If by metaphysics
he means that scholastic refinement which makes distinctions
without difference, no one can hold it in more utter contempt
than I do; but if, on the contrary, he means the power of
analysis and combination--that power which reduces the most