334
CONSTITUTION OF THE U. STATES.
[BOOK III.
§ 365. Then, is it a compact between the people of the several states, each contracting with all the people of the other states?
[1] It may be admitted, as was the early exposition of its advocates, "that the constitution is founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given by deputies elected for the special purpose; but that this assent and ratification is to be given by the whole people, not as individuals, composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent states, to which they respectively belong It is to be the assent and ratification of the several states, derived from the supreme authority in each state, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing the constitution will not be [is not to be] a national, but a federal act."
[2] "It may also be admitted," in the language of one of its most enlightened commentators, that "it was formed, not by the governments of the component states, as the federal government, for which it was substituted, was formed. Nor was it formed by a majority of the people of the United States, as a single community, in the manner of a consolidated government. It was formed by the states, that is, by the people in each of the states acting in their highest sovereign capacity; and formed consequently by the same authority, which formed the state constitutions."
[3] But this would not necessarily
- ↑ In the resolutions passed by the senate of South-Carolina, in December, 1827, it was declared, that "the constitution of the United States is a compact between the people of the different states with each other, as separate and independent sovereignties." Mr. Grimke filed a protest founded on different views of it. See Grimke's Address and Resolutions in 1828, (edition, 1829, at Charleston,) where his exposition of the constitution is given at large, and maintained in a very able speech.
- ↑ The Federalist, No. 39; see Sturgis v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. R. 122, 193.
- ↑ Mr. Madison's Letter in North American Review, October, 1830, p. 537, 538.
