VIII.
One obvious error pervades every part of this Proclamation wherein its author speaks of Sovereignty. Confounding sovereignty with government, and graduating the powers of government according to some fanciful scale, he infers, that whoever may possess what he considers the great powers of government, must be Sovereign; and that such as have not these powers, are not Sovereign. Hence he concludes, that as the States, by the Federal Constitution, have granted away "the right to make Treaties—declare war—levy taxes—and to exercise exclusive Judicial and Legislative Powers"—they are no longer Sovereign; but that "the allegiance of their Citizens, was transferred, in the first instance, to the government of the United States."—And he asks in triumph, "How, then, can that State be said to be Sovereign and independent, whose Citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it, and whose magistrates are sworn to disregard those laws, when they come in conflict with those passed by another?"
This can scarcely be called sophistry, it is palpable mistake, produced by ignorance of the great characteristic difference between two subjects totally distinct from each other, by which ignorance the author is frequently lead to confound them.—If he would but have paused a moment, to ask himself a few plain questions, his own answers to them would have prevented him from falling into any such errors. Is any government within these States, whether general or particular, whether State or Federal, created by its own will? If it is, such government must certainly be Sovereign, for none other than a Sovereign can create government. But if it is not, then it is as certainly the creation of the will of some other; and its Creator must continue to be the superior of its creature, unless in the act of creation, or at some other time, it has transferred to the Creature, the right to pre-
