The Declaration of Independence having provided for the national character and the national powers, it remained in some mode to provide for the character and powers of the States individually, as a consequence of the dissolution of the colonial system. Accordingly the people of each State set themselves to work, under a recommendation from Congress, to erect a local government for themselves; but in no instance did the people of any State attempt to incorporate into their local system any of those attributes of national authority which the Declaration of Independence had asserted in favor of the United States.—Alexander James Dallas, Argument in the Case of Michael Bright and others, in the Circuit Court of the United States, April 28, 1809: Life and Writings, p. 104.
Hence, while the sovereignty resides inherently and inalienably in the people, it is a perversion of language to denominate the State, as a body politic or government, sovereign and independent.—Ibid., p. 100.
America has chosen to be, in many respects and to many purposes, a Nation; and for all these purposes her government is complete, to all these objects it is competent. The people have declared, that, in the exercise of all powers given for these objects, it is supreme. It can, then, in effecting these objects, legitimately control all individuals or governments within the American territory. The Constitution and laws of a State, so far as they are repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States, are absolutely void. These States are constituent parts of the United States; they are members of one great empire.—Chief Justice Marshall, Cohens v. Virginia, Wheaton, Rep., Vol. VI. p. 414.
This Address was prepared as a lecture, and was delivered on a lecture-tour reaching as far as Milwaukee, Dubuque, and St. Louis. On its delivery in New York, Dr. Francis Lieber was in the chair. It became the subject of various local notice and discussion.
The idea of Nationality had prevailed with Mr. Sumner from the beginning of his public life. In his appeal to Mr. Webster before the Whig State Convention, as early as September 23, 1846, while calling on the eminent Senator and orator to become Defender of Humanity, he recognized his received title, Defender of the Constitution, as justly earned by the vigor, argumentation, and eloquence with which he had “upheld the Union and that interpretation of the Constitution which makes us a Nation.”[1] And from that time he had always insisted that we were a Nation,—believing, that, while many things were justly left to local government, for which the States are the natural organs, yet the great principles of Unity and Human Rights should be placed under central guardianship, so as to be everywhere the same; and this he considered the essence of the Nation.—The word “Federal” Mr. Sumner habitually rejected for “National.” Courts and officers under the United States Government he called “National.”