The state of Connecticut, for instance, was an independent republic when there was no such thing as the United States.
Would Connecticut ever have gone into an “indissoluble union” if she had not been assured that this union was to be composed of “indestructible states”? The two propositions are linked together in Constitutional law.
Among sovereigns all are, in law, equal, and each one of these states was sovereign at the time the union of states was formed.
Would either of those independent sovereign states have accepted a place of inferiority in the Government? Assuredly not.
Then how is the indestructibility of the states guaranteed in the Constitution? By giving the state, as a state, its full power in the United States Senate, and, in a smaller degree, in the election of Chief Magistrate.
The Constitution itself was modeled by delegates chosen, not by citizens of the United States, acting as individuals composing the entire nation, but by voters acting as citizens composing distinct and independent states to which they respectively belonged. When the completed Constitution was referred back to the people for adoption, it was not acted upon by them as citizens of the entire nation, but it was ratified by each state, acting as a state, separate and distinct from every other state. Therefore the Constitution itself is the result, not of a national, but of a Federal act.
Mr. Madison himself took this ground in The Federalist. The facts all prove it.
In the exercise of its legislative powers the Federal Government is both national and Federal. The House of Representatives is a national body, because it is composed of members chosen according to population. The Senate is a Federal body, because it is chosen by the states, acting as states.
The executive department of our Government also combines in itself both the national and the Federal features.
The Electoral College is composed of two messengers from each state, and also of messengers equal in number to the members which the state has in the House of Representatives.