The agreement
can be valid and binding only on condition that each of the
contracting parties retains the sovereignty that rendered it
competent to enter into the compact, and states that retain
severally their sovereignty do not form a single sovereign state
or nation. The states in convention cannot become a new and
single sovereign state, unless they lose their several
sovereignty, and merge it in the new sovereignty; but this they
cannot do by agreement, because the moment the parties to the
agreement cease to be sovereign, the agreement, on which alone
depends the new sovereign state, is vacated, in like manner as a
contract is vacated by the death of the contracting parties.
That a nation may voluntarily cede its sovereignty is frankly
admitted, but it can cede it only to something or somebody
actually existing, for to cede to nothing and not to cede is one
and the same thing. They can part with their own sovereignty by
merging themselves in another national existence, but not by
merging themselves in nothing; and, till they have parted with
their own sovereignty, the new sovereign state does not exist. A
prince can abdicate his power, because by abdicating he simply
gives back to the people the trust he had received from them; but
a nation cannot, save by merging itself in another. An
independent state not merged in another, or that is not subject
to another, cannot cease to be a sovereign nation, even if it
would.
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