That no sovereign state can be formed by a agreement or compact
has already been shown in the refutation of the theory of the
origin of government in convention, or the so-called social
compact. Sovereign states are as unable to form themselves into
a single sovereign state by mutual compact as are the sovereign
individuals imagined by Rousseau. The convention, either of
sovereign states or of sovereign individuals, with the best will
in the world, can form only a compact or agreement between
sovereigns, and an agreement or compact, whatever its terms or
conditions, is only an alliance, a league, or a confederation,
which no one can pretend is a sovereign state, nation, or
republic.
The question, then, whether the United States are a single
sovereign state or nation, or a confederacy of independent
sovereign states depends on the question whether the American
people originally existed as one people or as several independent
states. Mr. Jefferson maintains that before the convention of
1787 they existed as several independent sovereign states, but
that since that convention, or the ratification of the
constitution it proposed, they exist as one political people in
regard to foreign nations, and several sovereign states in regard
to their internal and domestic relations. Mr. Webster concedes
that originally the States existed as severally sovereign states,
but contends that by ratifying the constitution they have been
made one sovereign political people, state, or nation, and that
the General government is a supreme national government, though
with a reservation in favor of State rights.
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