But sovereignty, it has
been shown, is not in the government, but in the state, and the
state is inseparable from the public domain. The people
organized and held by the domain or national territory, are under
God the sovereign nation, and remain so as long as the nation
subsists without subjection to another. The government, as
distinguished from the state or nation, has only a delegated
authority, governs only by a commission from the nation. The
revocation of the commission vacates, its title and extinguishes
its rights. The nation is always sovereign, and every organic
people fixed to the soil, and actually independent of every
other, is a nation. There can then be no independent nation de
facto that is not an independent nation de jure, nor de jure that
is not de facto. The moment a people cease to be an independent
nation in fact, they cease to be sovereign, and the moment they
become in fact an independent nation, they are so of right.
Hence in the political order the fact and the right are born and
expire together; and when it is proved that a people, are in fact
an independent nation, there is no question to be asked as to
their right to be such nation.
In the case of the United States there is only the question of
fact. If they are in fact one people they are so in right,
whatever the opinions and theories of statesmen, or even the
decisions of courts; for the courts hold from the national
authority, and the theories and opinions of statesmen may be
erroneous.
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