The people of the several colonies being really one people
before independence, in the sovereignty of the mother country,
must be so still, unless they have since, by some valid act,
divided themselves or been divided into separate and independent
states.
The king, say the jurists, never dies, and the heralds cry, "The
king is dead! Live the king!" Sovereignty never lapses, is never
in abeyance, and the moment it ceases in one people it is renewed
in another. The British sovereignty ceased in the colonies with
independence, and the American took its place. Did the
sovereignty, which before independence was in Great Britain, pass
from Great Britain to the States severally, or to the States
united? It might have passed to them severally, but did it?
There is no question of law or antecedent right in the case, but
a simple question of fact, and the fact is determined by
determining who it was that assumed it, exercised it, and has
continued to exercise it. As to this there is no doubt. The
sovereignty as a fact has been assumed and exercised by the
United States, the States united, and never by the States
separately or severally. Then as a fact the sovereignty that
before independence was in Great Britain, passed, on independence
to the States united, and reappears in all its vigor in the
United States, the only successor to Great Britain known to or
recognized by the civilized world.
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