If they had considered
themselves existing as States only, they would have said "We, the
States," and if independently of State organization, they would
have said "We, the people," do ordain, &c.
The key to the mystery is precisely in this appellation United
States, which is not the name of the country, for its distinctive
name is America, but a name expressive of its political
organization. In it there are no sovereign people without
States, and no States without union, or that are not united
States. The term united is not part of a proper name, but is
simply an adjective qualifying States, and has its full and
proper sense. Hence while the sovereignty is and must be in the
States, it is in the States united, not in the States severally,
precisely as we have found the sovereignty of the people is in
the people collectively or as society, not in the people
individually. The life is in the body, not in the members,
though the body could not exist if it had no members; so the
sovereignty is in the Union, not in the States severally; but
there could be no sovereign union without the States, for there
is no union where there is nothing united.
This is not a theory of the constitution, but the constitutional
fact itself. It is the simple historical fact that precedes the
law and constitutes the law-making power. The people of the
United States are one people, as has already been proved: they
were one people, as far as a people at all, prior to
independence, because under the same Common Law and subject to
the same sovereign, and have been so since, for as united States
they gained their independence and took their place among
sovereign nations, and as united States they have possessed and
still possess the government.
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