They may
meet in convention, draw up and adopt a constitution declaring or
assuming them to be a State, elect State officers, senators, and
representatives in the State legislature, and representatives and
senators in Congress, but they are not yet a State, and are, as
before, under the Territorial government established by the
General Government. It does not exist as a State till recognized
by Congress and admitted into the Union. The existence of the
State, and the rights and powers of the people within the State,
depend on their being a State in the Union, or a State united.
Hence a State erected on the national domain, but itself outside
of the Union, is not an independent foreign State, but simply no
State at all, in any sense of the term. As there is no union
outside of the States, so is there no State outside of the Union;
and to be a citizen either of a State or of the United States, it
is necessary to be a citizen of a State, and of a State in the
Union. The inhabitants of Territories not yet erected into
States are subjects, not citizens--that is, not citizens with
political rights. The sovereign people are not the people
outside of State organization, nor the people of the States
severally, but the distinct people of the several States united,
and therefore most appropriately called the people of the United
States.
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