The powers the convention grants
or concedes to the United States are powers granted or conceded
by the United States to the General government it assembled to
organize and establish, which, as it extends over the whole
population and territory of the Union, and, as the interests it
is charged with relate to all the States in common, or to the
people as a whole, is with no great impropriety called the
government of the United States, in contradistinction from the
State governments, which have each only a local jurisdiction.
But the more exact term is, for the one, the general government,
and for the others, particular governments, as having charge only
of the particular interests of the State; and the two together
constitute the government of the United States, or the complete
national government; for neither the General government nor the
State government is complete in itself. The convention developed
a general government, and prescribed its powers, and fixed their
limits and extent, as well as the bounds of the powers of the
State or particular governments; but they are the United States
assembled in convention that do all this, and, therefore,
strictly speaking, no powers are conceded to the United States
that they did not previously possess. The convention itself, in
the constitution it ordained, defines very clearly from whom the
General government holds its powers.
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