First, he
made use of reasoning in sharp contrast to that of the statesmen of
the days of the American Revolution, by rejecting the doctrine of
the division of sovereignty between the states and the general
government. [Footnote: McLaughlin, in Am. Hist. Rev., V., 482, 484.]
Clearly differentiating government from sovereignty, he limited the
application of the division to the powers of government, and
attributed the sovereignty solely to the people of the several
states. This conception of the unity of sovereignty was combined
with the designation of the Constitution as articles of compact
between sovereign states, each entitled to determine whether or not
the general government had usurped powers not granted by the
Constitution, and each entitled peacefully to prevent the operation
of the disputed law within its own limits, pending a decision by the
same power that could amend the Constitution--namely, three-fourths
of the states.
These doctrines were brought out with definiteness and with the
deliberate intention of creating from them a practical governmental
machinery to be peacefully applied for the preservation of the
rights of the states.
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