Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/239

 CH. I.] of congress. It was, therefore, the achievement of the whole for the benefit of the whole. The people of the united colonies made the united colonies free and independent states, and absolved them from all allegiance to the British crown. The declaration of independence has accordingly always been treated, as an act of paramount and sovereign authority, complete and perfect per se, and ipso facto working an entire dissolution of all political connexion with and allegiance to Great Britain. And this, not merely as a practical fact, but in a legal and constitutional view of the matter by courts of justice.

§ 212. In the debates in the South Carolina legislature, in January, 1788, respecting the propriety of calling a convention of the people to ratify or reject the constitution, a distinguished statesman used the following language: "This admirable manifesto (i. e. the declaration of independence) sufficiently refutes the doctrine of the individual sovereignty and independence of the several states. In that declaration the several states are not even enumerated; but after reciting in nervous language, and with convincing arguments our right to independence, and the tyranny, which compelled us to assert it, the declaration is made in the following words: 'We, therefore, the representatives of the United States, &c. do, in the name, &c. of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish, &c. that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states.' The separate independence and individual sovereignty of the several states were never thought of by the enlightened band of patriots, who framed this declaration. The several states are not even mentioned by name in any part, as