Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/322

 282 violence to each member, though they may in certain respects put some constraint on the exercise of it in virtue of voluntary engagements. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. So long, as the separate organization of the members remains; and, from the nature of the compact, must continue to exist both for local and domestic, and for federal purposes, the union is in fact, as well as in theory, an association of states, or a confederacy.

§ 312. It is, also, to a certain extent, a social compact. In the act of association, in virtue of which a multitude of men form together a state or nation, each individual is supposed to have entered into engagements with all, to procure the common welfare; and all are supposed to have entered into engagements with each other, to facilitate the means of supplying the necessities of each individual, and to protect and defend him. And this is what is ordinarily meant by the original contract of society. But a contract of this nature actually existed in a visible form between the citizens of each state in their several constitutions. It might, therefore, be deemed somewhat extraordinary, that in the establishment of a federal republic, it should have been thought necessary to extend its operation to the persons of individuals, as well as to the states composing the confederacy.

§ 313. It may be proper to illustrate the distinction between federal compacts and obligations, and such as are social, by one or two examples. A federal compact, alliance, or treaty, is an act of the state or body politic, and not of an individual. On the contrary, a