Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol I).djvu/370

 330 for the same reasons the governor, or senate, or house of representatives, or judges, either of a state or of the United States, are parties thereto. No state, as such, that is the body politic, as it was actually organized, had any power to establish a contract for the establishment of any new government over the people thereof, or to delegate the powers of government in whole, or in part to any other sovereignty. The state governments were framed by the people to administer the state constitutions, such as they were, and not to transfer the administration thereof to any other persons, or sovereignty. They had no authority to enter into any compact or contract for such a purpose. It is no where given, or implied in the state constitutions; and consequently, if actually entered into, (as it was not,) would have had no obligatory force. The people, and the people only, in their original sovereign capacity, had a right to change their form of government, to enter into a compact, and to transfer any sovereignty to the national government. And the states never, in fact, did in their political capacity, as contradistinguished from the people thereof, ratify the constitution. They were not called upon to do it by congress; and were not contemplated, as essential to give validity to it.