Page:Review of the Proclamation of President Jackson.djvu/76

 how these laws so made apply to their cases respectively; and to their Executive servants, you shall execute these laws and judgments. Each constituent portion of either class is so made the co-ordinate of and distinct from every other constituent portion of that class, not dependant for its powers upon any of the other portions, but upon the common superior of all, the Sovereign People. Now, it is as easy to conceive, how two or twenty governments may be made co-ordinates of each other, as to conceive how three or more co-ordinate departments of the same government may be made so.

Both cases pre-suppose a superior to all, by which alone such co-ordination can be established: for if any one of the classes, or of the Departments of either, should undertake to establish a co-ordinate of itself, the very fact of such a creation would shew superiority in the one and subordination in the other.

Then, if the author of this Proclamation, wishes to prove the want of Sovereignty in the State governments, by shewing that they cannot exercise certain great powers of government, he might save himself much trouble, for his conclusion is a truism. None of these government are now, or ever were, Sovereign. But it is equally a truism, or if not, his own argument must prove it, at least to himself, that neither is the government of the United States Sovereign; because that, too,w ants many of the most important powers of government. It is idle, however, to ask in reference to the States themselves, "how can that State be sovereign and independent, whose citizens owe obedience to laws not made by it?" Because, in a Representative Democracy, no law ever was made by the State itself, but by its Legislative agents; and if these agents exist in both of its two government, State and Federal, the law made by such agents, is as much made by itself, in the one case as in the other. In either case, a question may arise, whether the law so made is in pursuance of the authority given by the sovereign People to their Legislative agents, to make laws; and if it is once conceded, that the act is not in pursuance of this authority, then no man can doubt, that such an act, whether done by State or Federal Legislative agents, is an act of mere usurpation, and is not law, although it may profess to be so, and wear all the forms of law.