Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/155

 excluded from it; and, by consequence, from the compact itself, into which the several States entered when they established it. The term, "federal," implies a league — and this, a compact between sovereign communities; and, of course, it is impossible for the States to be federal, in reference to powers expressly reserved to them in their character of separate States, and not included in the compact. If the States are national at all — or, to express it more definitely — if they form a NATION at all, it must be in reference to the delegated, and not the reserved powers. But it has already been established that, as to these, they have no such character — no such existence. It is, however, proper to remark, that while it is impossible for them to be federal, as to their reserved powers, they could not be federal without them. For had all the powers of government been delegated, the separate constitutions and governments of the several States would have been superseded and destroyed; and what is now called the constitution and government of the United States, would have become the sole constitution and government of the whole — the effect of which, would have been to supersede and destroy the States themselves. The people respectively composing them, instead of constituting political communities, having appropriate organs to will and to act — which is indispensable to the existence of a State — would, in such case, be divested of all such organs; and, by consequence, reduced into an unorganized mass of individuals — as far as related to the respective States — and merged into one community