Page:Works of John C. Calhoun, v1.djvu/212

 respective powers — that they stand, within these limits, as equals — and sustain the relation of co-ordinate governments, has already been fully established. As co-ordinates, they sustain to each other the same relation which subsists between the different departments of the government — the executive, the legislative, and the judicial — and for the same reason. These are coordinates; because each, in the sphere of its powers, is equal to, and independent of the others; and because the three united make the government. The only difference is that, in the illustration, each department, by itself, is not a government — since it takes the whole in connection to form one; while the governments of the several States respectively, and that of the United States, although perfect governments in themselves, and in their respective spheres, require to be united in order to constitute one entire government. They, in this respect, stand as principal and supplemental — while the co-departments of each stand in the relation of parts to the whole. The opposite theory, which would make the constitution and government of the United States the government of the whole — and the government of each, because the government of the whole — and not that of all, because of each — besides the objection already stated, would involve the absurdity of each State having only half a constitution, and half a government; and this, too, while possessed of the supreme sovereign power. Taking all the parts together, the people of thirty independent and sovereign States, confederated by a solemn constitutional compact into