Book Description

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1872. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... Department of Social and Political Science. UNITED STATES SOVEREIGNTY--WHENCE DERIVED, AND WHERE VESTED. BY W. F. ALLEN, A. M., Professor of History and Latin in the University of Wisconsin. The late war brought to an end the long and fierce controversy as to the nature of the Federal Union. What argument had not been able to decide, was decided by arms; and the United States are recognized as a Nation, possessed of sovereignty. With the determination of this controversy, however, another question has com into prominence, as to the origin of this sovereignty. Before th/ ar it was commonly held that the act which severed the colonies from the mother country had as its effect the creation of thirteen independent and sovereign States; and that it was not until the formation of the Federal Constitution that sovereignty was conferred upon the central government. This doctrine, however, of the original sovereignty of the States, has been thought to afford some foundation for the doctrine of Secession. Some of the most ardent advocates, therefore, of the national and sovereign character of our Union, have, since the war, brought into great prominence the theory that the Nation was not created by the States, but the States by the Nation; that the States were never, in any true sense of the term, sovereign, but that the act of independence created at once a sovereign Nation. This view has been most fully elaborated in a series of articles in the first volume (1865) of the Nation, by Hon. Geo. P. Marsh, United States minister to Italy; it is presented also by Professor Pomeroy in his " Introduction to Constitutional Law." In this work the authority of Hamilton, Jay, Marshall, Story and Webster is claimed for this theory. I do not think, however, that Marshall and Webster ...