people, have done so; but would, in itself, have been a sovereign, independent goverment.
In view of these and other contemporaneons facts, we may safely assume, that the people of the seyeral states, in whom the sovereign power rests, (according to the theory of our government) had conferred upon their state governments, sovereign and independent powers as such, Which were plenary, for all the purposes of an independent government; and, which (as we shall presently see,) were only limited by the extent to which power was conferred, by the constitution, upon the federal government, or prohibited by it to the states.
The question as to whether the constitution was made and adopted by the states, or the people of the states, as a political question, was once esteemed by many as of vital importance; but, we apprehend, of less practical value now than was formerly supposed. But, however this may be as a political question, for all the purposes of judicial consideration, it is a matter of no importance, whether the constitution was made and adopted by the states, or by the people of the states, or by the people through the agency of states; because, whether it emanated from the one or the other, it is alike obligatory as the supreme law of the nation.
Our reference to the earlier history of the American government has been, not to ascertain political rights, but the more clearly to ascertain what the reserved rights of the states were. For it is expressly declared in the constitution that "the powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
Our next inquiry, then, must be as to the extent of the powers delegated by the states, or the people thereof, to the "United States." For when we shall have done this, we can readily see what powers the state of Arkansas possessed on the 6th of May, 1861, when, it is assumed, that by an act of her state convention, she ceased to exist as a state; and to what extent, if at all, she
