Circa 1865
“Daniel Webster has said, and very justly as far as these United
States are concerned: “The sovereignty of government is an idea
belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in
North America. Our governments are limited. But with us all power is
with the people. They alone are sovereign, and they erect what
governments they please, and confer on them such powers as they please.”
Jefferson Davis
The Pursuit of Liberty
“If any lingering doubt could have existed as to the reservation of
their entire sovereignty by the people of the several States when they
organized the federal Union, it would have been removed by the Tenth
Amendment . . . the particular one in which they substantially agreed,
and upon which they most urgently insisted. Indeed, it is quite certain
that Constitution would never have received the assent and ratification
of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina and perhaps
other States, but for a well-grounded assurance that the substance of
the Tenth Amendment would be adopted. The amendment is in these words:
“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.”
To have transferred sovereignty from the people to a Government would
have been to have fought the battles of the Revolution in vain – not
for the freedom and independence of the States, but for a mere change of
masters. Such a thought or purpose could not have been in the heads or
hearts of those who molded the Union.
The men who had won at great cost the independence of their
respective States were deeply impressed with the value of union, but
they could never have consented, like “the base Judean,” to fling away
the priceless pearl of State sovereignty for any possible alliance.”
(Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government, Jefferson Davis, D. Appleton and Company, 1881, pp. 146; 156)
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