It cannot be said, however, that the actors in the history always had
a clear perception of the facts as they took place. In the teeth of the
facts, our early history presents a great variety of assertions of State
independence by leading men, State Legislatures, or State constitutions,
which still form the basis of the argument for State sovereignty. The
State constitutions declared the State to be sovereign and independent,
even though the framers knew that the existence of the State depended
on the issue of the national struggle against the mother country. The
treaty of 1783 with Great Britain recognized the States separately and
by name as "free, sovereign, and independent," even while it established
national boundaries outside of the States, covering a vast western
territory in which no State would have ventured to forfeit its
interest by setting up a claim to practical freedom, sovereignty, or
independence. All our early history is full of such contradictions
between fact and theory. They are largely obscured by the
undiscriminating use of the word "people." As used now, it usually means
the national people; but many apparently national phrases as to the
"sovereignty of the people," as they were used in 1787-9, would seem
far less national if the phraseology could show the feeling of those
who then used them that the "people" referred to was the people of
the State.
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