. The Civil War : the national view . Island and North Carolina is notevidence that they were each an independent nation; andthe fact that both States ratified the Constitution withoutamendment tends to establish the proposition that theirdelay in ratifying was not due in either case to a convictionthat each was an independent nation. The case of theseStates goes far to establish the proposition that the claimsof the States to sovereignty, in the eighteenth century, werebits of verbiage rather than governmental facts. The useof the word sovereign is very loose with speakers andwriters in the e
. The Civil War : the national view . Island and North Carolina is notevidence that they were each an independent nation; andthe fact that both States ratified the Constitution withoutamendment tends to establish the proposition that theirdelay in ratifying was not due in either case to a convictionthat each was an independent nation. The case of theseStates goes far to establish the proposition that the claimsof the States to sovereignty, in the eighteenth century, werebits of verbiage rather than governmental facts. The useof the word sovereign is very loose with speakers andwriters in the early days of the United States, and it ac-cords closely with the facts of civil development in theUnited States if we accept the term sovereign, as thusapplied, as a synonym for any of that group of words nowcommonly used to describe the authority of a State to ex-ecute its laws. Madison uses the term residuary sover-eignty, a phrase impossible to conceive in thought and yeta phrase which still lingers in the decisions of the Supreme. CONFEDERACY OR NATION 177 Court of the United States. For it is clear that it is im-possible to conceive of sovereignty in the United States andresiduary sovereignty in the States: philosophically therecan be no such thing as residuary sovereignty, and the termas employed by American statesmen must be accepted in apolitical sense as a rather unfortunate synonym for a rathervague idea. It is presumptuous to attempt to define an ideawhich has defied definition in certain quarters, but histori-cally, the term residuary sovereignty, from the time ofthe Federalist has meant no more than a power in a Statedelegated by the will of its people and under the Americansystem of government fully exercisable upon them alone,save with the consent of persons, or their representatives,outside of the State, upon whom its exercise is desired andattempted. But this is not sovereignty: it is what Madisonwould call, municipal government. State sovereignty as a legal en
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