8169. STATES, Sovereignty of.—
The
several States, now comprising the United
States of America, were, from their first establishment,
separate and distinct societies,
dependent on no other society of men whatever.
They continued at the head of their respective
governments the executive Magistrate
who presided over the one they had left.
* * * The part which our chief magistrate
took in a war waged against us by the nation
among whom he resided, obliged us to discontinue
him, and to name one within every
State.—
Mississippi River Instructions. Washington ed. vii, 570.
Ford ed., v, 461.
(1792)
