But, having disposed of this subject, as a violation of the law of nations, which involves the highest criminality, because it is liable to work mischief on the largest scale, and of the deepest die, let us consider it as a violation of the Federal Compact, in an Article not yet introduced: “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.” This is the Tenth Article of the Constitution of the United States; and although it involves precisely the same principle of international law, as that we have just been considering, it presents itself here in the character and with the sanction of a corporate element of our own political fabric. It draws the line, in black and white, between the powers of the nation and those of the States respectively. It leaves the States in absolute and uncontrolled possession of all the sovereign powers, customarily asserted and employed by sovereign States, which are not delegated or prohibited in the general Constitution; and one of those powers is a sovereign right of legislation and control over the institution of slavery. Another, of course, is the common and national right, universally recognized, of claiming the unrestricted scope and benefit of the law of noninterference in regard to this matter. This Article of the Federal Constitution places every State precisely on the footing, and in the position, of nations entirely independent of each other, in all particulars not surrendered or prohibited by this instrument. Its language is, that all other powers--“the powers not delegated, &c. are _reserved_ to the States _respectively_, or to the people.” Whatever may have been intended by this alternative of “_the people_,” it cannot be construed to qualify or restrict the object of our present remarks. We suppose it points to the principle of general sovereignty, as appears to be recognized in the Ninth Article, as follows: “The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people;” that is--if we may be allowed the privilege of interpretation here--those general rights of sovereignty, which belong to all nations, acting in their Constitutional modes, authorizing measures adapted to unforeseen exigencies. Certainly, this rule cannot be construed to authorize a minority, or a faction, to do what they please, or to depart from the constituted forms of law. And that is all the bar we have any occasion, for our present purpose, to introduce, whatever other interpretation may be given to it.