“And here I would make this inquiry of those worthy characters who composed a part of the late Federal Convention. I am sure they were fully impressed with the necessity of forming a great consolidated Government, instead of a Confederation. _That this is a consolidated Government is demonstrable clear_; and the danger of such a Government is to my mind very striking. I have the highest veneration for those gentlemen; but, Sir, give me leave to demand, What right had they to say, ‘_We, the people_’?… Who authorized them to speak the language of ‘_We, the people_,’ instead of ‘_We, the States_’?”[185] And again, at another stage of the debate, the same patriotic opponent of the Constitution declared succinctly,-- “The question turns, Sir, on that poor little thing, the expression, ‘We, _the people_,’ instead of _the States_, of America.”[186] In the same Convention, another patriotic opponent of the Constitution, George Mason, following Patrick Henry, said:-- “Whether the Constitution be good or bad, the present clause clearly discovers that it is a National Government, and no longer a Confederation.”[187] But against all this opposition, and in face of this exposure, the Constitution was adopted, in the name of the people of the United States. Much, indeed, was left to the States; but it was no longer in their name that the government was organized, while the miserable pretension of State “sovereignty” was discarded. Even in the discussions of the National Convention Mr. Madison spoke thus plainly:-- “Some contend that States are _sovereign_, when, in fact, they are only political societies. The States never possessed the essential rights of sovereignty. These were always vested in Congress.”[188] Grave words, especially when we consider the position of their author. They were substantially echoed by Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, afterwards Vice-President, who said:-- “It appears to me that the States never were independent. They had only corporate rights.”[189] On another occasion, Mr. Madison said,-- “I hold it for a fundamental point, that an individual independence of the States is utterly irreconcilable with the idea of an aggregate sovereignty.”[190] Better words still fell from Mr. Wilson, of Pennsylvania, known afterwards as a learned judge of the Supreme Court, and also for his “Lectures on Law”:-- “Will a regard to State Rights justify the sacrifice of the rights of men? If we proceed on any other foundation than the last, our building will neither be solid nor lasting.”[191] The argument was unanswerable then. It is unanswerable now. You cannot elevate the sovereignty of the States over the Constitution of the United States. It would be even more odious than the early pretension of sovereign power over Magna Charta, according to the memorable words of Lord Coke, as recorded by Rushworth:--