It is urged that originally we were one people of different colonies, subjects of the British Kingdom; our independence of that kingdom and existence as a power came from the declaration of the Congress of our combined government, in which we are called one people. No State ever acted separately in any sovereign capacity; we carried on the war, made peace, and treated with foreign countries as one nation. Even territory had been ceded to the Confederacy by the several States; and it was the Confederacy that passed the ordinance of 1787 abolishing slavery in the Northwest. The States had declared this Confederacy indissoluble. Webster, as we have seen, did not found his argument on the ground that the States never had sovereignty; he impliedly admitted the claimed independence, or sovereignty of the States, before the forming of the Union; it is safer to make this concession as Webster did. Each State had its choice to join the Union or to remain apart and become an independent sovereign power. Our first chief-justice, John Jay, a most eminent jurist, a member of the New York convention, and one of the writers of the _Federalist_, in his decision in the case of Chisholm against the State of Georgia, where Georgia denied that a State could be sued, very clearly states how our government was formed and where the sovereignty is. He said: All the people of our country were subjects, every acre of land was held by grants from the Crown of Great Britain; the sovereignty passed from the Crown to the people, and a confederation of States was established as the basis of a general government. Then the people of the country made a new government saying, “We, the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution.” Every State constitution is a compact between the citizens to govern themselves in a certain manner, and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects in a certain manner.[57] [57] See 2 Dallas _Reports_, p. 471, for opinion in full.