Presidents -- United States -- Messages; United States -- Politics and government -- Sources
No State shall without the consent of the Congress lay any imposts or
duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for
executing its inspection laws.
And if they exceed this amount the excess shall belong, to the United
States. And--
No State shall without the consent of Congress lay any duty of tonnage,
keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or
compact with another State or with a foreign power, or engage in war,
unless actually invaded or in such imminent danger as will not admit of
delay.
In order still further to secure the uninterrupted exercise of these high
powers against State interposition, it is provided that--
This Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in
pursuance thereof, and all treaties made or which shall be made under the
authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land, and
the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the
constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
The solemn sanction of religion has been superadded to the obligations of
official duty, and all Senators and Representatives of the United States,
all members of State legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers,
"both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by
oath or affirmation to support this Constitution."
In order to carry into effect these powers, the Constitution has
established a perfect Government in all its forms--legislative, executive,
and judicial; and this Government to the extent of its powers acts directly
upon the individual citizens of every State, and executes its own decrees
by the agency of its own officers. In this respect it differs entirely from
the Government under the old Confederation, which was confined to making
requisitions on the States in their sovereign character. This left it in
the discretion of each whether to obey or to refuse, and they often
declined to comply with such requisitions. It thus became necessary for the
purpose of removing this barrier and "in order to form a more perfect
union" to establish a Government which could act directly upon the people
and execute its own laws without the intermediate agency of the States.
This has been accomplished by the Constitution of the United States. In
short, the Government created by the Constitution, and deriving its
authority from the sovereign people of each of the several States, has
precisely the same right to exercise its power over the people of all these
States in the enumerated cases that each one of them possesses over
subjects not delegated to the United States, but "reserved to the States
respectively or to the people."
To the extent of the delegated powers the Constitution of the United States
is as much a part of the constitution of each State and is as binding upon
its people as though it had been textually inserted therein.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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