That the Government of the United States, though described as an agency, is to all intents and purposes a real _Government_, is frankly admitted by the Vice-President himself. 'In applying the term agent to the General Government, I do not intend to derogate in any degree from its character as a Government. _It is as truly and properly a Government as are the State Governments themselves._ I have applied it simply because it strictly belongs to the relation between the General Government and the States, _as in fact it does also to that between a State and its own Government_. Indeed, according to our theory, _Governments are in their nature but trusts, and those appointed to administer them trustees or agents to execute the trust powers_. The sovereignty resides elsewhere,--in the people, and not in the Government.' 'The Constitution of the United States, with the Government it created, is truly and strictly the Constitution of each State, as much so as its own particular Constitution and Government, ratified by the same authority in the same mode, and having, as far as its citizens are concerned, its powers and obligations from the same source.' In these principles we fully concur, but in laying them down in this distinct and unequivocal manner, the Vice-President has, as we humbly conceive, conceded the whole matter in controversy, and given up every inch of ground which he had to stand upon. If it could be made out that the two Houses of Congress, the President, and the various executive and judicial officers acting under them, are not a proper Government, but a mere agency constituted by four and twenty mutually independent States for certain specific objects, it would follow, not precisely that the theory of nullification is true, for this, as we have seen, is, at least as stated by the Vice-President in the document before us, not merely unconstitutional, but in itself essentially impracticable, incongruous and absurd:--but that any State which might be, for any or no reason, tired of the arrangement, would have a perfect right, after such consultation and advisement with the other parties as might be necessary to secure their interests, to revoke its powers. But the moment it is admitted that the two Houses of Congress, the President and the executive and judicial officers acting under them,--by whatever name they may be called,--are a _real Government_:--that the instrument by which they hold their powers is a _real Constitution_, the case changes. By the _Constitution of Government_, is meant, in every community, the great _social compact_ which binds together the individual members into one body politic or political society. Whatever may be its form, character, or origin,--whether it be written or unwritten;--free, limited, or despotic;--whether founded in force, fraud, or voluntary association;--whether created by a number of previously independent States or by a number of previously independent individuals, so long as