confederated for certain purposes, not subject to a common Government. The Constitution, by which they subjected themselves to a common Government, was the act which gave them the character of _one people_. The form of distinct communities, under which they existed during the period alluded to, may have been, as we agree with President Adams that it was, an unfortunate expression of the substantial condition of the population of this continent; but this is a question not of substance but of form, and such undoubtedly was, for the time being, the form of their political existence. We are therefore disposed to agree with the Vice-President in the opinion, that the parties to the great social compact, entitled the Constitution, were not the individual citizens composing the whole people of the United States, but the several distinct communities into which they are divided, and which were at that time,--to use the ordinary language,--sovereign and independent States. We may remark _en passant_ that the phrase _Sovereign State_, which certain persons employ so frequently and appear to consider as pregnant with important political conclusions, though it may, perhaps, be sufficiently authorized by usage to be received as good English, is not, in the strict and proper use of language, admissible, and is therefore better avoided in all precise and scientific discussion. The word _sovereign_ has the same etymology with _supreme_, of which it is another form, and properly implies, as that does, comparison with something else. Thus the _Supreme_ Being is the highest of all beings: the _Supreme_ Court is the highest of all the Courts: the _Sovereign_ power in a State is the highest political authority. But States, being as such politically independent of each other, cannot in the nature of things stand towards each other in the relation of superiority or inferiority, and can of course be neither _sovereign_ nor _subject_. We find, accordingly, that in the Declaration of Independence,--a document remarkable throughout for great propriety in the use of language,--although it was once quoted by Governor Hamilton, on some public occasion, as saying that the United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free, sovereign and independent States, the word _sovereign_ is not employed. The language used is that the colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. As applied to States, the word _sovereign_, if it have any meaning at all, can only mean _independent_. In this sense it is no longer applicable to the several States composing the Union, which, since the adoption of a common Government, are not politically independent of each other. This is not a merely verbal criticism. Words are things; and we strongly suspect that the frequent use of this incorrect, ambiguous, and,--to recur again to the language of Governor Lumpkin,--_mystical_ phrase _Sovereign State_, has created a good deal of embarrassment,