6. The quality of supremacy involves and implies sovereignty. Sovereignty is indefinable; is not, strictly speaking, comprehensible. There is therefore a difference between sovereignty and government. Sovereignty ordains and establishes a form of government. The form varies among different peoples and at different times. The Constitution declares that “The United States guarantees to every State in this Union a republican form of government.”[7] This form, in America, is the creation, that is, the creature, of the sovereign, the people. The essential matter here is of powers and relations, and is made clear by Chief Justice Marshall: The government of the United States proceeds directly from the people; is ordained and established in their name for definite purposes declared in the Preamble to the Constitution, and the assent of the States in their sovereign capacity is implied in calling the Convention of 1787, which framed the Constitution, and in submitting that instrument to the people. The people were at perfect liberty to accept or to reject it, and their act was final. It required not the affirmance and could not be negatived by the State governments. When thus adopted, the Constitution was of complete obligation, and bound the State sovereignties.[8] But had not the people of America, in 1787, already surrendered all their powers to the State sovereignties and had nothing more to give? The question whether they may resume and modify the powers granted to their government cannot be raised in this country. The people always possess that power and since 1787 they have exercised it in making seventeen amendments to the Constitution. The legitimacy of the general government might be doubted had it been created by the States, for the States, as governments, are creations of the people, and possess only derivative powers. “The powers delegated to the State sovereignties were to be exercised by themselves, not by a distinct and independent sovereignty created by themselves.” The States were competent to form a league, such as was the Confederation of 1781,