“Substantially the same definition maybe found in Grotius, book one, chapter one, section fourteen; in Burlamaqui, volume two, part one, chapter four, section nine; and in Vattel, book one, chapter one. The primary point of agreement in all these authorities is, that in contemplation of international law a state is absolutely sovereign, acknowledging no superior on earth. In that sense the United States is a state, a sovereign state, just as Great Britain, France, and Russia are states. “But what is the meaning of the word State as applied to Ohio or Alabama? Is either of them a state in the sense of international law? They lack all the leading requisites of such a state. They are only the geographical subdivisions of a state; and though endowed by the people of the United States with the rights of local self-government, yet in all their external relations their sovereignty is completely destroyed, being merged in the supreme Federal Government.—_Halleck’s International Law_, sec. 16, page 71. “Ohio can not make war; can not conclude peace; can not make a treaty with any foreign government, can not even make a compact with her sister States; can not regulate commerce; can not coin money; and has no flag. These indispensable attributes of sovereignty, the State of Ohio does not possess, nor does any other State of the Union. We call them States for want of a better name. We call them States, because the original Thirteen had been so designated before the Constitution was formed, but that Constitution destroyed all the sovereignty which those States were ever supposed to possess in reference to external affairs. “I submit, Mr. Speaker, that the five great publicists—Grotius, Puffendorf, Bynkershoek, Burlamaqui, and Vattel, who have been so often quoted in this debate, and all of whom wrote more than a quarter of a century, and some nearly two centuries before our Constitution was formed, can hardly be quoted as good authorities in regard to the nature and legal relationships of the component States of the American Union. “Even my colleague from the Columbus District [Mr. Shellabarger], in his very able discussion of this question, spoke as though a State of this Union was the same as a state in the sense of international law, with certain qualities added. I think he must admit that nearly all the leading attributes of such a state are taken from it when it becomes a State of the Union.