This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1885 Excerpt: ... In a discourse upon the nature of the American Union, from which I find a citation in Mr. Kurd"s " Theory," etc. (p. 295), he says:--"Now there can be no question, it seems to me, that the statesmen of all sections who made the Constitution understood this,--that political sovereignty or government is capable of division, according to its subjects and powers; and that while the people of each State, after the Revolution, had a perfect and absolute right of independent self-government, it was both theoretically and practically possible to transfer to a common depository certain of their political powers for specific purposes, while they reserved all their other powers to themselves." On the same page he is quoted as saying:--"I have said in the text that the framers of the Constitution reached the conclusion that political sovereignty is divisible; and I regard this central truth which, in the sense in which it is to be understood, is an American discovery, as the key to all correct interpretation of our political system." Judge Cooley, after defining certain terms, including "sovereignty," says:--"In American constitutional law, however, there is a division of the powers of sovereignty between the national and State governments by subjects; the former being possessed of supreme, absolute, and uncontrollable power over certain subjects throughout all the States and Territories, while the States have the like complete power within their respective territorial limits over other subjects." He does not seek to distinguish between sovereignty and its necessary powers; if the latter are permanently divided, so must be the former. 7. The Bearing of these Theories. We have thus three theories in respect to the location of sovereignty: first, that it is held by the a...