Note (return) — Chapter IX
Reading edition
This confusion of ideas pervades the treatment of the whole subject of sovereignty. Mr. Webster has said, and very justly so far as these United States are concerned: "The sovereignty of government is an idea belonging to the other side of the Atlantic. No such thing is known in North America. Our governments are all limited. In Europe sovereignty is of feudal origin, and imports no more than the state of the sovereign. It comprises his rights, duties, exemptions, prerogatives, and powers. But with us all power is with the people. They alone are sovereign, and they erect what governments they please, and confer on them such powers as they please. None of these governments are sovereign, in the European sense of the word, all being restrained by written constitutions."77