AZ vs. CA:24 California Exhibits, Vol. XXIV; Miscellaneous

page A96

A96 appendix 210 Under the Articles of Confederation each State retained its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right not expressly delegated to the United States. Under the Constitution, though the powers of the States were much restricted, still all powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people. And we have already had occasion to remark at this term, that "the people of each State compose a State having its own government and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence," and that "without the States in union there could be no such political body as the United States." Not only therefore can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States through their Union under the Constitution, but it may be not unreasonably said that the preservation of the Stat jb and the maintenance of their governments are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National Government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States. (Chief Justice Chase in Texas v. White, 7 Wallace 700, 725, decided in 1868.) The General Government, and the States, although both exist within the same territorial limits, are separate and distinct sovereignties, acting separately and independently of each other, within their respective spheres. The former in its appropriate sphere is supreme; but the States within the limits of their powers not granted, or, in the language of the tenth amendment, "reserved," are as independent of the General Government as that Government within its sphere is independent of the States (Mr. Justice Nelson in Collector v. Day, 11 Wallace 113, 124, decided in 1870). We have in this Republic a dual system of government, National and State, each operating within the same territory and upon the same persons, and yet working without collision, because their functions are different. There are certain matters over which the National Government has absolute control and no action of the State can interfere therewith, and there are others in which the State is supreme, and in respect to them the National Government is powerless. To preserve the even balance between these two governments and hold each in its separate sphere is the peculiar duty of all courts, preeminently of this-a duty oftentimes of great delicacy and difficulty (Mr. Justice Brewer in South Carolina v. United States, 199 U. S. 437, 448, decided in 1905). Each State is subject only to the limitations prescribed by the Constitution and within its own territory is otherwise supreme. Its Internal affairs are matters of its own discretion (id., 454). The powers affecting the internal affairs of the States not granted to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, and all powers of a national character which are not delegated to the National Government by the Constitution are reserved to the people of the United States (Justice Brewer in Kansas v. Colorado, 206 U. S. 46, 90). In the case of Kansas v. Colorado, last above cited, the United States intervened, in effect claiming national control of the waters of western streams to be administered under the doctrine of prior appropriation. In answer to the primary question of national control, regardless of the rights of the States, inter sese, Justice Brewer, after observing that the United States had an interest in the public lands within the Western States and might legislate for their reclamation, subject to State laws, thus disposed of the claim of national control of western interstate streams: