In
the creation of the federal government, the states exercised the
highest act of sovereignty, and they may, if they please, repeat the
proof of their sovereignty, by its annihilation. But the union possesses
no innate sovereignty, like the states; it was not self-constitute d; it
is conventional, and of course subordinate to the sovereignties by
which it was formed.

New Views of the Constitution of the United States (ed. 1823)