"The general rule with regard to the respective powers of the national and the state governments under the Constitution is not in doubt. The states were before the Constitution; and, consequently, their legislative powers antedated the Constitution. Those who framed and those who adopted that instrument meant to carve from the general mass of legislative powers, then possessed by the states, only such portions as it was thought wise to confer upon the federal government; and in order that there should be no uncertainty in respect of what was taken and what was left, the national powers of legislation were not aggregated but enumerated-with the result that what was not embraced by the enumeration remained vested in the states without change or impairment. Thus, 'when it was found necessary to establish a national government for national purposes,' this court said in Munn v. Illinois, 94 U.S. 113, 124, 'a part of the powers of the States and of the people of the States was granted to the United States and the people of the United States. This grant operated as a further limitation upon the powers of the States, so that now the governments of the States possess all the powers of the Parliament of England, except such as have been delegated to the United States or reserved by the people.' While the states are not sovereign in the true sense of that term, but only quasi sovereign, yet in respect of all powers reserved to them they are supreme-'as independent of the general government as that government within its sphere is independent of the States.' The Collector v. Day, 11 Wall. 113, 124. And since every addition to the national legislative power to some extent detracts from or invades the power of the states, it is of vital moment that, in order to preserve the fixed balance intended by the Constitution, the powers of the general government be not so extended as to embrace any not within the express terms of the several grants or the implications necessarily to be drawn therefrom. It is no longer open to question that the general government, unlike the states, Hammer v. Degenhart, 247 U.S. 251, 275, 38 S.Ct. 529, 3 A.L.R. 649, Ann.Cas.1918E 724, possesses no inherent power in respect of the internal affairs of the states; and emphatically not with regard to legislation. The question in respect of the inherent power of that government as to the external affairs of the Nation and in the field of international law is a wholly different matter which it is not necessary now to consider. See, however, Jones v. United States, 137 U.S. 202, 212, 11 S.Ct. 80; Nishimur Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651, 659, 12 S.Ct. 336; Fong Yue Ting v. United states, 149 U.S. 698, 705 et seq., 13 S.Ct. 1016; Burnet v. Brooks, 288 U.S. 378, 396, 53 S.Ct. 457, 86 A.L.R. 747.

"The determination of the Framers Convention and the ratifying conventions to preserve complete and unimpaired state self-government in all matters not committed to the general government is one of the plainest facts which emerges from the history of their deliberations. And adherence to that determination is incumbent equally upon the federal government and the states. State powers can neither be appropriated on the one hand nor abdicated on the other. As this court said in Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725, 'The preservation of the States, 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.' Every journey to a forbidden end begins with the first step; and the danger of such a step by the federal government in the direction of taking over the powers of the states is that the end of the journey may find the states so despoiled of their powers, or-what may amount to the same thing-so relieved of the responsibilities which possession of the powers necessarily enjoins, as to reduce them to little more than geographical subdivisions of the national domain. It is safe to say that if, when the Constitution was under consideration, it had been thought that any such danger lurked behind its plain words, it would never have been ratified.