According to the opinion intended to be combated, the United States would furnish the singular spectacle of _a political society_ without _sovereignty_, or a people _governed_ without a _government_.
If it could be necessary to bring proof of a proposition so clear as that which affirms that the powers of the federal government, _as to its objects_, were sovereign, there is a clause in the constitution which is decisive.

It is that which declares the constitution of the United States, the laws made in pursuance of it, and the treaties made under its authority to be the supreme law of the land.

The power which can create the supreme law in any case, is doubtless sovereign as to such case.
This general and indisputable principle puts an end to the abstract question, whether the United States have power to erect a corporation: for it is unquestionably incident to sovereign power to erect corporations, and consequently to that of the United States, in relation to the objects intrusted to the management of the government.
The difference is this: where the authority of the government is general, it can create corporations _in all cases_; where it is confined to certain branches of legislation, it can create corporations only _in those cases_.
That the government of the United States can exercise only those powers which are delegated by the constitution, is a proposition not to be controverted; neither is it to be denied on the other hand, that there are implied as well as express powers, and that the former are as effectually delegated as the latter.

For the sake of accuracy it may be observed, that there are also _resulting_ powers.

It will not be doubted that if the United States should make a conquest of any of the territories of its neighbours, they would possess sovereign jurisdiction over the conquered territory.