I think not so I will presume to inform you a little on the subject! That work, published in 1803, was a textbook in virtually EVERY law school in the country prior to the late 1850's and as such helped shape the understanding of everyone who studied it which would be every legal scholar for generations after it's publication. It happens to agree with me and a great many others who can separate the Forrest from the trees!
Yep.
I think not so I will presume to inform you a little on the subject!
Oh goody.
It is, at best, a chicken-or-egg situation. The Declaration of Independence states that representatives of the United States of America declared its independence. Well the United States at the time was made up of 13 sovereign states. I don't think that Lincoln was right when he said the union predates the states anymore than you are correct in saying the states predate the Union. They were born simultaneously and one cannot exist without the other. However, much of what Lincoln said WAS true in that the Union existed before most of the rebelling states did, and that it did, in effect, create them when they were allowed to join the Union.