Michael - great perspective on this!
It is important to note that in the American system, sovereignty is final authority. And that authority is with the People. Governments, whether state or federal, are never sovereign. They only have powers - powers that are delegated to them by the sovereign people.
Some reading on our main site on this - "It's the People's Right" - and "The Original Meaning of an Omission"
Interpretation of the Tenth Amendment as specifying state sovereignty presumes that there are three levels of sovereignty - Federal, State and People - when in fact there is ONLY one. The wording -
'are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.'
is misleading and can lead to a misinterpretation. What I believe it to mean is that where the people of a specific part of the United States have formed a state government then the powers that have been delegated to it by the Constitution of the United States may be exercised on BEHALF of the sovereign people but when no state government exists they are they are exercisable directly by the sovereign people who are the source of all power.
'I consider the people of the United States as forming one great community; and I consider the people of the different states as forming communities, again, on a lesser scale. From this great division of the people into distinct communities, it will be found necessary that different proportions of legislative powers should be given to the governments according to the nature, number, and magnitude of their objects.
Unless the people are considered in these two views, we shall never be able to understand the principle on which the system was constructed. I view the states as made FOR the people, as well as by them, and not the people as made for the states; the people, therefore, have a right, whilst enjoying the undeniable powers of society, to form either a general government, or state governments, in what manner they please, or to accommodate them to one another, and by this means preserve them all.'
SOURCE: 'Collected Works of James Wilson', edited by Kermit L. Hall and Mark David Hall, Volume I, 'Remarks in Pennsylvania Ratification Convention', page 214.
Blog Post - 'James Wilson - 'We the People' and Sovereignty' http://follonblogs.blogspot.com/.
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Minnesota Sovereignty Project
You may not have heard much about it, but there’s a movement to reassert state sovereignty and stop the uncontrolled expansion of federal government power. 37 states, including Minnesota, have or are attempting to introduce legislation that will reassert the principles of the 9th and 10th Amendments to the Constitution to reinforce that federal power is strictly limited to specific areas detailed in the Constitution and that all other governmental authority rests with the states.
In the version of the sovereignty bill being considered by the state of Washington, they appeal to the authority of James Madison who wrote:
“The powers delegated to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the state governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. The powers reserved to the several states will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.”
The founding fathers believed in a balance between state and federal power. This state sovereignty movement clearly arises from the belief that the balance of power has tilted too far and for too long in the direction of the federal government and that it’s time to restore that lost balance.
The emergence of this movement is a hopeful sign of the people asserting their rights and the rights of the states and finally crying “enough” to runaway government. With the increasingly out of control federal spending, it is believed many of these sovereignty bills will pass in the coming year!!
If you have had enough, we welcome your help to get sovereignty legislation passed in Minnesota similar to the states of Tennessee and Alaska. View our website at www.mnsovereignty.org and check the link “Charles Duke” for solid information on implementing the Tenth Amendment.
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