“”The PEOPLE of the United states" are the first personages introduced. Who were those people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected together by Articles of Confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity, that Confederacy was totally inadequate. A requisition on the several states terminated its legislative authority. Executive or judicial authority it had none. In order therefore to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to ensure domestic tranquillity, to provide for co...
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“”The PEOPLE of the United states" are the first personages introduced. Who were those people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected together by Articles of Confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity, that Confederacy was totally inadequate. A requisition on the several states terminated its legislative authority. Executive or judicial authority it had none. In order therefore to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to ensure domestic tranquillity, to provide for common defence, and to secure the blessings of liberty, those people, among whom were the people of Georgia, ordained and established the present Constitution. By that Constitution legislative power is vested, executive power is vested, judicial power is vested.
“The question now opens fairly to our view, could the people of those states, among whom were those of Georgia, bind those states, and Georgia among the others, by the legislative, executive, and judicial power so vested? If the principles on which I have founded myself are just and true, this question must unavoidably receive an affirmative answer. If those states were the work of those people, those people, and that I may apply the case closely, the people of Georgia, in particular, could alter as they pleased their former work. To any given degree, they could diminish as well as enlarge it. Any or all of the former state powers, they could extinguish or transfer. The inference which necessarily results is that the Constitution ordained and established by those people, and, still closely to apply the case, in particular by the people of Georgia, could vest jurisdiction or judicial power over those states and over the State of Georgia in particular.”
Justice JAMES WILSON, Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 2 Dall. 419 419 (1793)
“The Revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time providing for their more domestic concerns by State conventions and other temporary arrangements. From the Crown of Great Britain, the sovereignty of their country passed to the people of it, and it was then not an uncommon opinion that the unappropriated lands, which belonged to that Crown, passed not to the people of the Colony or States within whose limits they were situated, but to the whole people; on whatever principles this opinion rested, it did not give way to the other, and thirteen sovereignties were considered as emerged from the principles of the Revolution, combined with local convenience and considerations; the people nevertheless continued to consider themselves, in a national point of view, as one people; and they continued without interruption to manage their national concerns accordingly; afterwards, in the hurry of the war and in the warmth of mutual confidence, they made a Confederation of the States the basis of a general government. Experience disappointed the expectations they had formed from it, and then the people, in their collective and national capacity, established the present Constitution. It is remarkable that, in establishing it, the people exercised their own rights, and their own proper sovereignty, and, conscious of the plenitude of it, they declared with becoming dignity, "We the people of the United States, do ordain and establish this Constitution." Here we see the people acting as sovereigns of the whole country, and, in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will that the State governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a State to govern themselves in a certain manner, and the Constitution of the United States is likewise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc. etc.
If then it be true that the sovereignty of the nation is in the people of the nation, and the residuary sovereignty of each State in the people of each State, it may be useful to compare these sovereignties with those in Europe, that we may thence be enabled to judge whether all the prerogatives which are allowed to the latter are so essential to the former. There is reason to suspect that some of the difficulties which embarrass the present question arise from inattention to differences which subsist between them.”
Chief Justice JOHN JAY, Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 2 Dall. 419 419 (1793)
“….The same feudal ideas run through all their jurisprudence, and constantly remind us of the distinction between the Prince and the subject. No such ideas obtain here; at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people, and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects (unless the African slaves among us may be so called), and have none to govern but themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the sovereignty.
From the differences existing between feudal sovereignties and governments founded on compacts, it necessarily follows that their respective prerogatives must differ. Sovereignty is the right to govern; a nation or State sovereign is the person or persons in whom that resides. In Europe, the sovereignty is generally ascribed to the Prince; here, it rests with the people; there, the sovereign actually administers the government; here, never in a single instance; our Governors are the agents of the people, and, at most, stand in the same relation to their sovereign in which regents in Europe stand to their sovereigns. Their Princes have personal powers, dignities, and preeminences; our rulers have none but official; nor do they partake in the sovereignty otherwise, or in any other capacity, than as private citizens.”
Chief Justice JOHN JAY, Chisholm v. Georgia, 2 U.S. 2 Dall. 419 419 (1793)
"Sovereignty was, and is, in the people"
Glass v. Sloop Betsey, 3 Dall. (U.S.) 6 (1794)
“It is not a rule binding upon mankind in their natural state. There, every man is independent of all laws, except those prescribed by nature. He is not bound by any institutions formed by his fellow-men without his consent.”
Cruden v. Neale, 2 N.C. 338 May Term, 1796.
“The people, or sovereign are not bound by general words in statutes, restrictive of prerogative right, title or interest, unless expressly named. Acts of limitation do not bind the King or the people. The people have been ceded all the rights of the King, the former sovereign ... It is a maxim of the common law, that when an act is made for the common good and to prevent injury, the King shall be bound, though not named, but when a statute is general and prerogative right would be divested or taken from the King (or the People) he shall not be bound."
The People v. Herkimer, 4 Cowen (NY) 345, 348, 1825.
