State Sovereignty Quotes

“The sovereignty of "We the People of the United States" is admittedly an abstraction—an idea. But abstractions often have legal consequences. And the single idea of popular sovereignty generates a powerful set of legal implications covering a vast range of constitutional issues from limited government and judicial review to federalism and separation of powers to nullification and constitutional amendment. In one vital area of contemporary jurisprudence, however, the Supreme Court has fashioned doctrine wholly antithetical to the Constitution's organizing principle of popular sovereignty. By allowing both federal and state governments to invoke "sovereign immunity" from liability for constitutional violations, the Court has misinterpreted the Federalist Constitution's text, warped its unifying structure, and betrayed the intellectual history of the American Revolution that gave it birth. In effect, the Court has transformed "sovereignty" into the very tool of government supremacy that our Revolutionary forebears wielded pen and sword to destroy.”
― Akhil Reed Amar, Of Sovereignty and Federalism