WILT: The People are the Sovereign Power of the United States
Posted on August 11th, 2010 by Ms. SP
Yesterday, I learned that James Madison, a Virginian, spearheaded the idea of a strong central government that superseded state governments.
Today, I learned that the Federalists got around this contentious idea by having the people be the source of ultimate sovereignty. Any government is merely the agent of the moment, and no government can be fully representational of the people.
The people hold the final power. The national and state governments are always subservient to the sovereign entity that is the citizenry.
It’s a pretty amazing idea, and one that we’ve kind of lost sight of these days. We’ve grown accustomed to having Washington be in charge.
I’m going to think about this for a bit.