Sovergn

Sovereignty

• “Where, Say Some, is the king of America? I’ll tell you, Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Great Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honours, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on divine law, the Word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America the law is king. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be king; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the People whose right it is.” Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
• “People of a state are entitled to all rights which formerly belonged to the king by his prerogative.” Lansing vs Smith 21 D. 89...4 Wendell 9, 20 (1829) [Court of Appeals of New York, relevant to eminent domain law]
• “In one sense, the term ‘sovereign’ has for its correlative ‘subject’. In this sense, the term can receive no application; for it has no object in the [Original] Constitution of the United States. Under that Constitution there are citizens, but no subjects.” Chishom v.Georgia, 2 Dall. (U.S.) 419,455, 1L Ed 440 (1793).
• “For when the [so called American] revolution took place, the people of each state became themselves sovereign; and in that character hold the absolute right to all their navigable waters, and the soils under them, for their own common use, subject only to the rights since surrendered by the constitution to the general government.” Martin vs Waddell, 41 US (16 Pet) 367, 410 (1842).
• “The government has no inherent sovereignty within the 50 union states...and Congress can exercise no power which the sovereign people have not entrusted to it: all else is excluded.” Julliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S.421 (1884).
• “There is no such thing as a power of inherent sovereignty in the government of the [federal] United States... In this country sovereignty resides in the people, and Congress can exercise no power which they [the sovereign people] have not, by their Constitution entrusted to it: All else is withheld.” Supreme Court Justice Field, 1863-97.
• Today, “in the United States ‘it [citizenship] is a political obligation’ depending not on ownership of land, but on the enjoyment of the protection of government; and it ‘binds the citizen to the observance of all laws’ of his sovereign”. Wallace v. Harmstad, 44 Pa. 492; etc.(1863) Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd Ed. p. 95.
• “The obligation of fidelity and obedience which the individual owes to the government under which he lives, or to his sovereign in return for the protection he receives. It may be an absolute and permanent obligation, or it may be a qualified and temporary one”. Black’s Law Dictionary 3rd Ed. p. 95. Carlisle v. United States, 83 U.S. 147 (1872),
• Attorney Dale Bruder argued, “The Respondent ‘renounced his naturally acquired and naturally endowed personal sovereignty’, when he applied for and executed a marriage license under the laws of the State of California so as to obtain the status of ‘marriage’”.
• “The people of the United States resident within any State are subject to two Governments: one State, and the other National; but there need be no conflict between the two. The powers which one possesses, the other does not. They are established for different purposes, and have separate jurisdictions. Together they make one whole, and furnish the people of the United States with a complete government, ample for the protection of all their rights (privileges) at home and abroad. True, it may sometimes happen that a person is amenable to both jurisdictions for one and the same act… It is the natural consequence of a citizenship which owes allegiance to two sovereignties, and claims protection from both. The citizen cannot complain, because he has voluntarily submitted himself to such a form of government.” U.S. Supreme Court in US v. Cruikshank, 92 US 551. (1876).