Divided Sovereignty

Divide It Among the Many
Thomas Jefferson, Feb 2, 1816:
"Divide It Among the Many" letter to Joseph C. Cabell
"No, my friend, the way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to.
Let the national government be entrusted with the defence of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State governments with the civil rights, laws, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down through all its subordinations, until it ends in the administration of every man's farm by himself; by placing under every one what his own eye may superintend, that all will be done for the best.
What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? The generalizing and concentrating all cares and power into one body, no matter whether of the autocrats of Russia or France, or of the aristocrats of a Venetian senate. And I do believe that if the Almighty has not decreed that man shall never be free, (and it is a blasphemy to believe it,) that the secret will be found to be in the making himself the depository of the powers respecting himself, so far as he is competent to them, and delegating only what is beyond his competence by a synthetical process, to higher and higher orders of functionaries, so as to trust fewer and fewer powers in proportion as the trustees become more and more oligarchical.
The elementary republics of the wards, the county republics, the State republics, and the republic of the Union, would form a gradation of authorities, standing each on the basis of law, holding every one its delegated share of powers, and constituting truly a system of fundamental balances and checks for the government. Where every man is a sharer in the direction of his ward-republic, or of some of the higher ones, and feels that he is a participator in the government of affairs, not merely at an election one day in the year, but every day; when there shall not be a man in the State who will not be a member of some one of its councils, great or small, he will let the heart be torn out of his body sooner than his power be wrested from him by a Caesar or a Bonaparte. How powerfully did we feel the energy of this organization in the case of embargo? I felt the foundations of the government shaken under my feet by the New England townships. There was not an individual in their States whose body was not thrown with all its momentum into action; and although the whole of the other States were known to be in favor of the measure, yet the organization of this little selfish minority enabled it to overrule the Union. What would the unwieldy counties of the Middle, the South, and the West do? Call a county meeting, and the drunken loungers at and about the courthouses would have collected, the distances being too great for the good people and the industrious generally to attend. The character of those who really met would have been the measure of the weight they would have had in the scale of public opinion. As Cato, then, concluded every speech with the words, "Carthago delenda est," so do I every opinion, with the injunction, "divide the counties into wards." Begin them only for a single purpose; they will soon show for what others they are the best instruments. God bless you, and all our rulers, and give them the wisdom, as I am sure they have the will, to fortify us against the degeneracy of our government, and the concentration of all its powers in the hands of the one, the few, the well-born or the many."
Preamble's Division of Sovereignty
The Preamble divides sovereignty. The Federal government is mandated to "provide" defense of liberty for ourselves and our posterity. The Federal government is restricted to only "promote" welfare, with States and people retaining sovereignty/liberty over welfare and all else not enumerated as sacrificed.
The powers listed in Article 1, Section 8 are subordinate to the Preamble and the Bill of Rights. Those functions are restricted to the scale of "post Roads", delivering letters in defense of free speech.
James Madison 1792:
"If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress.... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America."
Federalist Papers
Divided Sovereignty, "Ambition must be made to counteract ambition" ( Federalist #51:), is the key concept in the United States Constitution that divides sovereignty between the Federal government, States and people as stated in the Preamble, Ninth Amendment and Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and further divides ability to apply Federal Sovereignty between the three branches of the Federal government.
James Madison explains Divided Sovereignty in Federalist #45:
:“The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution 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, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. 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, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State.”
The reason auxiliary precautions of Divided Sovereignty were needed was explained by Madison, Federalist #51: and Madison in Federalist #10:
:AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction...
:The instability, injustice, and confusion introduced into the public councils, have, in truth, been the mortal diseases under which popular governments have everywhere perished;...
:Complaints are everywhere heard from our most considerate and virtuous citizens, equally the friends of public and private faith, and of public and personal liberty, that our governments are too unstable, that the public good is disregarded in the conflicts of rival parties, and that measures are too often decided, not according to the rules of justice and the rights of the minor party, but by the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority...
State ratifying conventions confirmed this Divided Sovereignty. Seven states ratified the Constitution based on Federalist explanations of “powers not enumerate are not granted”. Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, New York, North Carolina, and Rhode Island ratified with recommend amendments emphasizing Divided Sovereignty:
:Clear commitment to the presumption of liberty; all liberties belong to the people unless enumerated in written constitutions.
::This became Amendment 9 of the Bill of Rights: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Sovereignty over liberties not specifically enumerated in written constitutions are retained by the people. There is no Federal sovereignty to tax or police liberties where sovereignty belongs to the individual.
:Clear commitment to State Sovereignty over welfare.
::This became Amendment 10 of the Bill of Rights: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” The people may assign some sovereignty over liberties retained to State Governments, but not the Federal government without an Article 5 amendment.
President Madison Veto
President Madison emphasized this Divided Sovereignty in his March 3, 1817 veto of Federal taxing to build roads and canals, to provide welfare,
:"Having considered the bill this day presented to me entitled 'An act to set apart and pledge certain funds for internal improvements,' and which sets apart and pledges funds 'for constructing roads and canals, and improving the navigation of water courses' . . . I am constrained by the insuperable difficulty I feel in reconciling the bill with the Constitution of the United States to return it with that objection to the House of Representatives. The legislative powers vested in Congress are specified and enumerated in the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, and it does not appear that the power proposed to be exercised by the bill is among the enumerated powers."

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