The Constitution Limits and Distributes Power
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federal, one house resting on a national and the other on a federal basis.
The presidency was also partly national and partly federal, since the electoral vote was distributed partly in accordance with the principle of State
equality, and partly according to population. Considering the operation
of the government, it was seen as national rather than federal, inasmuch
as it acted directly on individuals and not through the States. In the extent of its powers, however, the Union was federal because its jurisdiction was limited to specific objects, and all else was left to the States. Thus
the government of the United States was to be neither a pure confederacy
nor a ‘‘consolidated republic,’’ but a new type of government, in a class
by itself.
The States had not been reduced to provinces, the Federalists insisted,
but remained in possession of ‘‘certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power.’’ They still held ‘‘all the rights of sovereignty
which were not . . . exclusively delegated to the United States.’’ In a consolidated system, the local authorities are subject to control by the central
government; but in the proposed Union the local authorities form distinct and independent portions of the supremacy, no more subject to the
general authority than the general authority is to them within its own
sphere.’’ The States may not be completely sovereign, but they did have
a residuary sovereignty.
Such was the nature of legal sovereignty under the Constitution. Real
or political sovereignty rested, of course, not with the Federal or State
governments, but with the ‘‘people.’’