Constitutional sovereignty

                The location of sovereignty, and its relationship to power and authority; is self-evidently an important component of any political regime. All constitutions ultimately seek to specify where sovereignty is located. For instance, sovereignty within the British system is located in the Westminster Parliament. Those countries that make up the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (i.e. Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England) are subordinate to the Westminster Parliament. The Houses of Parliament located in Westminster, London can transfer power to regional assemblies on the basis of devolution, but it can also decide to withdraw those powers at any time. Westminster can also decide to take Britain out of an international agreement or organization. From a very different part of the world, the Arab Spring marks an attempt to locate sovereignty firmly with the people in accordance with the concept of democracy.

In a federal state such as the US the central government is usually located in a small geographical area that houses the main decision-making institutions. The central government shares power and authority with the various regions/provinces, rather than having power centralized. Each of the 50 states has their own Constitution and their own Supreme Court. However, the Constitution of a state cannot in any way contravene the national Constitution. As Article 6 Section 2 (the national supremacy clause) makes very clear, the national Constitution takes precedence. The activities of both the state and federal level is thereby limited towards that which is most appropriate for that particular level of governance (such as the federal government maintaining a national emergency service). As such, sovereignty is divided between the center and the local level.

It should be noted here that in a confederal system sovereignty is located in the regions. Whereas the center may possess limited powers, it is the regions that play the predominant role. During the Civil War, confederate forces sought to protect the power of the states against the federal government. However, the victory of unionist forces marked a momentous turning point in the development of federalism and it seems fanciful in the extreme that the United States would ever return to the old confederacy system of governance. Although one can drive around the Bible Belt and see signs proclaiming ‘the South shall rise again,’ this seems little more than empty rhetoric and a relic of a mindset that embarrasses a great many southerners. The removal of the confederate flag from the capitol building of South Carolina in 2015 seems to mark a particular moment in our nation’s history. Moreover, a number of judgments taken by the Supreme Court have played an important role in the evolution of federalism, and therefore, in a broader sense, the constitutional location of sovereignty within the United States.

The location of sovereignty within a political regime can be a source of conflict between those who wish to decentralize power, and those who wish to centralize power. This is certainly one interpretation of how the Civil War began. Secondly, it should be noted that once power has been centralized the federal government is often highly reluctant to surrender that power. This might in part explain why the states are often disinclined to give up their power. Since the implosion of the New Deal coalition, Republicans have campaigned on a pledge to defend the tenth amendment (“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”). This key aspect of the Republican’s southern strategy dates back to Richard Nixon’s victorious campaign in ’68.