Cite as: 517 U. S. 44 (1996)
Souter, J., dissenting
century political theorists had assumed that "there must reside somewhere in every political unit a single, undivided, final power, higher in legal authority than any other power, subject to no law, a law unto itself." B. Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution 198 (1967); see also Wood 345.44 The American development of divided sovereign powers, which "shatter[ed] . . . the categories of government that had dominated Western thinking for centuries," id., at 385, was made possible only by a recognition that the ultimate sovereignty rests in the people themselves. See id., at 530 (noting that because "none of these arguments about 'joint jurisdictions' and 'coequal sovereignties' convincingly refuted the Antifederalist doctrine of a supreme and indivisible sovereignty," the Federalists could succeed only by emphasizing that the supreme power " 'resides in the PEOPLE, as the fountain of government' " (citing 1 Pennsylvania and the Federal Constitution, 1787-1788, p. 302 (J. McMaster & F. Stone eds. 1888) (quoting James Wilson)).45
The People possessing this plenary bundle of specific powers
clothed with all the rights, and bound by all the obligations of the preceding one." Id., at 441. See also F. McDonald, Novus Ordo Seclorum: The Intellectual Origins of the Constitution 276 (1985) ("The constitutional reallocation of powers created a new form of government, unprecedented under the sun . . ."); S. Beer, To Make a Nation: The Rediscovery of American Federalism 150-151 (1993) (American view of sovereignty was "radically different" from that of British tradition).
44 Cf., e. g., 1 W. Blackstone, Commentaries 49, 160-162 (Cooper ed. 1803). This modern notion of sovereignty is traceable to the writings of Jean Bodin in the late 16th century. See J. Bodin, Six Books of the Commonwealth, bk. 2, ch. I, pp. 52-53 (M. Tooley, abr. & transl. 1967) (1576); see also T. Hobbes, Leviathan, Part II, ch. 29, pp. 150-151 (N. Fuller ed. 1952) (1651).
45 See Wood 530 (noting that James Wilson "[m]ore boldly and fully than anyone else . . . developed the argument that would eventually become the basis of all Federalist thinking" about sovereignty); see also The Federalist No. 22, at 146 (A. Hamilton) (acknowledging the People as "that pure original fountain of all legitimate authority"); id., No. 49, at 339 (J. Madison) ("[T]he people are the only legitimate fountain of power").
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