. . ."Thus, the United States was created not by “the people” but by the states. The United States is a federation, a federal state. Its powers are those that the states delegated to it in the text of the Constitution. The entire federal government is one of the “enumerated” powers.
"This is the fundamental element of the structure of American federalism which Sotomayor apparently slept through in law school. The federal government possesses only those powers granted it by the federal Constitution, whereas the states possess all powers not granted to the federal government nor forbidden by the state constitutions. Hence the state of Colorado, for example, is a sovereign state just like France or Germany, except to the extent that some of its sovereign power has been forbidden by its own constitution and some of it delegated to the United States federal government by the United States Constitution.
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