'When the American people created a national legislature, with certain enumerated powers, it was neither necessary nor proper to define the powers retained by the States. These powers proceed, not from the people of America, but from the people of the several States; and remain, after the adoption of the constitution, what they were before, except so far as they may be abridged by that instrument.'
Chief Justice Marshall, Sturges v. Crowninshield, 4 Wheat. 122, (1819).
"What is a Constitution? It is the form of government, delineated by the mighty hand of the people, in which certain first principles of fundamental laws are established. The Constitution is certain and fixed; it contains the permanent will of the people, and is the supreme law of the land; it is paramount to the power of the Legislature, and can be revoked or altered only by the authority that made it. The life-giving principle and the death-doing stroke must proceed from the same hand. What are Legislatures? Creatures of the Constitution; they owe their existence to the Constitution: they derive their powers from the Constitution: It is their commission; and, therefore, all their acts must be conformable to it, or else they will be void. The Constitution is the work or will of the People themselves, in their original, sovereign, and unlimited capacity. Law is the work or will of the Legislature in their derivative and subordinate capacity. The one is the work of the Creator, and the other of the Creature. The Constitution fixes limits to the exercise of legislative authority, and prescribes the orbit within which it must move. In short, gentlemen, the Constitution is the sun of the political system, around which all Legislative, Executive and Judicial bodies must revolve."
Justice Patterson, Vanhorne's Lessee v. Dorrance, 2 Dall. 304, (1795)
"The words 'coercion' and 'invasion' are in great use about these days. Suppose we were simply to try if we can, and ascertain what, is the meaning of these words. Let us get, if we can, the exact definitions of these words - not from dictionaries, but from the men who constantly repeat them---what things they mean to express by the words. What, then, is 'coercion'? What is 'invasion'? Would the marching of an army into South California Carolina, for instance, without the consent of her people, and in hostility against them, be coercion or invasion? I very frankly say, I think it would be invasion, and it would be coercion too, if the people of that country were forced to submit." - Abraham Lincoln, February 11, 1861
I replied to him, ``you did not elect me, I represent [my state] and I am accountable to [them only], as my constituency, and to God, but not to the President or to any other power on earth.''Who spoke these words, railing against all attempt to suborn his vote? Was it Alexander Stephens, Jefferson Davis, Andrew Johnson, Louis Wigfall or Robert Hunter?And now this warfare is made on me because I would not surrender my connections of duty, because I would not abandon my constituency, and receive the orders of the executive authorities how I should vote in the Senate of the United States. I hold that an attempt to control the Senate on the part of the Executive is subversive of the principles of our constitution. The Executive department is independent of the Senate, and the Senate is independent of the President. In matters of legislation the President has a veto on the action of the Senate, and in appointments and treaties the Senate has a veto on the President. He has no more right to tell me how I shall vote on his appointments than I have to tell him whether he shall veto or approve a bill that the Senate has passed. Whenever you recognize the right of the Executive to say to a Senator, ``do this, or I will take off the heads of your friends,'' you convert this government from a republic into a despotism. Whenever you recognize the right of a President to say to a member of Congress, ``vote as I tell you, or I will bring a power to bear against you at home which will crush you,'' you destroy the independence of the representative, and convert him into a tool of Executive power. I resisted this invasion of the constitutional rights of a Senator, and I intend to resist it as long as I have a voice to speak, or a vote to give."
None of them, it was Abraham Lincoln.