Yes, exactly what I’ve been saying and what Justice Marshall said. Just as the constitution states also “We the people...” It resides in all of the people not in any subset of the people, not in the states. Thank you for the quote. I will save it for use in the other civil war forums I post at.
I don't know how you squeezed that out of Pinkney's statement. Besides, an arrogant, power-hungry person like John Marshall is the last person you should be praising. Marshall was an oligarchist who believed the ultimate authority belonged in the hands of five politically-appointed lawyers on the Supreme Court -- NOT in the people. Prior to Lincoln ramming Nazi-style central planning down our throats, the Supreme Court did not have such awesome power.
Read carefully this part of Pinckney's statement again:
"The person or assembly in whom this power resides is called the sovereign or supreme power of the state."
Pinckney's statement was merely an acknowledgement of the Jeffersonian doctrine that the states were individually sovereign, and the ultimate ability to create and distribute power belonged in the Amendment process of the states (e.g, "in the people",) not in the Courts, nor in the President, nor in Congress.
Pinckney was was merely seeking ratification of document that scared the daylights out of Americans who had just fought a horrible war against a central planner -- the King. They most certainly were not going to turn their hard-fought freedom over to the control of another central planner -- not without a fight. Lincoln realized that, so he was for war.
Mr. Kalamata.