The "People" come up from time to time.
Justice Wilson-- "As to the purposes of the Union, therefore, Georgia is not a sovereign state...in almost every nation, which has been denominated free, the state has assumed a supercilious preeminence above the people who have formed it: Hence, the haughty notions of state independence, state sovereignty and state supremacy...Who were these people? They were the citizens of thirteen states, each of which had a separate constitution and government, and all of which were connected by articles of confederation. To the purposes of public strength and felicity the confederacy was totally inadequate. A requistion on the several states terminated its legislative authority; executive or judicial authority, it had none. In order, therefore, to form a more perfect union, to establish justice, to insure domestic tranquility, to provide for common defense and to secure the blessings of liberty, those people, among whom were the people of Georgia, ordained and established the present constitution.
By that constitution, legislative power is vested, executive power is vested, judicial power is vested...
We may then infer, that the people of the United States intended to bind the several states, by the legislative power of the national government.
...Whoever considers, in a combined and comprehensive view, the general texture of the constitution, wil be satisfied that the people of the United States intended to form themselves into a nation for national purposes. They instituted, for such purposes, a national government complete in all its parts, with powers legislative, executive and judiiciary, ad in all those powers extending over the whole nation."
Jay, Chief Justice:-- The Question we are now to decide has been accurately stated, viz.: Is a state suable by individual citizens of another state?...
The revolution, or rather the Declaration of Independence, found the people already united for general purposes, and at the same time, providing for their more domestic concerns by state conventions, and other temporary arrangements.
...the people nevertheless continued to consider themselves, in a national point of view, as one people; and they continued without interruption to manage their national concerns accordingly; afterwards, in the hurry of the war, and in the warmth of mutual confidence, they made a confederation of the States, the basis of a general Government.
Experience disappointed the expectations they had formed from it; and then the people, in their collective and national capacity, established the present Constitution. It is remarkable that in establishing it, the people exercised their own rights and their own proper sovereignty, and conscious of the plenitude of it, they declared with becoming dignity, "We the people of the United States," 'do ordain and establish this Constitution." Here we see the people acting as the sovereigns of the whole country.; and in the language of sovereignty, establishing a Constitution by which it was their will, that the state governments should be bound, and to which the State Constitutions should be made to conform. Every State Constitution is a compact made by and between the citizens of a state to govern themeselves in a certain manner; and the Constitution of the United States is liekwise a compact made by the people of the United States to govern themselves as to general objects, in a certain manner. By this great compact however, many prerogatives were transferred to the national Government, such as those of making war and peace, contracting alliances, coining money, etc."
--From Chisholm v. Georgia, 1793
Chief Justice John Marshall-- "The powers of the general government, it has been said, are delegated by the states, who alone are truly sovereign; and must be exercised in subordination to the states, who alone possess supreme dominion. It would be difficult to sustain this proposition.
The convention which framed the constitution was, indeed, elected by the state legislatures. But the instrument, when it came from their hands, was a mere proposal, without obligation, or pretensions to it...
To the formation of a league, such as was the confederation, the State sovereignties were certainly competent. But when "in order to form a more perfect union," it was deemed necessary to change the alliance into an effective government, possessing great and sovereign powers, and acting directly on the people, the necessity of deriving its powers from them, was felt and acknowledged by all...
If any one proposition could command the universal assent of mankind, we might expect that it would be this -- that the government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action. This would seem to result, necessarily, from its nature. It is the government of all; its powers are delegated by all; it represents all; and acts for all. Though any one state may be willing to control its operations, no state is willing to allow others to control them. The nation, on those subjects on which it can act, must necessarily bind its component parts. But this question is not left to mere reason; the people have, in express terms, have decided it, by saying, "this constitution, and the laws made in pursuance thereof,: shall be the supreme law of the land," and by requiring that the members of the state legislatures, and the officers of the executive and judicial departments of the states, shall take an oath of fidelity to it. The government of the United States, then, though limited in its powers, is supreme; and its laws, when made in pursuance of the constitution, form the supreme law of the land, "anything in the constitution or laws of any state, to the contrary notwithstanding."
--From the majority opinion in McCullough v. Maryland 1819
"The constitution of the United States was ordained and established, not by the states in their sovereign capacities, but emphatically, as the preamble of the constitution declares, by "the people of the United States."
-Justice Story, Martin v, Hunter's Lessee, 1816
Once when I posted similar excerpts --it was probably on a newsgroup -- one of the confederate apologists returned, "what do you expect? Those are all federalsts!"
That was a pretty funny comment, right up there with casting aspersions on the opinions of dead people.
Fact is though, that enough people adopted the "federaliist" position to maintain the government against a gigantic unlawful insurrection.
And nothing you can say will ever be anything but sour grapes.
Walt