Understanding the individual states sovereignty in relation to the United states government is crucial.

1. Abraham Lincoln claimed that the Union preceded the states which gave the Federal government authority over the states. This view is incorrect as the original 13 colonies adopted the Articles of Confederation in which each state retained its freedom, independence, and sovereignty. Each state delegated a portion of its sovereignty to the Union, thereby making the Union a creature of the state, not the other way around. Further each state was by name acknowledged as free, independent, and sovereign in the Treaty of Paris in 1783.

2. Sovereignty is indivisible. A portion of a states authority, or power may be delegated as is seen in the 9th and 10th amendments to the Constitution. But the sovereign state retains the right to recall its authority otherwise it is no longer sovereign. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."- 10th amendment. In Chisholm v. Georgia (1793) the court found "To the Constitution of the United States the term sovereign, is totally unknown. There is but one place where it could have been used with propriety. But, even in that place it would not, perhaps, have comported with the delicacy of those, who ordained and established that Constitution. They might have announced themselves "sovereign" people of the United States: But serenely conscious of the fact, they avoided the ostentatious declaration....Let a State be considered as subordinate to the People: But let every thing else be subordinate to the State".- Chisolm v. Georgia, 2 US 419