Tucker's footnote reguarding Jura summi imperii
10] "5. In a former note, (Appendix, note A,) we endeavoured to shew that this maxim does not apply to the governments of the American States; by whose respective Constitutions, as also by the Constitution of the Federal Government, the legislative power is restrained within certain limits, both in the Federal and State Governments, which neither the Congress, nor the State Legislatures can transgress, without an absolute breach of the Constitutions from whence the Legislative Authority is derived. For, both the Federal, and State Constitutions derive their authority and existence from the immediate act, and consent of the people, "in whom" as our bill of rights expresses it, "all power is vested, and consequently, is derived from them." These acts of the people having, then, the stamp of primitive authority, must be paramount to the act of the Legislative body, which derives its authority, and even its existence from that origin.[11] And since the powers of the Legislature are thus limited, it follows that the Jura summi imperii, or that supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, of which the commentator makes mention in a preceding paragraph, doth not reside in the legislature, nor in any other of the branches of the Government, nor in the whole of them united. For if it did reside in them, or either of them, then would there be no limits, such as may be found in all the American Constitutions, to the powers of Government. The existence of such limits proves the existence of an higher power elsewhere; that is, in the PEOPLE; in whom, and in whom, only, the rights of sovereignty remain: the people, therefore, only, and not the Legislature, have it at any time in their option to alter the form and administration of Government, by a new edict or rule, and to put the execution of their authority into whatever hands they please: and all the powers of the State, the Legislature as well as the rest, must obey them in the execution of their several functions, or the Constitution will, indeed, be at an end. For the Constitution is a law to the Government, "which derives its just powers therefrom, as from the consent of the governed, for whose benefit that power is entrusted, and by whom, whenever it is abused, or exceeded, it may be revoked, and a new government instituted." See the American Declaration of Independence, July 1776."
Blackstone's Commentary with Commentary footnoted by Sir George Tucker
SECTION THE SECOND.
OF THE NATURE OF LAWS IN GENERAL.
Blackstone:
"How the several forms of government we now see in the world at first actually began, is matter of great uncertainty, and has occasioned infinite disputes.[9] It is not my business or intention to enter into any of them. However they began, or by what right soever they subsist, there is and must be in all of them a supreme, irresistible, absolute, uncontrolled authority, in which the jura summi imperii or the rights of sovereignty, reside. And this authority is placed in those hands, wherein (according to the opinion of the founders of such respective states, either expressly given, or collected from their tacit approbation) the qualities requisite for supremacy, wisdom, goodness, and power, are the most likely to be found.
The political writers of antiquity will not allow more than three regular forms of government; the first, when the sovereign power is lodged in an aggregate assembly consisting of all the free members of a community, which is called a democracy; the second, when it is lodged in a council, composed of select members, and then it is stiled an aristocracy; the last, when it is entrusted in the hands of a single person, and then it takes the name of a monarchy. All other species of government, they say, are either corruptions of, or reducible to, these three.
By the sovereign power, as was before observed, is meant the making of laws; for wherever that power resides, all others must conform to, and be directed by it, whatever appearance the outward form and administration of the government may put on. For it is at any time in the option of the legislature to alter that form and administration by a new edict or rule, and to put the execution of the laws into whatever hands it pleases; by constituting one, or a few, or many executive magistrates: and all the other powers of the state must obey the legislative power in the discharge of their several functions, or else the constitution is at an end.[10] "