mark of the power that ordained and established the Constitution. Sovereignty cannot be delegated, but a supreme law, such as the Constitution, necessarily implies a sovereignty that has delegated the powers expressed or implied in the Constitution itself. In other words, the Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land because the people of the United States are a sovereign. Sovereignty alone has original powers; all others are delegated. Thus the Constitution itself declares that “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.”[29] 12. American constitutional law is, therefore, the authoritative formulation, in constitutional, or statutory, or treaty form, of the will of the sovereign, the people of the United States. This formulation accords with the powers delegated by that sovereign. The expression of this delegation of powers in the conduct of the public business is government. Therefore in America, government is another word for the delegation of powers,—for limitations of authority. Sovereignty is unlimited; government is limited. The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land because through it the people of the United States,—not the people of any particular State or group of States,—have delegated larger powers than have the people of any particular State through its constitution. The whole is greater than the part. “That the people have an original right to establish for their future government such principles as, in their opinion, shall most conduce to their own happiness, is the basis on which the whole American fabric has been erected.”[30] The exercise of this original right is an exercise of sovereignty. The result of this exercise, in America, is the Constitution of the United States which, this sovereignty declares to be “the supreme law of the land.”[31] CHAPTER II THE LAW OF LEGISLATIVE POWERS (1) 13. The organization of the government of the United States reflects the original and supreme will of the people as they have seen fit to assign to different departments of that government their respective powers. “The powers of the Legislature are defined and limited; and that these limits may not be mistaken, the Constitution is written.”[32] Thus the Constitution declares that “all legislative powers _herein granted_” are vested in Congress.[33] The inevitable conclusion is “no grant, no power.” Congress possesses only delegated powers. If an issue arises under an act of Congress, there must ever be the fundamental question of authority for the act. This question of authority once settled, the act, by the terms of the Constitution itself, is a part of the supreme law.[34] Rarely is an act of Congress declared unconstitutional. Legislative experience avoids the enactment of laws whose constitutionality is doubtful.