The Civil War settled one part of the issue of national supremacy versus states' rights by establishing which source of sovereignty for the national government?

• A. the national government derives its sovereignty from the people.
• B. state governments are supreme over the national government.
• C. the national government derives its sovereignty from both the people and the states.
• D. the national government derives its sovereignty from the states.

Answer: (A)

The main idea being tested is where the national government gets its authority. The Civil War helped cement that the national government derives its sovereignty from the people, not from the states. In the U.S. Constitution, legitimacy comes from “We the People,” meaning the people grant authority to the government through their consent and representation. The federal government’s power is then exercised within the framework of that consent, and federal law takes precedence over state law (the Supremacy Clause) because it rests on the people’s authority to establish and empower the national government. So, the national government derives its sovereignty from the people. The alternative that sovereignty comes from the states or from both people and states conflicts with how the Constitution assigns legitimacy and how the Civil War upheld national supremacy over states’ actions.