In Gregory v. Ashcroft:
As every schoolchild learns, our Constitution establishes a system of dual sovereignty between
the States and the Federal Government. This Court also has recognized this fundamental principle. In Tafflin v. Levitt, 493 U. S. 455, 458 (1990), "[w]e beg[a]n with the axiom that, under our federal system, the States possess sovereignty concurrent with that of the Federal Government, subject only to limitations imposed by the Supremacy Clause." Over 120 years ago, the Court described the constitutional scheme of dual sovereigns:
"`[T]he people of each State compose a State, having its own government, and endowed with all the functions essential to separate and independent existence,' . . . `[W]ithout the States in union, there could be no such political body as the United States.' Not only, therefore, can there be no loss of separate and independent autonomy to the States, through their union under the Constitution, but it may be not
unreasonably said that the preservation of the States, and the maintenance of their governments, are as much within the design and care of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union and the maintenance of the National government. The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible States." Texas v. White, 7 Wall. 700, 725 (1869), quoting Lane County v. Oregon, 7 Wall. 71, 76 (1869). Gregory v. Ashcroft, 501
US 452 - 1991
States are not mere political subdivisions of the United States. State governments are neither regional offices nor administrative agencies of the Federal
Government. The positions occupied by state officials appear nowhere on the Federal Government's most detailed organizational chart. The Constitution instead "leaves to the several States a residuary and inviolable sovereignty," The Federalist No. 39, p. 245 (C. Rossiter ed. 1961), reserved explicitly to the States by the Tenth Amendment. New York v. United States, 505 US 144 - 1992
