“We the people of the United States,” was never intended to mean, the people of the United States as a united whole.

The authority of our Constitution is not based on the authority of the people of the nation or the union but upon the authority of the people of the respective states, if this was not so Wyoming wouldn’t have a state constitution.

In the Federalist Papers No. 39, Madison said “ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent States to which they respectively belong.” And, “Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own voluntary act.”

Our Declaration of Independence  proclaimed the independence not of “a new nation”, but of “free and independent” states. The Tenth Amendment is a protection of this principle, it states - “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.”