Founding-Era

The movement claim that the absence of 'sovereign' and 'sovereignty' from the Declaration of Independence proves the Founders rejected sovereignty as a foreign concept is partially supported as textual observation and foreclosed as constitutional inference

The movement notes that 'sovereign' and 'sovereignty' do not appear in the Declaration of Independence. The textual observation is correct. The doctrinal conclusion — that the Founders rejected sovereignty as a foreign concept — overreads what is essentially a stylistic and rhetorical choice. The Declaration uses 'people,' 'States,' and 'powers' to do the work 'sovereignty' would do elsewhere.