Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti: "The government’s legitimacy comes from public participation, and Tennessee leaned into that from the outset."
Jonathan Skrmetti
Guest columnist
Two hundred twenty-eight years ago, on June 1, 1796, Congress approved Tennessee’s application to become the sixteenth state in our union, and President George Washington welcomed Tennessee to the United States.
The U.S. Constitution was less than a decade old at the time, and Americans were still getting used to the federal system it established.
The drafters of the national Constitution built our government with the explicit goal of preventing the concentration of power. Tennesseans took that principle to heart and drafted a state constitution Thomas Jefferson praised as “the least imperfect and most Republican of the state constitutions.”
To protect our liberty, the power of government is divided between the national government and the state governments. At both levels, power is further divided between the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, and at the state level, the executive power is split between different officials.
Each level and each branch is intended to check any other overreaching part of government. And the rights guaranteed by both the federal and state constitutions set hard limits on the government’s power to infringe upon individual freedoms. The legislature makes laws and the executive enforces laws, but only to the extent the federal and state constitutions allow.
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Tennessee Constitution says that all power is ‘inherent’ in the people
What sometimes gets lost in looking at the different institutions of government is that every piece is dependent on the people. The people determine not just who sits in the different offices but what powers those different offices have.
The federal and state constitutions that define our system only matter because the people approved them, and the people retain the right to change them. The laws passed under those constitutions only matter because they were passed by the people’s elected representatives in accordance with the procedures set out in those constitutions.
Tennessee’s first Constitution states in no uncertain terms that “all power is inherent in the People and all free Governments are founded on their authority.” The people founded the federal government to be a government of limited power – with authority over things like foreign affairs, national defense, and interstate commerce.
Founding fathers did not intendfor Supreme Court justices or other judges to be political
The people reserved for state governments broader authority to make laws addressing the day-to-day issues communities face, including education, law enforcement, health care, and everything else.
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When the federal government oversteps its powers under the Constitution, it is often up to the states to push back – that is why you see my office frequently suing the federal government, usually because a federal agency has illegally adopted a rule that unconstitutionally interferes with the ability of the people of Tennessee to govern themselves.
You also see the federal government sometimes suing Tennessee, alleging that a state law or practice violates a constitutional right. This is all part of the necessary process to sustain our great Republic, checks and balances in action.
But lawsuits are a temporary solution. The law comes from the people, and the people are ultimately responsible for what our laws say and how they are enforced.
The government’s legitimacy comes from public participation, and Tennessee leaned into that from the outset. One notable element of the original 1796 Tennessee Constitution is its broad recognition of the right to vote. While it did not cover every adult – that took a long time, a lot of work, a war, and several constitutional amendments, and is ultimately another great Tennessee story – it made every free adult male a voter. At the time, this was a radical departure from the property-oriented restrictions on the right to vote in other states. In Tennessee, everyone has a seat at the table.
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Statehood means a person taking responsibility for governing themselves while also participating as part of the broader nation. Statehood Day is a time for Tennesseans to remember they are not the victims of government; they are the masters of government. Every Tennessee voter has an equal say in how the state is run: a voice and a vote. Sometimes we get our way, and sometimes the other side does. That’s the price of democracy.
So, on this Statehood Day, remember you are the most powerful person in Tennessee. Use your power wisely. Educate yourself on the issues and institutions you control. Speak freely and listen well. Self-government can only continue if we take our duties as citizens seriously. Our highest achievement as citizens will be to pass these benefits – and these responsibilities – to our children, and to their children. We are blessed to run the greatest state in the country. May we continue to do so for centuries to come.
Jonathan Skrmetti has served as the Tennessee attorney general and reporter since 2022.
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