Is individual, state, or federal sovereignty supreme?

Common sense tells me that individual sovereignty is supreme. The citizens of the United States, as empowered by our constitution, should have the majority of political power. The states should be the next in line and the federal government should be the least powerful when it comes to the relation of power between these three entities.

Though the U.S. Constitution does not specifically delineate these powers, a reasonable person with minimal knowledge of U.S. history should construe that our founders' intent was: to limit the power of the federal government so that it could never be more powerful than the states or, much less, more powerful than the people. The three most obvious facts which support my position is: (1) that representatives (Continental Congress) from the thirteen original states broke their ties to Great Britain and King George III and established their sovereignty buy adopting the Declaration of Independence in July 1776; (2) our current federal government was founded and our constitution was ratified simultaneously 12 years later, in 1787; and (3) the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791 as an additional protection for the people from the government.

Political power should always start with the people and then flow downward through the political entities. In other words, political power should be inversely proportional; the bigger the entity, the less power it should have. Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.