State Authority Is Not Devolved From Federal Authority In The U.S.
if so what within the constitution has officially devolved this power
as unfortunately not yet has any prosecutor or judge replied to one of
these sov cit morons with "well article X section XYZ" does give
states and cities the power to enact and judge someone on infractions
for this issue.
The power of state and local governments in the U.S. is not "devolved" from the federal government. Instead, the limited powers of the federal government were ceded by state governments to the federal government.
The U.S. Constitution is supreme over all other documents and legislation in the United States. Federal legislation and treaties, if they are authorized by the U.S. Constitution, are also supreme over state and local law.
But, the states in the U.S. are actually the original part of the United States government (pre-dating the Declaration of Independence in 1776 in many cases). The federal government created by the U.S. Constitution (which also imposed limitations on U.S. states) is a layer of limited government imposed on top pre-existing state governments. This is consistent with the interpretive frame imposed by the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution ("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.").
The U.S. Constitution (1789) was originally viewed as a treaty between sovereign and independent U.S. states, just like the previous Articles of Confederation (November 15, 1777 effective March 1, 1781) between the states rebelling against Britain. In the period from the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) until the Articles of Confederation took effect on March 1, 1781, and in the period of the American Revolution that preceded the Declaration of Independence, the people and states rebelling against Britain just cooperated with and trusted each other without any formal written agreement or governing document.
There are a lot of parallels to the relationship between the European Union, to which member countries ceded limited centralized authority, and its member nations. Nobody has to ask, for example, why France has the authority to punish crimes committed in France, even though the E.U. governing documents didn't "devolve" that power to France.
Thus, the authority of state governments in the United States is presumed and is primary, while the authority of the federal government is secondary and arises from the grant of power to it from U.S. states reflected in the U.S. Constitution.
The Source Of Plenary State Authority
Ultimately, state claims of authority are rooted in history and the reality on the ground.
The reality on the ground part, of course, is the largely uncontested ability of state law enforcement to use force to carry out the edicts of state judges and state laws, and the routine and habitual practice of law enforcement officers of obeying judge's orders, and the routine and habitual practice of judges usually making a good faith effort to carry out the law. Even people who knowingly break the law generally acknowledge without question that it is the law (except a tiny minority like sovereign citizen's movement members) and that the states have the authority to enforce it.
The presumed and plenary authority of U.S. states is not expressly granted to the states by the U.S. Constitution, because state governments already existed. Their authority comes from state constitutions, and in the case of states that joined the United States of America after the original 13 states (plus a few late ratifiers that were invited to join and contemplated of possible original states, but didn't ratify the constitution before it took effect, like Vermont) because were admitted to the United States by federal legislation admitting them to statehood, either from unincorporated land that belonged to the U.S. already, or by basically a merger of an existing independent republic (like Texas and Hawaii) to the U.S.
The states not admitted to the United States from unincorporated federal land secured their legitimacy, sovereignty, and authority primarily from European countries that claimed their legitimacy, sovereignty, and authority by conquest and by virtue of treaties with each other. See generally here.
These states also achieved this status by behaving is if they had it consistently for what in some cases was centuries before the United States came into being until no one fought them over this point anymore (the so called "Indian Wars" with the original possessors of North America continued until 1890 when every last Indian tribe had been defeated, destroyed, or surrendered by treaty)
The Equal Footing Doctrine, furthermore, says that all U.S. states, whether they are one of the original 13 states, or were later added to the United States, all have equal legal status and authority. So, even though most U.S. states were created by the federal government by federal legislation, they have the same status as logically prior to the federal government as the original states which actually predated the United States did.
States have plenary power (i.e. power unbounded except as specifically limited by law) authority to do anything that the U.S. Constitution, federal law (including treaties), and state constitutions do not prohibit them from doing. See, e.g., Neff, Nina "Popular Sovereignty and the Doctrine of Plenary State Legislative Power," 62 William & Mary Law Review Online 1 (2020). This universal assumption at the time that the U.S. Constitution was adopted is mentioned very early in U.S. Supreme Court case law. See, e.g., Gibbons v. Ogden (U.S. 1824).
State v. Local Governments
The U.S. Constitution does not distinguish between state governments and local governments except in some very narrow circumstances (primarily 11th Amendment sovereign immunity and the original jurisdiction of the U.S. Supreme Court, both of which are formally phrased as questions of federal court jurisdiction, and in the case of 11th Amendment immunity, an implied sovereign immunity because states are sovereign).
Instead, references to "states" in the U.S. Constitution are references to "state and local governments" and local governments are purely creatures of state constitutions and state law, with the rights given to them under state constitutions and state law.
The Source Of Judicial Authority
The authority a state and local judges to enforce state laws (and to enforce almost all federal laws that are not tax laws or criminal laws or patent laws or copyright laws), comes from state legislation authorized by the state constitution in a chain of authority that either predates the state joining the United States, or flows from the "organic act" forming the state in the first place from federal land.
The authority of federal judges to enforce federal laws (and state laws involving diversity of citizenship) flows from the U.S. Constitution and federal legislation.
Reflection
This is admittedly a bit complicated.
Sovereign citizens take advantage of the fact that this is a little complicated and requires some historical context to understand, which few people who deal with it day to day think about very often, to try to confound people with a false counter-narrative of their own devising that has no basis in reality.
A Footnote On The Origins Of Real Estate Title In The U.S.
Perhaps the most famous example of a recitation of the source of government authority and title comes from a presumably satirical exchange between a Louisiana lawyer and a finicky New York real estate lawyer back in the 1930s, that nonetheless captures the flavor of the prevailing legal theory, from a 1936 Wall Street Journal article as an example proffered in a book written by Alfred Reuel Horr, a Cleveland Chamber of Commerce president:
Questions as to flaws in title sometimes present investment
difficulties. Lawyers are inclined to insist upon a complete abstract
from which they can trace the ownership of land. An instance of
caution and the ultimate of reassurance has recently come to light.
An attorney in Louisiana was hired by a firm in New York to trace the
abstract of a deed to some property that the firm had purchased in the
delta state. After tracing the deed back to 1803, the Louisiana lawyer
sent the abstract to New York. He promptly receive in return a letter
from the New York firm, stating that he had not traced the deed back
far enough. The lawyer waited for a few days and then sent the
following letter to New York:
"Dear Sirs:
I traced your deed back to 1803. Here it is complete. As you probably
know, Louisiana was purchased from France in 1803. France had acquired
Louisiana from the Spanish as the result of a successful war against
the Spaniards. The Spanish acquired Louisiana as the result of the
explorations of an Italian named Columbus. Columbus was financially
backed by Isabella and Ferdinand. Isabella and Ferdinand were given
permission for Columbus’ expedition by the Pope. The Pope is the Vicar
of Christ. Christ is the Son of God. God made Louisiana."
(There are longer versions of his letter back out there.)
For what it is worth, the New York origins of the finicky lawyer in New York are not entirely surprising. New York State and New York real estate law extend back to its time as a Dutch colony in the 1600s, and chains of title going back all that far back aren't all that uncommon in New York real estate practice. I once did a title abstract in New York State that went all of the way back to when that particular parcel was owned by former President Millard Fillmore (before he was President) and well before then.
In Southern Colorado, property rights created when it was part of Old Mexico are still legally relevant. See Lobato v. Taylor (2002).
Most U.S. states, however, avoid these ancient inquiries into real estate title through the doctrine of adverse possession that makes events more than about two decades old mostly irrelevant to real estate title.
