Posted on 01/10/2017 2:02:28 AM PST by Jacquerie
Subtitle: The Question of Sovereignty. Didn’t the Framers violate the Articles of Confederation (AC) when they drafted the Constitution? Weren’t the AC the supreme law of the land? This is the view of many Article V opponents. From Article VI of the confederation, “No two or more States shall enter into any treaty, confederation or alliance whatever between them, without the consent of the united States in congress assembled . . . “ Furthermore, from Article XIII, “Every State shall abide by the determination of the united States in congress assembled, on all questions which by this confederation are submitted to them. And the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every State . . . “
In this post, I will examine sovereignty, which is the full right and power to govern without interference from an outside source. It is worth a look because turmoil is certain when society questions, or isn’t sure of, just who is the sovereign. Between 1765 and 1789, thirteen societies huddled against the North Atlantic Ocean endured revolution and continual economic discord due in part to puzzlement over the question, “Where the sovereign?” The social upheaval associated with revolution in government in this period cannot be overstated. In twenty-four short years, republican free government replaced a top-down monarchal system of influence and patronage. As John Jay wrote, "It takes time to make sovereigns of subjects," it also took time to establish political institutions for the purpose of expressing the sovereign will.
Who, or what institution, was supposed to be in charge? Where was political authority?
We can better understand the shift in mindset from royal subjects to republican citizens if we examine some events from this not very well understood time.
The Constitution was revolutionary.
Oops. Forgot to click the ‘excerpt’ box.
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My understanding standing is that the Congress under the AoC at the time was involved in drafting and pushing forward the new Constitution which was allowed by the AoC so not sure I see any issues.
The original mandate of the Constitutional Convention was merely to amend the AoC. In a sense, the Constitutional Convention was a runaway convention in that it greatly exceeded its original authority when it scrapped the idea of amending the AoC and decided to draft an entirely new Constitution.
The runaway convention experience of 1787 concerns defenders of the U.S. Constitution today. If a convention to amend the AoC could end up scrapping and replacing the AoC, then a similar modern-day Constitutional Convention with the limited authority to amend the U.S. Constitution could end up scrapping the U.S. Constitution.
The Constitutional Convention was united States in congress assembled.
I’ll touch on that subject and more in subsequent posts.
I think the difference is the AoC allowed congress to amend but the constitution requires amendments to be ratified by the states.
The AoC required unanimous consent of all the states for an amendment to pass. The runaway Constitutional Convention circumvented the unanimous consent protection of the AoC by only requiring two-thirds of the states to ratify the Constitution.
Rhode Island boycotted the Constitutional Convention (perhaps believing the lack of unanimous consent would prevent the Constitution from being ratified and rammed down its throat) because the state feared the Constitution would adversely affect its ability to collect a certain tax. Rhode Island withheld consent for two years after ratification. The negative effects of isolation led to Rhode Island finally accept the (very flawed in their view) Constitution by only two votes in 1790.
and this all got started because George Washington wanted to build a canal...
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