And you claim the Gazette is an official document, equivalent to a treaty recognizing Rhode Island and North Carolina as independent foreign countries?
I don't think so.
Indeed, the Gazette's language clearly does not recognize those states' independence when it talks about, "...the delusion which has so long infatuated a majority of her citizens..."
As for the word "confederation", it was never the official term used for the United States under their new Constitution.
Indeed, the Constitution itself specifically distinguishes between the old Confederation and the new Constitution.
Where did I claim that? The Gazette newspaper claimed as its name, "Gazette of the United States," and that it was a "National Newspaper." (My underline.) It did not claim to be a national organ of the United States or of the federal government, only that it would report on "the PROCEEDINGS of CONGRESS -- its LAWS, ACTS, and RESOLUTIONS, communicated so as to form an HISTORY of the TRANSACTIONS of the FEDERAL LEGISLATURE, under the NEW CONSTITUTION." (capital letters as in the newspaper).
You would have recognized that if you had read what the newspaper said of itself in the link I provided in my post.
Indeed, the Gazette's language clearly does not recognize those states' independence when it talks about, "...the delusion which has so long infatuated a majority of her citizens..."
The Gazette was arguing the cause of the Federalists. I would hope by now that you would be able to recognize that. If not, you could look up the Gazette in Wikipedia, one of your favorite sources in the past. Here is Wikipedia says (and take it with a grain of salt because it is Wikipedia, after all):
The Gazette of the United States (1789–1793) was an early American partisan newspaper first issued on April 15, 1789, as a biweekly publication friendly to the administration of George Washington, and to the policies and members of the emerging Federalist Party. The Gazette was originally published in New York City by editor John Fenno, but followed the United States Government in 1790 to its new temporary seat and capital in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There the editorship was taken over by Joseph Dennie until he founded Port Folio.[2]Throughout its history, The Gazette would function as a quasi-official Federalist publication.[2] Contributors would write, often pseudonymously or anonymously, in support of various Federalist positions, politicians, or policies. Like many other publications of the day, the paper also hosted pieces containing personal attacks (in this case, largely on Federalist opponents). Among the paper's more famous and prolific pseudonymous contributors was Alexander Hamilton, who produced articles under many different noms de plume. John Adams, then Vice-President of the United States, published his famous Discourses on Davila, his last great text of political theory, in periodic installments of the Gazette between April 1790 and April 1791, when the series was suddenly interrupted.
The Gazette played a notable role in the development of political parties and early partisanship. It also played a leading role in inspiring the creation of its rival paper, the National Gazette, which was founded at the urging of anti-Federalist leaders Thomas Jefferson and James Madison as a vehicle for their party's own political self-promotion and polemics.
Rhode Island at the time was primarily a very rural state. It was full of Anti-Federalists, which is why the state tried something like ten or eleven times unsucessfully to ratify the Constitution. It quickly ratified the Constitution after one house of the US Congress voted to tax imports from Rhode Island into the United States, but before the other house of Congress passed that same law. Money drives a lot of decisions, as Lincoln later demonstrated in his first inaugural speech where he basically said - you can keep your slaves, but I want your import revenue.