And so, while disagreeing with me, you still verify my basic point which was that no original state was ever officially recognized as free & independent of the United States -- certainly not during the time the old Articles of Confederation were superseded by the new Constitution.
And that phrase “certainly not during” introduces chronological complexities to cover the walk-back of Brother Joe's hard-shell sermon at the Mother Church in which he claimed scripture said “no state ever claimed absolute sovereignty & independence — no original state ever claimed to be a separate country.”
Sure, we all change our views from time to time. I personally like Doodledawg’s method of jinking 180: “I stand corrected.”
[BroJoeK]: And so, while disagreeing with me, you still verify my basic point which was that no original state was ever officially recognized as free & independent of the United States -- certainly not during the time the old Articles of Confederation were superseded by the new Constitution.
I don't agree with your contention that I "still verify" your "basic point." I verify no such thing. If you would, please stop trying to put words into my mouth that I didn't say.
As I have pointed out before on these threads, George Washington said to the Senate on August 22, 1789 that North Carolina was not a member of the "present Union." Rhode Island had also not joined the Union at that point, so Rhode Island was also not a member of the "present Union."
I have also pointed out the words of Congress on September 12, 1789 (my bold below):
And be it further enacted, That all rum, loaf sugar, and chocolate, manufactured or made in the states of North Carolina, or Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, and imported or brought into the United States, shall be deemed and taken to be subject to the like duties, as goods of the like kinds, imported from any foreign state, kingdom, or country are made subject to.
I also pointed out on this thread that the Federalist newspaper, the "Gazette of the United States," on April 15, 1789, called Rhode Island and North Carolina "Foreign States", which at that time they were.
You argue that "no original state was ever officially recognized as free & independent of the United States -- certainly not during the time the old Articles of Confederation were superseded by the new Constitution."
Forgetting [for a moment] about how the United States considered those two states in the time period you raised, let's get a Constitutional lawyer's opinion. Here is what John Remington Graham says in his book, "Free, Sovereign, and Independent States," about the 1783 Treaty of Paris:
It follows that the "People of the United States" given in reference to the Preamble [of the Constitution] were, in legal contemplation, the people in and of each of the members of the Union as free, sovereign, and independent states mentioned by his Britannic Majesty in 1783.
And
In any event, when George Washington was first inaugurated as President, there were only eleven States in the Union. North Carolina and Rhode Island were longer part of the United States. Hence these two States were independent nations, nor did they accede to the new Constitution until the most important work of the First Congress was completed. [The footnote to this statement says that not until the two states joined the Union under the new Constitution did Congress presume to extend the laws and jurisdictions of the courts of the United States to these two states separately as appears in the U.S. Statutes at Large.]