[You, in reply] Were they sovereign, in the accepted sense of the term? A sovereign state exercises complete control over its territory and its actions. Did states? Could they carry on relations with other sovereign nations and states? No. Could they acquire territory or expand their influence? No. Could they raise armies, coin money, set their trade policies? No, no, and no. Could they decide their own form of government? Hell, no. The Constitution allows the states to run things within their own borders, within the restrictions and controls placed on them. They could no more unilaterally leave the Union than they could unilaterally join.
Leaving aside for the moment the fact which our friend 4ConservativeJustices has pointed out, that your view of State sovereignty on the eve of ratification happens to coincide very uncomfortably with that of a hideously notorious commentator, I'll simply cite another authority to answer yours -- Harry Jaffa, and Lincoln, and the long-ago Constitutional law scholar on whom Lincoln relied for his view of the Union and the relation of the States to the Union.
The ultimate authority of the society was distributed, in all its attributes, among each and every one of the several States: -- as such, it could make and unmake any constitution, and create or destroy any Union. And this authority continued to exist after it was exercised, as it still exists to this very day, because sovereign power in and of itself represents the undying permanence which underlies all civilized government. The right of a State to secede from the Union, therefore, was not abolished but transferred from the legislatures to the people in convention, -- from the limited and ordinary power of enacting statutes, to the supreme and irresistible power of doing anything in law not naturally impossible in each and every one of the several States. The right of secession was in this way made more difficult to exercise, and, consequently, there was "a more perfect Union."The people in convention of each and every State retained the lawful discretion to ordain secession from the Union launched in 1789. This power was never meant to be exercised for light and transient causes. The gravity of the circumstances which might justify such exercise of sovereign power had been illustrated in history: -- the obnoxious and unlawful usurpations of James II, the cunning subversion of the British Empire and deliberate wreckage of the prosperity of the American colonies by the powers of high finance behind the East India Company and the Bank of England, and the obtuse refusal of Rhode Island to permit urgently needed amendments of the old Confederation.
--John Remington Graham, A Constitutional History of Secession (2002), p. 104.
Graham introduces several contemporary statements supporting the retention of various sovereign powers by the States, including that of John Marshall in the Virginia ratification convention in 1788 which our friend 4ConservativeJustices researched and quoted to you, and which I've quoted to you myself at least twice, so that you are surely not unfamiliar with it; it is of the same temper as the Hamilton quote above: what the People do not delegate, they retain until delegated by some other grant, or not at all. That includes the power to secede.
Graham also cites and quotes the passage in Hamilton's Federalist No. 9, in which he quotes Montesquieu, which I quoted to you recently, and with which therefore you are also fully conversant. But lest you think I'm piking -- or lest you complain loudly that I'm piking -- let me quote the major substance of Federalist 9 for you, including the quote in extenso from Montesquieu, which I've edited to remove the repetitive quote marks in the copy I repaired to, and present Montesquieu's comments as a block quote, in color.
The utility of a Confederacy, as well to suppress faction and to guard the internal tranquillity of States, as to increase their external force and security, is in reality not a new idea. It has been practiced upon in different countries and ages, and has received the sanction of the most approved writers on the subject of politics. The opponents of the plan proposed have, with great assiduity, cited and circulated the observations of Montesquieu on the necessity of a contracted territory for a republican government. But they seem not to have been apprised of the sentiments of that great man expressed in another part of his work, nor to have adverted to the consequences of the principle to which they subscribe with such ready acquiescence.When Montesquieu recommends a small extent for republics, the standards he had in view were of dimensions far short of the limits of almost every one of these States. Neither Virginia, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, North Carolina, nor Georgia can by any means be compared with the models from which he reasoned and to which the terms of his description apply. If we therefore take his ideas on this point as the criterion of truth, we shall be driven to the alternative either of taking refuge at once in the arms of monarchy, or of splitting ourselves into an infinity of little, jealous, clashing, tumultuous commonwealths, the wretched nurseries of unceasing discord, and the miserable objects of universal pity or contempt. Some of the writers who have come forward on the other side of the question seem to have been aware of the dilemma; and have even been bold enough to hint at the division of the larger States as a desirable thing. Such an infatuated policy, such a desperate expedient, might, by the multiplication of petty offices, answer the views of men who possess not qualifications to extend their influence beyond the narrow circles of personal intrigue, but it could never promote the greatness or happiness of the people of America.
Referring the examination of the principle itself to another place, as has been already mentioned, it will be sufficient to remark here that, in the sense of the author who has been most emphatically quoted upon the occasion, it would only dictate a reduction of the SIZE of the more considerable MEMBERS of the Union, but would not militate against their being all comprehended in one confederate government. And this is the true question, in the discussion of which we are at present interested.
So far are the suggestions of Montesquieu from standing in opposition to a general Union of the States, that he explicitly treats of a confederate republic as the expedient for extending the sphere of popular government, and reconciling the advantages of monarchy with those of republicanism.
"It is very probable," (says he)
that mankind would have been obliged at length to live constantly under the government of a single person, had they not contrived a kind of constitution that has all the internal advantages of a republican, together with the external force of a monarchical government. I mean a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC.This form of government is a convention by which several smaller STATES agree to become members of a larger ONE, which they intend to form. It is a kind of assemblage of societies that constitute a new one, capable of increasing, by means of new associations, till they arrive to such a degree of power as to be able to provide for the security of the united body.
A republic of this kind, able to withstand an external force, may support itself without any internal corruptions. The form of this society prevents all manner of inconveniences.
If a single member should attempt to usurp the supreme authority, he could not be supposed to have an equal authority and credit in all the confederate states. Were he to have too great influence over one, this would alarm the rest. Were he to subdue a part, that which would still remain free might oppose him with forces independent of those which he had usurped and overpower him before he could be settled in his usurpation.
Should a popular insurrection happen in one of the confederate states the others are able to quell it. Should abuses creep into one part, they are reformed by those that remain sound. The state may be destroyed on one side, and not on the other; the confederacy may be dissolved, and the confederates preserve their sovereignty.
As this government is composed of small republics, it enjoys the internal happiness of each; and with respect to its external situation, it is possessed, by means of the association, of all the advantages of large monarchies.
I have thought it proper to quote at length these interesting passages, because they contain a luminous abridgment of the principal arguments in favor of the Union, and must effectually remove the false impressions which a misapplication of other parts of the work was calculated to make. They have, at the same time, an intimate connection with the more immediate design of this paper; which is, to illustrate the tendency of the Union to repress domestic faction and insurrection.
A distinction, more subtle than accurate, has been raised between a CONFEDERACY and a CONSOLIDATION of the States. The essential characteristic of the first is said to be, the restriction of its authority to the members in their collective capacities, without reaching to the individuals of whom they are composed. It is contended that the national council ought to have no concern with any object of internal administration. An exact equality of suffrage between the members has also been insisted upon as a leading feature of a confederate government. These positions are, in the main, arbitrary; they are supported neither by principle nor precedent. It has indeed happened, that governments of this kind have generally operated in the manner which the distinction taken notice of, supposes to be inherent in their nature; but there have been in most of them extensive exceptions to the practice, which serve to prove, as far as example will go, that there is no absolute rule on the subject. And it will be clearly shown in the course of this investigation that as far as the principle contended for has prevailed, it has been the cause of incurable disorder and imbecility in the government.
The definition of a CONFEDERATE REPUBLIC seems simply to be "an assemblage of societies," or an association of two or more states into one state. The extent, modifications, and objects of the federal authority are mere matters of discretion. So long as the separate organization of the members be not abolished; so long as it exists, by a constitutional necessity, for local purposes; though it should be in perfect subordination to the general authority of the union, it would still be, in fact and in theory, an association of states, or a confederacy. The proposed Constitution, so far from implying an abolition of the State governments, makes them constituent parts of the national sovereignty, by allowing them a direct representation in the Senate, and leaves in their possession certain exclusive and very important portions of sovereign power. This fully corresponds, in every rational import of the terms, with the idea of a federal government. [Caps in original. Emphasis in bolding and underlining added.]
Link: Federalist Papers at Constitution.org. Discussion:
The subject at hand is the existence of sovereignty in the States that formed the Union, sovereignty they certainly didn't possess when they assayed rebellion and war to obtain it, but which by 1783 they assuredly did possess, by the concession of George III by the Treaty of Paris, to each of the States individually, by name, and seriatim in the text of the treaty. This is the status quo ante, under the Articles of Confederation, of which I speak. This was the sovereign condition of the States before the Constitution was written, as conceded disconsolately by Hamilton in Federalist 15:
In our case, the concurrence of thirteen distinct sovereign wills is requisite, under the Confederation, to the complete execution of every important measure that proceeds from the Union.
But if Hamilton conceded the reality of State sovereignty on the eve of ratification, contradicting the implied answers of your recitation of rhetorical questions suggesting that State sovereignty was impaired or nonexistent, then on what authority do you say that sovereignty was lacking, and Hamilton was wrong?
The larger question which looms over your claims of federal authority is, if the Union was entitled to the presumption of preclusive sovereign authority, and the States clearly subordinated to it in the Articles of Confederation, then why was the Constitution felt to be necessary by its friends?
And the final question is that, if the States were sovereign under the Articles of Confederation, where was the grant in the Constitution that conferred the final aliquot, the last reserved power -- the power to resume delegated powers -- in the provisions of the Constitution?
If Sovereignty existed in the States before ratification, it is incumbent on adherents of your theory -- Jaffa's and Lincoln's -- to show how and where the Constitution stripped them, or they divested themselves, of the powers not delegated. You can't; as I said previously, and as you continue to fail utterly to show, those powers were never destroyed, and neither were they conveyed; but as John Marshall said in the Virginia ratification convention, they remained with the States; and the Tenth Amendment seals it in stone, that they remain there, ready for use by the People.
All of that meaningless babble is just reflective of the barely-coherent intensity of the semi-educated.
One could refute such pedestrian epistles, word-for-word and in order. But why waste time?
The only thing that sort of effort tends to generate in response is endless appeals to footnotes, obscure references, and otherwise useless irrelevancies that ultimately dribble off to nowhere on increasingly arcane tangents.
It's the oldest game played by the relentlessly scummy & smarmy poseurs among us in the world: Party x asserts A-B-C-D-E-F-G, and Party y refutes EVERY letter of it, point by relentless point. Party x then proceeds to ignore and/or slink away from, with various puling evasions, their refuted original premises, and immediately launches into a game of but what about H-I-J-K-M-N-O-P? hmmmn? hmmmn?.
In the interim, they moan, slobber and weep to Higher Authority to squelch the debate by cutting off their intellectually superior opponents by appealing to exacting rules of discourse they themselves disdain to even acknowledge, insofar as those rules might apply to them.
This, in a nutshell, has been the longstanding modus operandi of the squealing, mentally foppish, and intellectually dishonest Lost Cause Squad for about as long as any decent person can remember.
And it continues anew, here, in the continuous Sisyphean march of the terminally silly as it is embodied in your ignorant, pleading post.
It's not, as one wag once noted, one #@%! thing after another. It's the same #@%! thing over and over.
You're welcome to that dubious legacy--and the scummy company it consistently seems to keep.
Thanks this has really gotten to be an entertaining thread.