So impeachment is revolution? Delegation means that powers are transferred to an agent for a time - and the agent is always subordinate to the superior which delegated the powers in the first place.
The people of America know what they have relinquished for certain purposes. They also know that they retain every thing else, and have a right to resume what they have given up, if it be perverted from its intended object.
George Nicholas, Virginia Ratifying convention 10 Jun 1788That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will.
James Madison, Virginia Ratifying convention 24 Jun 1788
That resolution declares that the powers granted by the proposed Constitution are the gift of the people, and may be resumed by them when perverted to their oppression, and every power not granted thereby remains with the people, and at their will. James Madison, Virginia Ratifying convention 24 Jun 1788
'zactly. Even Madison and the federalists knew that were they not to accept he ratifications as written, it was back to business as usual, which none of them could tolerate. In the end, it was not the anti-federalists that caved.
I'd not seen those quotes before. They're keepers. They are consistent with what John Taylor, a participant in the ratification process, said in his 1823 book on the Constitution:
The sovereignties which imposed the limitations upon the federal government, far from supposing that they perished by the exercise of a part of their faculties, were vindicated, by reserving powers in which their deputy, the federal government, could not participate; and the usual right of sovereigns to alter or revoke its commissions.
And they are consistent with the vote of the state delegates to the Continental Congress noted by Thomas Burke in 1777:
The first and latter [proposed additions to the Articles of Confederation] passed without opposition or dissent, the second occasioned two days debate. It stood originally the third article; and expressed only a reservation of the power of regulating the internal police, and consequently resigned every other power [to the central government].
It appeared to me that this was not what the States expected, and, I thought, it left it in the power of the future Congress or General Council to explain away every right belonging to the States and to make their own power as unlimited as they please. I proposed, therefore an amendment, which held up the principle, that all sovereign power was in the States separately, and that particular acts of it, which should be expressly enumerated, would be exercised in conjunction, and not otherwise; but that in all things else each State would exercise all the rights and power of sovereignty, uncontrolled.
This was at first so little understood that it was some time before it was seconded, and South Carolina first took it up. The opposition was made by Mr. Wilson of Pennsylvania, and Mr. R. H. Lee of Virginia: in the end, however, the question was carried for my proposition, eleven ayes, one no, and one divided. The no was Virginia; the divided, New Hampshire.
[Source: Thomas Burke to Governor Caswell, 29 April, 1777. North Carolina Colonial Records, XI, 461.
And, of course, Madison during ratification argued that the states were still separate independent sovereigns under the Constitution.
What are these principles? Do they require that, in the establishment of the Constitution, the States should be regarded as distinct and independent sovereigns? They are so regarded by the Constitution proposed. [Source: Madison, Federalist 40]