Posted on 11/27/2009 1:57:59 PM PST by loveliberty2
While I suspect we will simply agree to disagree, if we could take a Mulligan on the first Constitution, I would be willing to try again with a few changes like: no general welfare clause, abolition of slavery (at some point down the road), and a specific provision for secession. With the benefit of hindsight these changes might have made for a more durable Republic. Sadly, we will never know the road not taken.
Wrong.
This is simply untrue. Hamilton, for one, very much wanted a powerful centralized government. He wrote to Washington gleefully saying that the public was ready to adopt a government not unlike a monarchy. Hamilton's plan called for lifetime appointed president and senators and judges.
Several delegates are documented in the notes from the convention explicitly advocating a strong national government. The FEDERALISTS were ill-named. In truth, they were NATIONALISTS. It's all on the record.
There should be no United States. There should be united States. I disagree that debating the point is "for losers." The Constitution was an experiment--a failure at that. We're just playing out the string now. The idea is gain insight and wisdom from the data.
In fact he’s quite right.
Treaty of Paris, 1783 (note that this treaty is still recognized as being in effect by international law)
Article 1:
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States, viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and every part thereof.
If you wish to comment, you should know your history.
And oh, how much more difficult that was made by the creation of the supreme national government. If we were to "restore our free institutions to their original strength and purity, we'd have to ditch the Constitution, which was not our original institution, but an untested, untried big government invention. Like most big gubmint projects, it's cost us dearly and failed to do what it was intended to do.
This last bullet is out of context with the rest of the piece.
If the piece was written from the context of the checks and balances envisioned by the original framers, then the states controlled the Senate via appointments every 6 years. It was the 17th amendment passed in 1913 that replaced state appointment with popular vote.
-PJ
No, we won't know what might have been. But we might better understand where we are. Complaining about broad national governmental power as "unconstitutional" is a waste of time. The Constitution set it up that way. "Few and delegated" powers?? What about "implied powers"? All laws necessary and proper? Supreme law of the land? Appellate jurisdiction in ALL cases? etc
A large national government is incompatible with liberty as understood during the founding period. It was a mistake. We should have remained a league of states. The few fixes that were needed could have been made.
But Hamilton, Madison, and the other Federalists already knew what they wanted. They said screw amending the Articles of Confederation. This is our chance to design our own national government. Patrick Henry "smelt a rat" and he was correct. It was nothing short of political revolution, creating the national supreme government. Huge mistake.
I disagree about abolition of slavery. That should have been a state issue. When you make things a national issue that needn't be, you beg for trouble.
That's true, and a lot of people make much of it, but I don't. The states appointed Senators, but that was their only power. They couldn't recall them. They couldn't censure them. They had no power over the national laws that governed the Senate. THey had a very small, administrative role. It was window dressing to make a consolidated national government appear to have some semblance of federalism included. It was a joke.
Consider this, from Antifederalist 39, "APPEARANCE AND REALITY-THE FORM IS FEDERAL; THE EFFECT IS NATIONAL"
The State legislatures do not choose senators by legislative or sovereign authority, but by a power of ministerial agency as mere electors or boards of appointment. They have no power to direct the senators how or what duties they shall perform; they have neither power to censure the senators, nor to supersede them for misconduct. It is not the power of choosing to office merely that designates sovereignty, or else corporations who appoint their own officers and make their own by-laws, or the heads of department who choose the officers under them, such as commanders of armies, etc., may be called sovereigns, because they can name men to office whom they cannot dismiss therefrom. The exercise of sovereignty does not consist in choosing masters, such as the senators would be, who, when chosen, would be beyond control, but in the power of dismissing, impeaching, or the like, those to whom authority is delegated.
From Article VI of the deficient Articles of Confederation: “No state without the consent of the United States in Congress assembled, shall send any embassy to, or receive any embassy from, or enter into any conference, agreement, alliance, or treaty with any king . . . “
A sovereign state needs no permission to ratify a treaty.
If you wish to comment, you should know your history.
Thus I apprehend, it is evident that the consolidation of the States into one national government (in contra- distinction from a confederacy) would be the necessary consequence of the establishment of the new constitution, and the intention of its framers-and that consequently the State sovereignties would be eventually annihilated, though the forms may long remain as expensive and burdensome remembrances of what they were in the days when (although laboring under many disadvantages) they emancipated this country from foreign tyranny, humbled the pride and tarnished the glory of royalty, and erected a triumphant standard to liberty and independence.
Antifederalist 39
The Articles of Confederation are an amazing read. So different in so many important ways from the Constitution. For example:
Article II. Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
The key word there is “expressly.” This was one of the things the big government federalists wanted to do away with. Hamilton especially championed “implied powers.” By the time of McCulloch v Maryland, the federalists plan was on its way. You get rid of “expressly delegated powers” and replace them with “delegated powers.” You toss in a “necessary and proper” clause, and top it off with an unaccountable judiciary with supreme interpretive authority, and bingo—you’ve got your big gubmint. This stuff didn’t happen by accident.
Articles of Confederation, rat 1781
Article II.
Each state retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence, and every power, jurisdiction, and right, which is not by this Confederation expressly delegated to the United States, in Congress assembled.
If you want to post a reference, you should at least bother to read it...
Fortunately, our wise Framers and all thirteen state legislatures disagreed.
I cited an article that refutes your claim to state sovereignty. Sorry you are unable to support your previous post.
If you wish to comment, you should know your history.
Hamilton's was but one delegate and his plan was so roundly rejected that he left Philadelphia and hardly participated in the proceedings afterward. Washington spoke hardly a word throughout the entire convention.
The problem is that folks like Hamilton fought on after the convention and finally got what they wanted in the 1860s.
The main point being that if any of the states had not ratified the Constitution, they would not be part of the united States.
Some make good arguments that the Articles of Confederation are still in effect. It kinda depends on what you think “The United States” means. The Supreme Court has recognized three separate definitions of “The United States” in the insular decisions of the early 1900’s.
Hamilton wasn’t the only one. He was on the extreme edge of the big national government crowd, but clearly he had allies with names like Madison, Washington, Morris, etc.
You did no such thing. You limped along and tried to make an inference from the treaty making power.
And you’ve had multiple people post responses showing you were wrong.
Trust me, I probably have a WAY bigger library than you.
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