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To: BroJoeK
Idabilly, you know you are nothing but a propagandist when you refuse to acknowledge the basic facts of the case:

And you ignore the fact that the States are sovereign.

THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF WISCONSIN: The Constitution of the United States is, in its more essential and fundamental character, a tri-partite instrument. The parties to it are: The States, The People, and The United States. The latter is, indeed, a resulting party, brought into existence by it, but when thus created, bound in all respects by its provisions. It is practically represented by its several departments, deriving their powers directly and severally through its respective grants. It is derivative, not original. Previous to the operative vitality of the Constitution, this third party to the instrument was non-existent, and of course powerless. The other two parties, the States and the People, were pre-existent, endowed with all the essential elements of sovereignty.

One great and fundamental mistake has been made in respect to the second party to the federal Constitution, viz: the People. This party, here spoken of, cannot be considered as the people inhabiting the whole territory embraced within the boundaries of the original thirteen States, as operating in mass, as one undivided and indivisible community. Previous to the formation of the government of the United States, there was no such political existence; and of course, there being no such government, there could be no people of such government, or political division or organization. It is unnecessary, in this connexion, to refer to the confederation of the States, because that did not, in fact, constitute a government; nor will any one pretend that the people of the confederated States created the present federal government in their capacity of a primary and ultimate source of political power, operating to institute a new and original government; because, to have done this, they must have necessarily first dissolved the State governments under which they were then living and acting, and absolved themselves from allegiance thereto. They did no such thing. The "people" mentioned in the preamble to the Constitution, and often referred to in judicial discussions, must, it seems to me, necessarily mean the people of the United States; that is, the people of the several States united; so many uniting as were deemed a sufficient number to warrant the institution of the new government, and render safe the delegation of certain powers before possessed by the respective States. The State governments pre-existed. If a portion of the citizens of a State had assembled to divest the State of an attribute of its sovereignty, without the assent of the State, it would have been treason, or revolution. If the people of the whole territory of the thirteen States had combined to divest the respective States of any of their proper attributes of sovereignty, without the assent of the States, it would have been closely allied to treason or conquest. But it was neither the one nor the other. The people referred to, must be intended to mean the people of the respective States, operating legitimately through their properly constituted authorities, in conformity with their legally established modes of procedure. As the people of the respective States, did they adopt the Constitution. By the authority of the STATES were the people called upon to adopt or reject the Constitution. By the people of the respective STATES was it adopted and when ratified by nine STATES, Const. U. S. Art. 7, (not a majority of the people of the Union to be formed,) was it to become operative. The States, as such, were distinctly recognized through every stage of progress, from the inception to the consummation of the plan of Union; and through the State organizations only could the first step be taken, and through those organizations only can the people of the Union now impress their will upon the measures or action of the government. Indeed, the federal Constitution provides no mode by which, in any case, can the people of the Union affect the federal government, but through the State organizations, and by the instrumentalities furnished by the governments of the respective States.

The States, therefore, as pre-existing sovereignties, are clearly parties to the federal compact, and, together with their respective people, were the creators of the third party to the compact, viz: The United States.

Nor was the Constitution of the United States submitted to the whole people of the thirteen States for adoption, but to the people of each State, represented in convention called for that purpose, by the authority of each State. On the question of its adoption or rejection, the people of each State, whether many or few, had an equal voice. They spoke on that question for their State, and the small States had an equal voice with the large.

175 posted on 01/01/2012 10:32:13 AM PST by Idabilly (Tailpipes poppin, radios rockin, Country Boy Can Survive.)
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To: Idabilly
Idabilly: "And you ignore the fact that the States are sovereign."

Rubbish.
The degree of "states sovereignty" was previously determined by the old Articles of Confederation, now replaced by the new Constitution.

In neither was sovereignty 100%, since 100% sovereignty would mean states are independent nations, along the lines of, say, France or Britain.
Even in the old Articles of Confederation states, in effect, ceded some of their sovereignty to the national government.
In the new Constitution, they ceded more.

Of course, states never officially ceded as much sovereignty as the Federal government has today assumed.
But the Great Federal Power Grab began under 1900s era Progressive Democrats, not Abraham Lincoln's Republicans.

But let's be truthful here: in the past 100 years states have not seriously contested Federal power because they have been bribed with gushers of Federal money generated by the 1913 16th Amendment income tax.

You might even say that for nearly 100 years now, states have been "drugged" with Federal money, and that is the root cause of their reduced sovereignty.

176 posted on 01/01/2012 11:19:41 AM PST by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective....)
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To: Idabilly

I contrast your state court ruling with a ruling of the supreme court of the United States, that of Texas v. White, which ruled that secession, as practiced by the states in the rebellion, was illegal.


178 posted on 01/01/2012 12:02:32 PM PST by donmeaker (e is trancendental)
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