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To: rockrr

These were not “signing statements” as a president may do when signing a bill into law. They were strongly worded deliberate conditional ratifications authored by one of our most revered patriots, Patrick Henry.

The Constitution was freely entered by New York and Virginia, which would retain member state status, as long as certain conditions were upheld by the federal government. The conditional ratifications could have been rejected, but they were not.

You see, a president has no authority to amend a law in a signing statement. That was not the case with the conditional ratification, which captured the additional requirements needed for New York and Virginia to ratify the Constitution. BTW - the ratification documents had both immediate and ongoing requirements, and the immediate requirements were fulfilled.


281 posted on 07/16/2012 1:24:25 PM PDT by Triple (Socialism denies people the right to the fruits of their labor, and is as abhorrent as slavery)
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To: Triple
Sorry but that's not how it worked then, or how it works now.
Article VII - The Ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the Establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the Same.

The Constitution is silent on provisional or conditional ratifications. The ratification process was a Yea/Nay of the United States Constitution. You may recall that the process got held up because Massachusetts balked at accepting the Constitution as-is. They had conditions which were debated and formed the foundation for the Bill of Rights.

The vote to ratify was an "all-in" proposition.

284 posted on 07/16/2012 3:07:41 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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