woodpusher:
"That is ridiculous. Being a little bit sovereign is like being a little bit pregnant. You either are or you ain't." Thanks for the civics lesson on the fine points of definitions between the words "sovereign" and "powers".
Near as I can tell, you have it exactly right: "we the people" are sovereign while state & Federal governments are delegated only such powers as we at pleasure decide.
Now if you will notice, please, the point of this discussion is the May 7, 1860 Senate floor speech of Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis where he asserts that states are sovereign but Federal government is not.
So you have corrected young Senator Davis by reminding us that neither state nor Federal governments are "sovereign" but both have only such powers as "we the people" may grant them.
Thanks for that. ![]()
Now if you will notice, please, the point of this discussion is the May 7, 1860 Senate floor speech of Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis where he asserts that states are sovereign but Federal government is not. So you have corrected young Senator Davis by reminding us that neither state nor Federal governments are "sovereign" but both have only such powers as "we the people" may grant them.
Please note that I responded not to the thread article, but to your post which inaccurately claimed "That's a false dichotomy -- in fact our Founders intended a blend allowing as much sovereignty to states as possible, while assuming only as much national leadership as necessary." I quoted that and underlined Founders for emphasis. The Founders of 1776 led directly to the Articles of Confederation which declared that each state retained its sovereignty and independence, and the Articles declared only a league of friendship. The Framers directly produced the Constitution. Prior the the Articles, Vermont seceded and became an independent state by successful revolution, as later confirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The constitutional government took effect after ratification by eleven (11) states, and George Washington was elected with ten (10) states participating in the vote. North Carolina remained outside the new union for about six months; Rhode Island for more than a year. New York did not participate in the election of George Washington.
The government of a State is distinct from the people of a State who form its political community. In this political sense, the people are the State and the State is the people of the State, or citizens of the State; the State is a juridical personality or moral person, analagous to a corporate person in the law. This political group performs acts of sovereignty, indirectly through their chosen delegates, doing such things as ratifying amendments or constitutions. In this restricted political sense, the collective people of a State are the State, and the State is a sovereign. The government of the State is just a creation of the people.
The actual purpose of the speech was to support his introduction of a set of resolutions.
Thirty-Sixth Congress, 1st Session.
May 7, 1860
. . .
[1937]
RELATIONS OF TIIE STATES.
The PRESIDING OFFICER, (Mr. Foot in the chair.) If there be no further petitions or reports from committees, the hour for the consideration of the special order being near, the Chair will take it to be the sense of the Senate to proceed to the consideration of that order at the present time.
The following resolutions are now before the Senate as the special order of the day, on which the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Davis] is entitled to the floor:
1. Resolved, That, in the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the States adopting the same acied severally as free ami independent sovereignties, delegating a portion of then powers to be exercised by tbo Federal Government tor the iIncreased security of each against dangers, domestic as well as foreign ; and that any intermeddling by any one or more States, or by a combination of their citizens, with the domestic institutions Of the others, on any pretext whatever, political, moral, or religious, with .a view to their disturbance or subversion, is in violation of the Constitution, in suiting to the States so interfered with, endangers their domestic peace and tranquillity—objects for which the Constitution was formed—and, by necessary consequence, tends to weaken and destroy the Union itself. 2. Resolved, That negro slavery, as it exists in fifteen States of this Union, composes an important portion of their domestic institutions, inherited from their ancestors, and existing at the adoption of the Constitution, by which it is recognized as constituting an important element in the apportionment of powers among the States; and that no change of opinion or feeling on the part of the non-slaveholding States of the Union, in relation to this institution, can justify them, or their citizens, in open or covert attacks thereon, with a view to its overthrow; and that all such attacks are in manifest violation of the mutual and solemn pledge to protect and defend each other, given by the States respectively on entering into the constitutional compact which formed the Union, and arc a manifest breach of faith, and a violation of the most solemn obligations.
3. Resolved, That the Union of these States rests on the equality of rights and privileges among its members; and that it is especially the duty of the Senate, which represents the States in their sovereign capacity, to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to persons or property in the Territories, which are the common possessions of the United States, so as to give advantages to the citizens of one State which are not equally assured to those of every other State.
4. Resolved, That neither Congress nor a Territorial Legislature, whether by direct legislation or legislation of an indirect and unfriendly character, possess power to annul or impair the constitutional right of any citizen of the United States to take his slave property into the common Territories, and there hold and enjoy the same while the territorial condition remains.
5. Resolved, That if experience should at any time prove that the judicial and executive authority do not possess means to insure adequate protection to constitutional rights in a Territory, and if the territorial government should tail or refuse to provide the necessary remedies for that purpose, it will be the duty of Congress to supply such deficiency.
6. Resolved, That, the inhabitants of a Territory of the United States, when they rightfully form a constitution to be admitted as a State into the Union, may then, for the first time, like the people of a State when forming a new constitution, decide for themselves whether slavery, as a domestic institution, shall be maintained or prohibited within their jurisdiction; and “they shall be received into the Union with or without slavery, as their constitution may prescribe at the time of their admission.”
7. Resolved, That the provision of the Constitution for the rendition of fugitives from service or labor, without the adoption of which the Union could not have been formed, and that the laws of 1793 and 1830, which were enacted to secure its execution, and the main features of which, being similar, bear the impress of nearly seventy years of sanction by the highest judicial authority, should be honestly and faithfully observed and maintained by all who enjoy the benefits of our compact of union; and that all acts of individuals or of State Legislatures to defeat the purpose or nullify the requirements of that provision, and the laws made in pursuance of it, are hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution, and revolutionary in their effect.