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To: Brass Lamp
Federal citizenship as you're imagining it was created by the Fourteenth Amendment to resolve the issue of it-not-actually-even-existing-prior-to-the-rump-ratification-of-the-Fourteenth-Amendment.

Not really. "Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of patriotism more than any appellation derived from local discriminations." - George Washington, 1796

The idea that we were citizens of the United States over citizens of a separate state existed long before the 14th Amendment.

Which theory contradicts the historical circumstance of individual states choosing for themselves whether they are part of the union or not.

With the exception of the original 13 states, the individual states decided nothing. They were admitted and only after the existing states said that they could joing. Why should leaving be any different?

235 posted on 01/20/2021 4:51:47 AM PST by DoodleDawg
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To: DoodleDawg

The Green Mountain Boys — the colonial militia of Vermont — seem to be the one group that got it right. They helped defeat the British at Ticonderoga ... and then 18 months later the Continental Congress was pushing Gen. Washington to take an army up there to suppress them. They had no interest in joining the U.S. and wanted to remain an independent state. That’s why Vermont was conspicuously absent among the original thirteen states.


239 posted on 01/20/2021 5:29:18 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("There's somebody new and he sure ain't no rodeo man.")
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To: DoodleDawg
With the exception of the original 13 states, the individual states decided nothing. They were admitted and only after the existing states said that they could joing. Why should leaving be any different?

Law isn't symmetrical nor does it rhyme like poetry. The powers of government are derived from the rights of individuals. They are comparable across their differing scales. If you want to know what powers a government has, look first to what powers its constituent citizens enjoy and scale that up. Can you imagine, as a private person, joining an organization which initially requires their consent to joint, but which then also requires their consent to quit? The Mafia, perhaps?

253 posted on 01/20/2021 7:48:53 AM PST by Brass Lamp
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