Try reading it again, Mama. Madison clearly calls unilateral secession as Calhoun threatened then " violation, without cause, of a faith solemnly pledged" while at the same time supporting the right to revolution, or "seceding from intolerable oppression." The "confounding" part was refering to was Calhoun and the nullification faction from South Carolina. What is interesting is that in 1833, the South Carolina fire-eaters were seen so over the top in their disrespect for Republican government that they did not even have the support of their Deep South neighbors who had common economic and social concerns. It took a full generation of repeting a lie and "confounding" the difference between what the patriots of 1776 and what the Slaveocracy demanded before enough of the public was gulible enough and full of self destructive macho sectionalism to think they were actually walking in the steps of the founders when instead they trampled into the mud the very thing the founders fought for.
Of all the men Andy Jackson killed or threatened to, one can only wish he had followed through on his threat to hang John C. Calhoun from the nearest tree. That may have been the only single act that could have prevented the Civil War.
Do you know where I can find a copy of the Daniel Webster speech of which Madison spoke?
See the Hayne-Webster Debate
I've read the entire debate on Foot's Resolution...interesting (but long) :-)
I just came across this and wondered if you'd ever seen MR. MADISON'S REPORT OF 1799?
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This is the crux of the Constitution. In order to understand it, you have to know several points of law
The Founders, in order to protect our freedom, devised a very clever system.
The People were sovereign. That meant they could act if they wished, as long as they never did another human being physical or financial damage. To cement these rights further, they used natural law, or the horizontal laws of the Decalogue. Human beings are natural persons, and are subject to natural law. You can't murder, lie, cheat, steal or conspire to do so. This was also called common law.
The next type was civil law. Civil law still follows common law, but is more of a man made law interacting directly with the People. This is where legal 'persons' are created. State citizens are legal, civil 'persons'. States are created by civil law.
( When the Founders said 'citizen of the United States', they MEANT a citizen of one of the States. There was no such thing as a 'US Citizen')
Next comes the Federal government. Such wise men the Founders were! The federal government was created by statutory (state..get it?) law for a municipal government for the federal enclave and other Constitutionally enumerated areas, but NOT the entire country. It became a national government, but only where it was given the power to do so by the Constitution. Ten miles square meant just that!
This is what caused the major rift. Federal law began to encroach on civil law OUTSIDE the areas enumerated in the Constitution.
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The Alien and Sedition Acts were the main objection. Passed in 1798 declared that the publication of "any false, scandalous and malicious writing," was a high misdemeanor, punishable by fine and imprisonment
Needless to say, this assault on freedom and speech were not taken lightly.
Congress had apparently been poking it's nose over the line.
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Mr. Madison's Report was written in committee Dec., 1799 and presented to the General Assembly of Virginia, Jan. 7, 1800.
Now whether the phrases in question be construed to authorize every measure relating to the common defence and general welfare, as contended by some; or every measure only in which there might be an application of money, as suggested by the caution of others, the effect must substantially be the same, in destroying the import and force of the particular enumeration of powers, which follow these general phrases in the Constitution. For it is evident that there is not a single power whatever, which may not have some reference to the common defence, or the general welfare; nor a power of any magnitude which in its exercise does not involve or admit an application of money. The government therefore which possesses power in either one or other of these extents, is a government without the limitations formed by a particular enumeration of powers; and consequently the meaning and effect of this particular enumeration, is destroyed by the exposition given to these general phrases.
(Providing for the common defense and general welfare in the Constitution is a single power, not two separate powers.)
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Then it continues:
In the third place, whether the common law be admitted as of legal or of constitutional obligation, it would confer on the judicial department a discretion little short of a legislative power.
Madison's findings:
A discretion of this sort, has always been lamented as incongruous and dangerous, even in the colonial and State courts; although so much narrowed by positive provisions in the local codes on all the principal subjects embraced by the common law. Under the United States, where so few laws exist on those subjects, and where so great a lapse of time must happen before the vast chasm could be supplied, it is manifest that the power of the judges over the law would, in fact, erect them into legislators; and that for a long time, it would be impossible for the citizens to conjecture, either what was, or would be law.
(The Judicial power of the Constitution was intended as a court for the federal enclave and a mediator between the states. It never was intended to make *law* for the entire country.)
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From your post:
The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it,
Notice how Madison puts the people FIRST? We are created by nature, and superior to (most) man-made laws.
These are followed by the civil authority of the State.
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it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution;
Specified powers. ONLY those listed.
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it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers;
Directly on the people (federal enclave and enumerated places).
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and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States;
Proclaiming its supremacy DOESN'T mean it can exercise UNENUMERATED powers. It is still subject to the above limitation of specification and superiority of the States and the People who created it.