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I think people like Dead and tpaine debate the Constitution from a "the United States is" point of view, not realizing that the Constitution was enacted at a "the United States are" period of time.

I don't think that they understand the complexity of the difference between the pre and post Civil War United States.

The United States are...pre Civil War.

The United States is...post Civil War.

At the time when the Constitution was adopted, the States were nearly independent nations...The United States are.

After the Civil War, we became an "is".

"Before the war, it was said "the United States are." Grammatically, it was spoken that way and thought of as a collection of independent states. And after the war, it was always "the United States is," as we say today without being self-conscious at all. And that sums up what the war accomplished. It made us an "is." -- Shelby Foote
"It was a point of grammatical concord which was at the bottom of the Civil War — "United States are," said one, "United States is," said another." -- quoted in Soldier and Scholar: Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve and the Civil War by Ward W. Briggs Jr. (1998), p. 22
There was a time a few years ago when the United States was spoken of in the plural number. Men said "the United States are" — "the United States have" — "the United States were." But the war changed all that. Along the line of fire from the Chesapeake to Sabine Pass was settled forever the question of grammar. Not Wells, or Green, or Lindley Murray decided it, but the sabers of Sheridan, the muskets of Sherman, the artillery of Grant. ... The surrender of Mr. Davis and Gen. Lee meant a transition from the plural to the singular. —The Washington Post, Apr. 24, 1887, p. 4

The States adopting the Federal Constitution were a Band of States entering into a Confederation, while the Civil war turned us into Banded States under a Federal Union.

The Banded States distrusted the Federal government, and set in place "restrictive clauses" the called a Bill of Rights, to avoid the power they granted to the newly-created General government from being misconstrued or abused. It's ludicrous to argue that they went into the Constitutional Convention to set in place limitations to their own State Constitutions via the adoption of a Federal Constitution.

Dead and paine want to argue that the original intent of the Constitution should be interpreted not viewed in the light of the times that it was written, but according to the changed geopolitical landscape created by the Civil War.

It's like they want to be strict constructionists while standing in the wrong period of time.