Then it is revolution or rebellion, and hence outside, perhaps even against, the Constitution. It's likely to result in war, since just who the People are is always open to debate.
You'll most likely argue that every state is a separate "People," and that nothing larger or smaller than a state is a "People." But once you break with the Constitution, as you do break with it to "determine your own fate" outside existing constitutional constraints, all bets are off, and everything from the smallest village to the largest ethnic group can declare itself a "People" with its own destiny and right to self-determination.
Or will you now join your compeer in insisting that there is a superordinating principle or entity that has the right and power to tell the People the limits of their freedom and authority? And that that entity has a name and a face?
Cher compère, I'm saying stay with the existing system for as long as you can and don't open up Pandora's box. One you do there's a world of pain. Not just from some higher authority, but from everyone else who wants to take up the same power that you've assumed for yourself.
Not really. The attendees of the Philadelphia Convention, of the ratification conventions in Virginia, New York, and elsewhere, and of the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1830 all understood who the People were, and that they were the People of their State.
That is the fundamental building-block of the American political and constitutional system.
Or do I have to quote Federalist 39 yet again, one more weary time?
But once you break with the Constitution, as you do break with it to "determine your own fate" outside existing constitutional constraints, all bets are off, and everything from the smallest village to the largest ethnic group can declare itself a "People" with its own destiny and right to self-determination.
No, only the States are Peoples. Cities aren't. Basic colonial and American history, again.
Your point about defending sovereignty is well-taken, and one of the arguments for the Constitution was security, and the security of freedom. I guess they just didn't install adequate safeguards against getting drygulched by a lawyer-president.
Which is basically what happened.
Lincoln put together a bogus lawyer's theory about the Union's predating, and therefore somehow superordinating the States, meaning that the Union -- the United States Government -- was the real Sovereign instead of the People, never mind the Conventions and the Federalist, and so it could tell the People what to do, and then he picked a fight he figured he could win, using his theory and the political wedge issue he "discovered" in 1854 to justify sending hordes of fresh immigrants south to burn out his marks.
Worked slick, except for Booth. Hazards of war, I guess.