Let me make this easier for you.
In Congress, July 4, 1776That's not the Constitution. It's the Declaration that created the US.The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events...
The Constitution created the republican form of government within which the states agreed to operate.
-PJ
“The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America”
You have got to be kidding.
“That’s not the Constitution. It’s the Declaration that created the US.”
One might say the Declaration created an independent American nation, but not the U.S., which did not exist until 1788. Go ahead and say we are “citizens” of the abstract union of various anglo-derived, North American states birthed in 1776. But you would be using the term metaphorically. One cannot be a citizen of a lowercase “u” union, rather only of an actually existing government.
There is room for argument over the continuity from the Continental Congress through the Articles of Confederation to the Constitution. Meaning there was a single nation of which to be a citizen, with slightly altered legal form. I’d argue the states are what was continuous, and the nation a ideal construct. Certainly there was no continuity between the AofC and the Constitution, since ratification of the latter violated the AofC’s amendment process.
“The Constitution created the republican form of government within which the states agreed to operate.”
Yes, and it is that form of government, namely the U.S., of which now we are citizens.