As for your second part, where in the Constitution does it give the states the right to determine what is constitutional? It gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction on matters arising under the Constitution, not the states.
I believe this is the clause to which you are referring:
“New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the Jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the Junction of two or more States, or Parts of States, without the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.”
A few points:
1) What we see is “congressional approval required” for certain specific changes. If the Founders had wished, they could phrased the clause exactly as you did – “congressional approval [is] required for every change in a state's status.” They did not do so, probably because such a blanket authorization of congressional power would have caused some States to refuse to ratify.
2) Please note: “the Consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned” was required as well. The clause hardly describes the type of unlimited federal power implied by your statement.
3) Finally, please note the absence of any reference to secession. The Constitution would be established only upon the ‘formal withdrawal’ of nine States from the union formed under the Articles of Confederation – and the same convention that produced Article VII of the Constitution placed no limits on such withdrawal in Article IV.
Finally, an analogy: even though your approval is required before anyone may enter your home, allow me to suggest that such approval is hardly required before your guests may leave.
But that's OK because I never expected you to accept my argument anyway. Any more than I accept your arguement that the Constitution can forbid states from acting in any unilateral manner where the interests of other states might be affected, except for secession. That makes no sense at all.
I don’t believe I have ever made that argument, but let us consider it for a moment. Any State action apart from secession fails to change the State's “status” as one of the consensually united States. The State’s obligations remain those of a member of the union. When a State secedes, however, it is no longer a member of the union of States, and it is no longer bound by the terms of the compact uniting those States. In fact, it is a reasonable argument.
Which brings us back to my original point. I can no more prove to you that the Constitution forbids unilateral secession than you can prove to me that the Constitution allows it.
That may be true – but I, at least, do not have to base my argument upon vague implications. The Tenth Amendment says exactly what it says. And when I defend “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms,” for example, I will not have to contradict myself in the face of liberal arguments that the ‘general welfare’ clause ‘implies’ a government right to ban firearms ownership...
I am quite familiar with the Alien and Sedition Acts. And if the court never ruled on them it is because they were never brought before if. The court cannot issue rulings unless they do.
More to the point, apparently the court need not issue rulings unless it so desires. And the court at that time was composed entirely of the appointees of a single political party - the same party, naturally, that benefited from the unconstitutional legislation in question.
Are you suggesting that we should have an activist court, ruling on whatever strikes their fancy? It should issue advisory rulings on matters before they are voted on by congress? That would violate the separation of powers, wouldn't it?
Perhaps you should review my Post #231. The advocates of “an activist court” tend to support your side of the secession debate: given the lack of any prohibition of secession within the Constitution itself, they must perforce rely upon judicial ‘opinion’...
As for your second part, where in the Constitution does it give the states the right to determine what is constitutional? It gives the Supreme Court jurisdiction on matters arising under the Constitution, not the states.
Interesting choice of words, “under this Constitution,” don’t you agree? As for the States, they retained every power not granted or prohibited - and in the words of Mr. Justice Antonin Scalia:
”The Constitution of the United States nowhere says that the Supreme Court shall be the last word on what the Constitution means. Or that the Supreme Court shall have the authority to disregard statutes enacted by the congress of the United States on the ground that in its view they do not comport with the Constitution. It doesn't say that anywhere. We made it up.”
Perhaps you can take a few minutes and answer the questions posed by John Taylor in 1823:
“The word supreme is used twice in the constitution, once in reference to the superiority of the highest federal court over the inferior federal courts, and again in declaring ‘that the constitution, and laws made in pursuance thereof, shall be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby.’ Did it mean to create two supremacies, one in the court, and another in the constitution? Are they colateral, or is one superior to the other? Is the court supreme over the constitution, or the constitution supreme over the court? Are ‘the judges in every state’ to obey the articles of the union, or the construction of these articles by the supreme federal court?”
What say you?
;>)