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To: Frumious Bandersnatch
You can't be "supreme" or "sovereign" and have powers and rights denied to you at the same time.

Mutatis mutandis, the federal government cannot be "sovereign" or "supreme" in your usage, as long as there is a Bill of Rights.

Look, we are down to quibbling about the meanings of words here. What I mean by "Sovereign" is the standard poly-sci and historical meaning. Before we rebelled against Britain, George III was the Sovereign, notwithstanding that he shared power with Parliament and his ministers in Commons. In America after the Revolution, the former colonies become States -- their poleis, their populi, Peoples -- were the Sovereign in each place. Reading Main on that point is clear: the People were Sovereign, and the Antifederalists were concerned that a delegation of too much power to the federal government would make it a National Government, and the Sovereign. Hence the reservations of power -- showing where the power came from in the first place -- and the codification of the reservation in the Bill of Rights.

900 posted on 06/04/2002 12:45:35 PM PDT by lentulusgracchus
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To: lentulusgracchus
You can't be "supreme" or "sovereign" and have powers and rights denied to you at the same time.

Mutatis mutandis, the federal government cannot be "sovereign" or "supreme" in your usage, as long as there is a Bill of Rights.


Please don't misquote me.  I indicated that the constitution was supreme, *not* the federal government.

Nothing in the 9th or 10th says that the constitution is not supreme.  The delegated powers to the federal government cannot be infringed by the states (the feds cannot infringe on the states either).
905 posted on 06/04/2002 1:09:17 PM PDT by Frumious Bandersnatch
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