Whatever Happened to the Articles of Confederation? Part VII

Article V Blog ^ | January 30th 2017 | Rodney Dodsworth

[Jacquerie]

Subtitle: The Federalist No. 40

Recall from the Introduction to this series, Brent Dunklau, COS District Captain (HD 33 Texas), noted James Madison' seemingly contradictory stances in The Federalist No. 40. Is the Constitution an amended version of the Articles of Confederation (AC) or is it an unauthorized and radical departure? Brent regularly encounters this question, and it is one which Article V opponents use to delegitimize the Constitution.

James Madison opened No. 40 with a quick reference to No. 39, in which he distinguishes between national and federal systems. A national system is democratic. A majority of the people rule, and a majority may change the governing form. In a federal system, all the member republics must agree to amend the governing treaty articles.

In No. 40, Madison goes on to defend the process, the events that led to a new governing form. As opposed to the opinion of COS opponents, the controlling authority wasn’t congress; Madison wrote that the convention’s powers should be viewed through the state commissions issued to each delegate.

Since each commission adapted verbiage from either the Annapolis meeting of September 1786 or congress in February 1788, let’s examine their pertinent sections.

The Annapolis report recommended:

The appointment of Commissioners, to meet at Philadelphia on the second Monday in May next, to take into consideration the situation of the United States, to devise such further provisions as shall appear to them necessary to render the constitution of the Federal Government adequate to the exigencies of the Union; and to report such an Act for that purpose to the United States in Congress assembled, as when agreed to, by them, and afterwards confirmed by the Legislatures of every State, will effectually provide for the same.

[chiller]

I suspect it’s still percolating, but Trump has / will remove much of the necessity. It was assumed Hillary would continue Obama’s road to ruin.