Posted on 12/08/2009 9:35:50 AM PST by Loud Mime
What would be the principle(s) of your constitution?
Another good analogy! Marriage and commitment.....who would have thunk that Tiger would have given Bill Clinton amateur status?
I wrote at length about the 17th Amendment; it allows the judiciary to run wild without constitutional restraints. It’s the last chapter of my book, which FINALLY went to the publisher today! I’m breaking out the XO when it is done.
Care to share the Preface or Introduction?
Chapter page?
Liberty is the goal. We’ve secured that through the Constitution.
You’re getting your history mixed up. What existed before the ratification were thirteen united states. The document itself, the Declaration of Independence, reads,
“The Declaration of Independence
Action of Second Continental Congress,
July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America”
NB: lower case united, not the United States of America, our country. Each of them, as stated at the end of the Declaration, were free and independent states. They behaved that way for some time. The Constitution united us.
Let’s not throw out the Constitution because it’s been abused by forces who’d like it destroyed completely. It will be the very same document that saves us.
No, my history’s not mixed up, but yours is. I direct you to the Articles of Confederation, Article 1.
http://www.usconstitution.net/articles.html#Article1
The United States of America existed for several years BEFORE the Constitution.
No it didn't. It CONSOLIDATED the states under one supreme, complete national government. But we were already united. We were united in Congress against during the war years, and under the Articles in the years after that, up until the ratification of the Constitution.
Article III. The said States hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defense, the security of their liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other, against all force offered to, or attacks made upon them, or any of them, on account of religion, sovereignty, trade, or any other pretense whatever.
It would be funny, except you really believe it.
Why then the drive to have a Constitution? Conspiracy to enslave? It is absurd. The United States would not and could not have made it without the Constitution.
Are you a libertarian or a college student by chance?
Huck: 1
1010RD: 0
Just so we've got our bearings. It might make sense to get your facts straight before you start mocking anybody.
The United States would not and could not have made it without the Constitution.
No way to prove that, so it's a worthless statement.
Huh? After only six years, the US under the Articles were dissolving before the eyes of the world. That is why the states convened the 1787 convention. For example, when MA, RI and NH imposed restraints on British trade in the hope of exacting concessions from Parliament, Connecticut not only opened her ports to unrestricted trade with England, but went so far as to lay duties on imports from MA!
The purpose of the convention was the amend the articles, not to create an entire new system of government. Specifically, they were supposed to give to the Congress power to regulate commerce(power over duties and imposts--the states would cede this power), power to lay taxes and pay common debts.
But since they didn't amend the Articles, but rather created a new-fangled consolidated government, we'll never know what would have happened.
The articles might have been amended and things could have gone fine. The Constitution might have been rejected. They might have gone back to the drawing board and created a better new Constitution that what we got. No way of knowing. Pointless statement--unprovable.
BTW, were there any states without executive, legislative and judicial branches?
You are dealing with a know-it-all who wants to pretend in some conspiracy or that history didn’t happen or that the colonies were united in such a way that the European powers would not have eaten them up. Absurd.
As for the Constitution, it was NOT ratified in accordance with the Articles. The Articles stipulate:
nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a Congress of the United States, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every State.
The Constitution was ratified by state CONVENTIONS, not state legislatures. Anyone who has studied this stuff understands the difference. The framers used conventions to appeal directly to the people, not to the states. The PEOPLE ratified the Constitution, through the state conventions.
The reason for this was that unlike the Articles, which acted upon the states, the new system was a complete system, acting on the people directly.
So again, you're incorrect.
1010RD, man you are so right.
Check out the spittle/foam at post #74
See, this is why I stopped talking to you in the first place. Post 74 is entirely factual and correct. So you come back with mentally stunted ad hominem. You are a waste of time. A troll, really.
So the equivalent of state space aliens ratified the Constitution?
See, I am one of the few freepers with the patience to counter your silly BS.
Run. Don’t walk. ;-]
No, state conventions. If you read Madison's Notes on the Convention, you can follow the blow-by-blow when the method of ratification was being debated.
State legislatures entered into the Articles. But that was a league, a confederacy, so it rightly derived its authority from the state governments.
The Constitution, otoh, was a complete national government, acting on the states AND on the people. As such, it was argued that the states were not the competent authority to speak for the people.
Madison himself, according to his own notes, "considered the difference between a system founded on the legislatures only and one founded on the people to be the true difference between a league or treaty and a constitution."
Which is to say, the difference between a confederacy and a consolidated, complete government. So they decided to call for state conventions, with 9 needed to pass. For a while they had the number blank. It would take _______ number of states. They came back to it at the end.
Which is moot, because they ended up finally getting everyone. It's funny, really, that the Federalist and Anti-federalist papers were published in New York, leading up to its convention vote. They already had 9 states by then. But they wanted New York. It was close in the key big states--Massachusetts, New York and Virginia. But they ran the table.
Anyway, so the state conventions decided for each state. The convention was attended by delegates, chosen by the people. So, through the state convention, the people themselves, goes Madison's theory, authorize the government. They do so within their sovereign state capacity. This was part of his grand mixture of nationalism and federalism. I think Madison cared a lot more about that sort of thing than many of the other actors in this plot.
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