Please, I know Mike New. He is no more a "competent authority" than I am.
But the theory that some of our founders were in effect traitors, because they included the specific wording about treaties to intentionally frustrate the rights of the people protected in the remainder of the document, is an outrageous theory,
Nonsense. You cannot interpret Hamilton's choice of language as anything other than deliberate obfuscation.
After the Revolutionary War, the United States was broke. We needed to raise money; else we were sitting ducks for reconquest. The lenders (particularly the French) had terms for loans they would not make with the US under the Articles of Confederation. In that respect, the Constitution contains a checklist: We needed a uniform currency backed by gold. We needed a guarantee that any treaty agreements would be kept as negotiated. We needed national taxing authority. We needed a government capable of securing those loans by means of centralized authority. The Federal government was the answer to those demands. Those who negotiated the terms, including Hamilton, were probably doing so out of what they considered to be patriotism. What was arguably treasonous was that they never disclosed to the people the motive for the obvious snow job and TOTAL ABSENCE of debate on the treaty power during the Federal Convention, which I am certain would have blown the deal. Hence Henry's objection. Hence too, they did what they thought was "the right thing to do," with the kind of condescension typical of the elitists we see today.
BTW, virtually everything I just wrote was agreed to by a truly competent authority who agreed with the above assessment before I even wrote that article: Wayne Hage.
Whiffle ball anyone? George C. Detweiler wrote the article, not Mike New. Detweiler was Attorney General of Idaho. Not some Nevada rancher who got a raw deal from the fed.
Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying. I’m sure Hage was a fine man, and I totally agree that what happened to him should never have happened here. We have to fight to make sure that sort of thing stops. And all constructive solutions are welcome.
But holding Hage up as a paragon of constitutional interpretive skill? Not the most convincing move you could make.
Which of course give insight to why you’d buy into the sickest conspiracy theory I’ve ever seen on this forum, that the leading Founders of this country deliberately sabotaged the Constitution by planting a poison pill in the Supremacy Clause.
So I reiterate, read the Detweiler article, and get an alternative point of view on the clarity and purposeful structure of that clause:
http://mikenew.com/treaties.html