Our political divide, Part 1

No...it's a new contract, moving us from a confederation of separate sovereign states to a new republic federation, with its own sovereignty. The Senate represents the sovereignty of the States, with the House representing the sovereignty of the people, elected directly by the people (or the defined electorate at the time). The Senate was elected by the State Legislatures. The Senate went to state popular election about the same time as the Constitution adopted federal income taxes.

 

We disagree on one of those topics that justify war, and we are far from alone.

 

Sorry...don't understand what you are trying to say?

 

The US constitution is a treaty between sovereign States. It is not a contract between individuals. Our constitution does not obligate or empower individuals other than those in the roles enumerated.

 

Sorry, but it is not a "treaty" between sovereign states. Read the preamble..."We the People of the United States...". The Articles of Confederation better fits your definition. We no longer have a "confederation." We have a "federation," wherein the states, while retaining sovereignty, subordinate that sovereignty to the sovereignty of the federal government. This is the reason separate Constitutional Conventions were called in the states for ratification. If the Constitution had been "a treaty," the State legislatures could have ratified the Constitution on their own. They did not. They called together separate ratifying conventions, which debated and voted on the Constitution. It was those ratifying conventions - NOT the state legislatures - that brought the Constitution into being.

One objection to ratification (largely by a faction termed the "anti-federalists") was the lack of a "bill of rights," which roughly half of the states already had in their state constitutions. People such as Patrick Henry refused to support ratification without a federal bill of rights. The federalists ultimately agreed, with Madison writing most of it in the first new Congress, creating - with the first ten amendments - a federal bill of rights.

A good book on the subject of ratification is: "Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution 1787-1788," by Pauline Maier, Simon & Shuster, 2010.

 

No it is not, and neither was the Articles of Confederation.

So it's a contract between groups of individuals called states. What's the problem?

No. There is exactly one truly sovereign entity in the US, and that is the People as represented by a supermajority of states, which individually are more accurately labelled quasi-sovereign entities. The federal gov't is utterly devoid of sovereignty, being a vassal of the People.

 

I agree that ultimately sovereignty rests with the people. That was the great shift in political theory during the Enlightenment...moving "sovereignty" from monarchs to their subjects/citizens. But a republic is governance through representation. We delegate a part of that sovereignty to our legislature. That comes directly from the House and the congressional districts and in the Senate, via the States, to which we also delegate a part of that sovereignty to state elected representatives. The legislatures (State and Federal) make the laws on our behalf and we live in both a State and Nation under the "rule of law." Within that system, the individual retains sovereignty in the Bill of Rights...the first ten amendments to the Constitution.

 

Treaties are ratified, not contracts.

 

You're grasping at straws. The Constitution is not a treaty. The concept of a "social contract" dates to Locke and 17th century political philosophy, from which the concept of "sovereignty of the people" evolved. Do the research if you want to learn more...there are plenty of books on the subject. I've already given you the name of one of the best on the ratification of the American Constitution.

 

No We do not. We delegate legislative authority to the legislature. If Congress had any sovereignty at all, it would have, at a minimum, the unalienable right to life, when in fact the People have all the authority They need to abolish it.

 

That's fine...I won't quibble about what you want to call the delegation.

 

You think it's a trivial point, whereas in fact it's fundamental. If you can't understand that the federal gov't is the vassal of the People, you can't understand the Constitution.

 

Hmmm...for the people, by the people and of the people. I understand it....although I might not refer to "civil servants" as vassals.

 

You are quite mistaken. Our constitution is a treaty between the States.

 

You are quite mistaken. Our constitution is a treaty between the States.

 

Cite some sources for your opinion. You don't seem to grasp the difference between a "confederation" and "federation." I think you are missing the importance of using separate Constitutional Conventions for ratification, rather than just the State Legislatures for approval.

 

Our constitution is a treaty between the States. It was ratified by the States.
It's right there in the name - The United STATES of America.

 

It was ratified by "the people" in constitutional conventions called in each state. This was a major issue at the Constitutional Convention, held in Philadelphia. If it had been a "treaty," the State legislatures could have ratified it. Unless you want to bring forward other sources to support your theory, I doubt we'll get any where with this discussion.

 

Those gathered for the constitutional conventions were the States' representatives. They were not there representing themselves, as individuals. They signed that treaty between the States as representatives of their respective States. The States preexist the Federal Government. Our constitution defines the limits of the responsibilities and authority of a federal government established by the States. That treaty was ratified by the States, via the States representatives.

Our constitution is not a contract between individuals. The men who signed our constitution did so as representatives of their respective States. They did not sign our constitution as one would enjoin a contract obligating them as individuals to fulfill the contract, and they certainly did not sign a contract obligating individuals who did not sign the contract to fulfill its terms.

 

True...less Rhode Island, which declined to attend. But the original purpose of the Convention was to amend or modify the existing Articles of Confederation. Instead they threw the Articles out entirely and proposed a new Constitution. Those who signed the proposal agreed that neither the existing Continental Congress or the State Legislatures had the power to ratify and therefore called for ratification by separate conventions in each of the states.

IMO, there was a reason for this. Political power, at that point, was centered around the states. To those who had established their careers in conjunction with that orientation (which went back to the colonial assemblies under the British), a new federation threatened them. They became the "anti-federalists" and opposed ratification, which was actually a close vote in the conventions. Had the "founders" sent their proposal back to either the Continental Congress or the State Legislatures without the provision for the State Conventions, it's likely the Constitution wouldn't have been ratified. Instead, while they went through the Continental Congress and the State Legislatures, their appeal was to the "people" in State Conventions. And, it worked.

 

No. There was not a vote of the people. There was a vote of the States. It is not a contract between the people; it is a treaty between the States. We are not the united people; we are the United States.

By the way, Stone6, I started a thread on this topic, "Our political divide, Part 2", so as to not derail this thread.

 

The States abided by the vote of the people attending the State Conventions. I'll look at Part 2, but I encourage you to do more research and to cite your sources. You might start with looking at the dictionary definitions of "confederation" and "federation" and noting the differences. Also, there is a relatively new and comprehensive book by Michael J. Klarman, a Harvard Law professor in Constitutional Law, entitled "The Framers' Coup: The Making of the United States Constitution," Oxford University Press, 2016, that shows how radical a shift there was between the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

 

Read the Constitution itself. It is clearly a treaty between the States. The treaty established a federal government enumerates the limits of its responsibilities and authority. That's it.

 

Who taught you that? The Constitution is a pact between both the people and the states and the federal government. It is the "basic law" of the United States that gives federal law supremacy over state law.

 

Read it.