Letter to Constitutional Lawyer: Asking to organize Constitutional conference on Political Beliefs

[Skylar]

Its not my take. Its James Madison's and the Supreme Court's. And in terms of sovereignty, its immediately relevant. As we're not talking about a single sovereign. We're talking about dual sovereigns with concurrent jurisdiction. Its by far a more apt analogy. As it accurately describes the situation.

Every State shares sovereignty with the federal government. The reverse is not true. The Federal government holds territory of unique jurisdiction, over which no state has authority. And make no mistake: the Federal government is a sovereign. Its simply not the *only* sovereign.

As established by the Treaty of Paris, the states are sovereign. The federal is an organization created by them through a treaty for the purpose of exercising a small set of enumerated powers on their behalf. It is not sovereign but only gains its power by having it delegated by the states.

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government. A federal government that wields sovereign powers of its own and maintains concurrent jurisdiction over all State territory. And unique jurisdiction over exclusively federal territory.

It was James Madison himself that coined the term 'concurrent jurisdiction' when describing the relationship between the States and Federal government. And he's a damn good source on the topic. Better than either one of us.

In a contest between an individual state, the Judicial Power delegated to the Federal government grants its authority to interpret the constitution. With the 14th amendment granting the federal government authority to protect the rights of Federal citizens in any State. The Supremacy Clause puts the constitution as the Supreme Law in the United States. And the judicial power grants the judiciary to interpret that constitution.

The Several States have the authority to override that delegated federal authority. An individual state does not. Nor does any collection of States beneath the threshold of 3/4 necessary to amend the constitution.

Thus, short of an amendment, the Federal Judiciary is authoritative on the issues that arise under the Constitution. And can overturn State laws that violate individual privileges and immunities.

 

[Skylar]

Actually, they can. If your argument were valid than an individual citizen couldn't be imprisoned or fined by the State the people created. As the people are a parties to the compact that created the State as their agent.

But the State most definitely can weild the authority of the People and punish those who violate the people's laws.

Your folly is in equating A State with the Several States. They aren't the same nor carry the same authority. Anymore than a person is the same thing as 'The People'. The people collectively have more authority than an individual does. The Several States have authority that an individual State does not.

And the Several States can make any changes they wish to the Federal Government with the same threshold necessary to create the Federal government: 3/4.

Obviously, when the states established their compact, they set up a rule that, by agreement of 3/4 of them, it could be amended. This is known.

My point is that it is the states that are the principals and the federal government is their agent, created through their ratification of the constitution they wrote. It is ridiculous to think that the agent could possibly know more about the meaning of the agreement they made than they do themselves, as they are the authors of that agreement.

Again, the Several States can change the constitution to match whatever they feel it should be. But beneath the threshold of amendment, its the federal government's role to interpret the constitution and to hold the States to it. With the Bill of Rights applied to the States with the 14th amendment.

Thus, in any contest between a State and the Federal government on what the constitution is supposed to mean, the power delegated to the Federal goernment by the Several States trumps the authority of a single State. Even multiple States lack the authority of the Federal government in interpreting the Constitution.

Its only at the threshold of the amendment that the authority of the Several States exceeds that of the Federal government in terms of the meaning of the Constitution.

So to say only the federal government (the agent of the states) knows what the constitution means is ridiculous on its face.

Which might have some relevance if that was the argument being forwarded. Instead, its that the Several States at the threshold of 3/4 have the authority to override the federal government in its duty to interpret the constitution. But beneath that threshold, any individual state or group of states lacks such authority. And the Federal Government's duty to interpret the constitution is supreme.

It would be akin to recognizing that the judiciary of a State is delegated by the People of that State the authority to interpret the State's constitution. The State government, along with its judiciary are agents of people. Yet a lone individual couldn't override that State's judiciary. Even a group of people couldn't unless that group was of sufficient size. But when the People in sufficient number get together to amend that State's constitution, they override the authority that was delegated to that State's judiciary. And impose whatever they wish.

But to claim that the federal government lacks the authority to interpret the constitution over the interpretation of an individual state would be as ludicrous as claiming that the judiciary of a State lacked the authority to interpret the State's constitution over an individual person.

Obviously the State judiciary has such authority over an individual citizen. Obviously the federal judiciary has such authority over an individual state. And below the numbers sufficient to amend their respective constitutions, that authority would be supreme.

Yes and no Skylar
I would agree with you when it comes to SECULAR laws that people AGREE to submit to govt authority.
But with BELIEFS, no human being I know agrees to submit any such thing to govt or church or any authority
to decide for them. That runs against human nature.

'Beliefs' simply don't hold the hallowed and reverent status in our law that you believe they do. Religious convictions do.

A belief is merely a state of mind or a perspective. And the democratic process itself mandates that in virtually every situation the beliefs of all are not represented. Merely the beliefs of the relevant majority.

Universal consensus is neither necessary nor practically speaking, possible. A relevant majority is.

When people disagree, a relevant majority wins. Bound, of course by individual rights. And there is no recognized 'right' that prevents any application of law that contradicts someone's beliefs. There are rights that protect religious convictions, however.

 

[Centinel]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

A federal government that wields sovereign powers of its own and maintains concurrent jurisdiction over all State territory. And unique jurisdiction over exclusively federal territory.

While the several sovereign states may have delegated some legislative powers to their agent, granting it jurisdiction over certain areas, their agent is not sovereign. The states are sovereign, and their agent, the federal government, only has the jurisdiction granted to it by the states.

It was James Madison himself that coined the term 'concurrent jurisdiction' when describing the relationship between the States and Federal government. And he's a damn good source on the topic. Better than either one of us.

Clearly the states granted their agent, the federal government, jurisdiction over certain areas. So Madison was correct that both the states and their agent have areas over which each has jurisdiction.

In a contest between an individual state, the Judicial Power delegated to the Federal government grants its authority to interpret the constitution.

Can you cite any clause in the constitution that contains the word "interpret"?

With the 14th amendment granting the federal government authority to protect the rights of Federal citizens in any State. The Supremacy Clause puts the constitution as the Supreme Law in the United States. And the judicial power grants the judiciary to interpret that constitution.

The judicial power merely grants the power to judge cases between plaintiff and defendant.

The Several States have the authority to override that delegated federal authority. An individual state does not. Nor does any collection of States beneath the threshold of 3/4 necessary to amend the constitution.

Thus, short of an amendment, the Federal Judiciary is authoritative on the issues that arise under the Constitution. And can overturn State laws that violate individual privileges and immunities.

Going back to my original comment in this thread, nothing in the constitution grants any branch of the federal government the exclusive authority to declare the official meaning of the constitution.

 

[Skylar]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

A federal government that wields sovereign powers of its own and maintains concurrent jurisdiction over all State territory. And unique jurisdiction over exclusively federal territory.

While the several sovereign states may have delegated some legislative powers to their agent, granting it jurisdiction over certain areas, their agent is not sovereign. The states are sovereign, and their agent, the federal government, only has the jurisdiction granted to it by the states.

Of course the federal government is sovereign. Else how could it exercise unique authority over its own territory? Something no State can do. By nature of its exclusive jurisdiction, the Federal government would have to be a sovereign. As only a sovereign could wield jurisdiction and make the rules within that territory unilaterally. Remember, the Property clause includes no restrictions on the powers that Congress can wield within its Territories or other Property.

And of course, how could the Federal government exercise jurisdiction over all of territory of every State if it were not a Sovereign. There's a better argument to be made for the sovereignty of the Federal government than a State government after the ratification of the Constitution. As the Federal Government has territory in which it alone exercises authority. The States have none, sharing jurisdiction with the federal government on every square inch within their borders. And the idea of shared jurisdiction doesn't denote sovereignty. Yet this is all a State possesses.

You could argue that the Several States are the supreme authority, as they can override any power or action by the Federal government. And since the Several States held supreme authority, they were sovereign while the federal government was not.

But if you were to make such an argument, then you'd have to admit that an individual state isn't sovereign by the same logic. As they are subject to the Several States, who would act as the same sovereign over both an individual state and federal government.

So either both Federal government and a state government is sovereign. Or neither a state or federal government is. With the only sovereign being the 'Several States', working at 3/4s or higher. And if you made that argument then you'd have to admit that the individual states sacrificed their individual sovereignty when they ratified the constitution. With the 'Several States' now the only sovereign.

Which would obliterate your entire 'principle and agent' argument. As the 'principles' would no longer exist as unique sovereigns, having been subsumed into the 'Several States' with the ratification of the Constitution.

Leaving you with only one possible conclusion: the Federal AND a State government are sovereigns. Dual sovereigns with concurrent jurisdiction over the same territory: the territory of the State.

Can you cite any clause in the constitution that contains the word "interpret"?

Its part of the judicial power. The founders describe it in detail in Federalist paper 78.

The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. . . .

The Federalist #78

With judicial review part of our legal tradition before the ratification of the constitution and after.

 

[Centinel]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

A federal government that wields sovereign powers of its own and maintains concurrent jurisdiction over all State territory. And unique jurisdiction over exclusively federal territory.

While the several sovereign states may have delegated some legislative powers to their agent, granting it jurisdiction over certain areas, their agent is not sovereign. The states are sovereign, and their agent, the federal government, only has the jurisdiction granted to it by the states.

Of course the federal government is sovereign. Else how could it exercise unique authority over its own territory?

The states, in making their compact between themselves, gave their agent the ability to exercise legislative authority over these sorts of places:

"To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings"

The the states granted the federal government the authority to exercise authority over certain places.

Something no State can do. By nature of its exclusive jurisdiction, the Federal government would have to be a sovereign. As only a sovereign could wield jurisdiction and make the rules within that territory unilaterally.

The states only gave the federal government jurisdiction over DC and lands it purchases.

Remember, the Property clause includes no restrictions on the powers that Congress can wield within its Territories or other Property.

And of course, how could the Federal government exercise jurisdiction over all of territory of every State if it were not a Sovereign.

Because the sovereign states delegated it some degree of jurisdiction. It is not sovereign but merely a creation of the sovereign states.

There's a better argument to be made for the sovereignty of the Federal government than a State government after the ratification of the Constitution. As the Federal Government has territory in which it alone exercises authority. The States have none, sharing jurisdiction with the federal government on every square inch within their borders. And the idea of shared jurisdiction doesn't denote sovereignty. Yet this is all a State possesses.

You could argue that the Several States are the supreme authority, as they can override any power or action by the Federal government. And since the Several States held supreme authority, they were sovereign while the federal government was not.

But if you were to make such an argument, then you'd have to admit that an individual state isn't sovereign by the same logic. As they are subject to the Several States, who would act as the same sovereign over both an individual state and federal government.

So either both Federal government and a state government is sovereign. Or neither a state or federal government is. With the only sovereign being the 'Several States', working at 3/4s or higher. And if you made that argument then you'd have to admit that the individual states sacrificed their individual sovereignty when they ratified the constitution. With the 'Several States' now the only sovereign.

Which would obliterate your entire 'principle and agent' argument. As the 'principles' would no longer exist as unique sovereigns, having been subsumed into the 'Several States' with the ratification of the Constitution.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. The several states, through their treaty, created the federal government. The states are sovereign. The federal government derives its power solely from the states. It is not sovereign. It is merely a product of the compact established between the several states.

Leaving you with only one possible conclusion: the Federal AND a State government are sovereigns. Dual sovereigns with concurrent jurisdiction over the same territory: the territory of the State.

Can you cite any clause in the constitution that contains the word "interpret"?

Its part of the judicial power. The founders describe it in detail in Federalist paper 78.

The interpretation of the laws is the proper and peculiar province of the courts. A constitution is, in fact, and must be regarded by the judges, as a fundamental law. It therefore belongs to them to ascertain its meaning, as well as the meaning of any particular act proceeding from the legislative body. If there should happen to be an irreconcilable variance between the two, that which has the superior obligation and validity ought, of course, to be preferred; or, in other words, the Constitution ought to be preferred to the statute, the intention of the people to the intention of their agents. . . .

The Federalist #78

With judicial review part of our legal tradition before the ratification of the constitution and after.

So you can cite no language in the constitution, the compact between the several states, that contains the word "interpret". It is as I thought.

 

[Skylar]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

Its a compact that bound the States to the will of the Several States.

The states only gave the federal government jurisdiction over DC and lands it purchases.

Acknowledging my exact point. As DC, federal property and Territories are *exclusive* federal jurisdiction, in which the Federal Government is the supreme authority, making all the rules. Demonstrating that the federal government is indeed a sovereign. As it couldn't be the Supreme Authority in *any* territory if it weren't.

Exclusive jurisdiction over territory is something no State can claim. As they share jurisdiction with the Federal government. With the Federal government having jurisdiction over every square inch of State territory. While no State has any jurisdiction over Federal Property or Territories.

As I said, there's a stronger argument to be made for the Sovereignty of the Federal government than any State government. As no State has exclusive jurisdiction over any territory. Not one square inch.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. The several states, through their treaty, created the federal government. The states are sovereign.

The Several States through their compact bound themselves equally to the will of the Several States. It is the Several States that are the supreme authority in the US. If the Federal government isn't sovereign because it is subject to the authority of the Several States....then neither is any individual State.

You can't have it both ways.

Pick one. Either both the Federal government and an individual State are sovereign, or neither are. And if you argue that neither are.....then your argument that an individual state is sovereign implodes. As does your 'principle and agent' argument. As your principles were subsumed into the authority of the Several States.

Article V ends the unique sovereignty of any individual state. If the Several States agree....they can do pretty much anything they want to the States that don't agree. So the Federal Government and an Individual State are equally subject to the authority of the Several States. Whatever status you acknowledge in one, you must acknowledge in the other.

 

[Centinel]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

Its a compact that bound the States to the will of the Several States.

The states only gave the federal government jurisdiction over DC and lands it purchases.

Acknowledging my exact point. As DC, federal property and Territories are *exclusive* federal jurisdiction, in which the Federal Government is the supreme authority, making all the rules. Demonstrating that the federal government is indeed a sovereign. As it couldn't be the Supreme Authority in *any* territory if it weren't.

Exclusive jurisdiction over territory is something no State can claim. As they share jurisdiction with the Federal government. With the Federal government having jurisdiction over every square inch of State territory. While no State has any jurisdiction over Federal Property or Territories.

As I said, there's a stronger argument to be made for the Sovereignty of the Federal government than any State government. As no State has exclusive jurisdiction over any territory. Not one square inch.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. The several states, through their treaty, created the federal government. The states are sovereign.

The Several States through their compact bound themselves equally to the will of the Several States. It is the Several States that are the supreme authority in the US. If the Federal government isn't sovereign because it is subject to the authority of the Several States....then neither is any individual State.

You can't have it both ways.

Pick one. Either both the Federal government and an individual State are sovereign, or neither are. And if you argue that neither are.....then your argument that an individual state is sovereign implodes. As does your 'principle and agent' argument. As your principles were subsumed into the authority of the Several States.

Article V ends the unique sovereignty of any individual state. If the Several States agree....they can do pretty much anything they want to the States that don't agree. So the Federal Government and an Individual State are equally subject to the authority of the Several States. Whatever status you acknowledge in one, you must acknowledge in the other.

You are confusing jurisdiction with sovereignty. The sovereign states, when they formed their compact, delegated to their federal government certain powers. The exercise of these powers are within the jurisdiction of the federal government. The fact that it has been granted jurisdiction over certain areas doesn't make it sovereign. The states remain sovereign.

As far as one states versus the several states, I agree. Each of the individual states in the union must abide by the terms of the compact that the states established between themselves.

However, to return to my original point, it is the sovereign states who are the authority on what the constitution means, not their agent, the federal government. They are the authors of the document.

 

[Skylar]

And established through the Constitution and the 14th amendment that the Several States delegated much of their authority in a federal government.

They, through the treaty they established between themselves, delegated some limited set of powers to their creation, the federal government.

Its a compact that bound the States to the will of the Several States.

The states only gave the federal government jurisdiction over DC and lands it purchases.

Acknowledging my exact point. As DC, federal property and Territories are *exclusive* federal jurisdiction, in which the Federal Government is the supreme authority, making all the rules. Demonstrating that the federal government is indeed a sovereign. As it couldn't be the Supreme Authority in *any* territory if it weren't.

Exclusive jurisdiction over territory is something no State can claim. As they share jurisdiction with the Federal government. With the Federal government having jurisdiction over every square inch of State territory. While no State has any jurisdiction over Federal Property or Territories.

As I said, there's a stronger argument to be made for the Sovereignty of the Federal government than any State government. As no State has exclusive jurisdiction over any territory. Not one square inch.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. The several states, through their treaty, created the federal government. The states are sovereign.

The Several States through their compact bound themselves equally to the will of the Several States. It is the Several States that are the supreme authority in the US. If the Federal government isn't sovereign because it is subject to the authority of the Several States....then neither is any individual State.

You can't have it both ways.

Pick one. Either both the Federal government and an individual State are sovereign, or neither are. And if you argue that neither are.....then your argument that an individual state is sovereign implodes. As does your 'principle and agent' argument. As your principles were subsumed into the authority of the Several States.

Article V ends the unique sovereignty of any individual state. If the Several States agree....they can do pretty much anything they want to the States that don't agree. So the Federal Government and an Individual State are equally subject to the authority of the Several States. Whatever status you acknowledge in one, you must acknowledge in the other.

You are confusing jurisdiction with sovereignty.

Jurisdiction is merely the authority to apply law. I'm equating the authority to rule territory and set rules as sovereignty. And no State rules its own territory exclusively. It shares jurisdiction with the Federal government for every square inch of its territory.

The Federal government in contrast rules its territory uniquely and exclusively. Sharing neither jurisdiction with no one. Something it couldn't do if it wasn't a Sovereign.

The sovereign states, when they formed their compact, delegated to their federal government certain powers. The exercise of these powers are within the jurisdiction of the federal government. The fact that it has been granted jurisdiction over certain areas doesn't make it sovereign. The states remain sovereign.

Individual States do not remain sovereign by your own argument. Article V strips an individual state of its own sovereignty by placing it under the authority of the Several States. With any reference I make to 'the Several States' being a 3/4 majority of States.

If the federal government isn't a sovereign because it is subject to being override by the Several States...then an individual state isn't sovereign either. As it too is beholden in the exact same way. The constitution bound the states equally to the will of the Several States. An amendment by the Several States can strip any State of any power, any territory, anything at all. Even existence itself. There are no restrictions on amendments.

You can't have it both ways. Either the Federal government and the State governments are sovereigns as they exercise authority over their own territory....or neither are sovereign as both are subject to the authority of the Several States.

Pick an interpretation. As they're mutually exclusive.

However, to return to my original point, it is the sovereign states who are the authority on what the constitution means, not their agent, the federal government. They are the authors of the document.

It depends on what you mean by 'sovereign states'. If you're referring to any *individual* state, you're obviously wrong. As the Several States which you admit individual states are bound to has delegated the judicial power to the federal judiciary. With both the Supremacy clause and the 14th amendment demonstrating that an individual state is beholden to the Constitution.

A constitution that the Federal Judiciary interprets, as Federalist 78 makes ludicrously obvious. As does history....with judicial review being described by the Federalists as the check on legislative power. With the same judicial review preceding the constitution as part of our legal tradition and following the ratification of the constittuion as part of our caselaw.

If by 'sovereign states' you mean the Several State, the 3/4 majority, then of course. The Several States can override the federal judiciary on anything they wish. Even the existence of the Federal Judiciary is at the whim of the Several States. As is the existence of any individual State or State power.

So you'll need to get specific on what you mean by 'sovereign states'. Any individual State? Or the 3/4 majority of the Several States?

 

[Centinel]

Jurisdiction is merely the authority to apply law. I'm equating the authority to rule territory and set rules as sovereignty. And no State rules its own territory exclusively. It shares jurisdiction with the Federal government for every square inch of its territory.

The Federal government in contrast rules its territory uniquely and exclusively. Sharing neither jurisdiction with no one. Something it couldn't do if it wasn't a Sovereign.

But the ability to make rules in not sovereignty. The federal government can exercise certain powers because the sovereign states, in their treaty that created the federal government, granted it the authority to perform certain tasks. That is not sovereignty. That is agency.

Individual States do not remain sovereign by your own argument. Article V strips an individual state of its own sovereignty by placing it under the authority of the Several States. With any reference I make to 'the Several States' being a 3/4 majority of States.

If the federal government isn't a sovereign because it is subject to being override by the Several States...then an individual state isn't sovereign either. As it too is beholden in the exact same way. The constitution bound the states equally to the will of the Several States. An amendment by the Several States can strip any State of any power, any territory, anything at all. Even existence itself. There are no restrictions on amendments.

Article V, nor anything else in the constitution, strips any state of its sovereignty. Article V simply allows for 3/4 of the states to amend the treaty.

You can't have it both ways. Either the Federal government and the State governments are sovereigns as they exercise authority over their own territory....or neither are sovereign as both are subject to the authority of the Several States.

Pick an interpretation. As they're mutually exclusive.

Here's my interpretation: The states were sovereign prior the their ratification of their compact, and they remain sovereign. The federal government is a creature of the treaty established between the sovereign states. The treaty may be amended by 3/4 of the states in the union, but that in no way effects the sovereign status of each individual member state.

It depends on what you mean by 'sovereign states'. If you're referring to any *individual* state, you're obviously wrong. As the Several States which you admit individual states are bound to has delegated the judicial power to the federal judiciary. With both the Supremacy clause and the 14th amendment demonstrating that an individual state is beholden to the Constitution.

A constitution that the Federal Judiciary interprets, as Federalist 78 makes ludicrously obvious. As does history....with judicial review being described by the Federalists as the check on legislative power. With the same judicial review preceding the constitution as part of our legal tradition and following the ratification of the constittuion as part of our caselaw.

If by 'sovereign states' you mean the Several State, the 3/4 majority, then of course. The Several States can override the federal judiciary on anything they wish. Even the existence of the Federal Judiciary is at the whim of the Several States. As is the existence of any individual State or State power.

So you'll need to get specific on what you mean by 'sovereign states'. Any individual State? Or the 3/4 majority of the Several States?

I mean each individual sovereign state in the union knows what they agreed to when their delegates signed and their people ratified the constitution. Additionally, the constitution does not give the judiciary the power to declare the meaning of the constitution. It simply gives it the power to judge cases.

 

[Skylar]

Jurisdiction is merely the authority to apply law. I'm equating the authority to rule territory and set rules as sovereignty. And no State rules its own territory exclusively. It shares jurisdiction with the Federal government for every square inch of its territory.

The Federal government in contrast rules its territory uniquely and exclusively. Sharing neither jurisdiction with no one. Something it couldn't do if it wasn't a Sovereign.

But the ability to make rules in not sovereignty.

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

The federal government can exercise certain powers because the sovereign states, in their treaty that created the federal government, granted it the authority to perform certain tasks. That is not sovereignty. That is agency.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Article V, nor anything else in the constitution, strips any state of its sovereignty. Article V simply allows for 3/4 of the states to amend the treaty.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

Here's my interpretation: The states were sovereign prior the their ratification of their compact, and they remain sovereign.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

In your scenario, any individual citizen can unilaterally decide that a police officer or a judge have no authority over them. And that the citizen themselves is the sole arbiter of the law's meaning. That's not our system of laws. Nor ever has been.

I mean each individual sovereign state in the union knows what they agreed to when their delegates signed and their people ratified the constitution.Additionally, the constitution does not give the judiciary the power to declare the meaning of the constitution. It simply gives it the power to judge cases.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

 

[Centinel]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty. And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Again, the union is a compact made between sovereign states. Yes, each state that wishes to continue membership in the union must, of course, abide by the rules of the union, which they agreed to on entering. However, as a sovereign state, and with no prohibition in the treaty, if it came to it, any state could exit the union if membership became contrary to its state interests.

 

[Skylar]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

They would have had to give up their individual sovereignty to become part of the republic. As they are no longer the Supreme Authority. The Several States are.

Lets use your pattern and see if it holds up. The State is the agent of the people. The people are the principals and the State is their agent. The people cannot embue the State with sovereignty if the People do not at some point have sovereignty themselves. Per your logic, that means that the State can *never* impose any rule on any citizen as the citizen is a principal. And thus retain their status as sovereigns.

That's not how our system of law works. Or has ever worked.

The individual is not a sovereign. They are subject to the will of the relevant majority as a member of the State. And the State most definitely *can* apply rules and regulations created by the authority of the relevant majority. And impose those rules regardless of the desires of the individual. Though with individuals there are rights which limit State action.

With Article V, there are no limits. An amendment can do....anything.

The States *were* sovereign. But transformed themselves into a republic by common compact. And as a republic they are beholden to the will of the relevant majority. They are not sovereigns anymore than an individual is sovereign over the State in which they are a citizen.

Your 'principal/agent' dichotomy doesn't preserve sovereignty over the individual state. As the principal isn't the individual State. The principal is the Several States.The Several States are sovereign. The individual States are not.

Just as the State is the servant of the People. Not an individual person. Its the People that are the sovereigns. Not any one person.

Your argument is that it is the individual that is the sovereign. That the individual gets to decide what the Constitution means, what the law mean, everything. And that's simply not the case in our system of law.

Nor has it *ever* been.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty.

Of course it diminishes their sovereignty. They are no longer the Supreme authority in their own territory. But share it with the agent of the Several States to whom they are beholden. The Several States can strip an individual State of any power, any territory, and authority. They can disband the State if they wish. The Several States can do....anything. And the individual State cannot stop them.

Nor is there a square inch of territory that any State has exclusive jurisdiction over. They share all of their territory with the Agent of the Several States.

That's not sovereignty.

And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Nope. As when the States entered the compact they became equally bound to the will of the Several States. They remain bound until it is agreed by the same common compact that they no longer are. James Madison makes it very clear unilateral secession is no part of the Constitution. Nor ever was. Both during the ratification of the Constitution and after.

"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. "

This is the fundamental fallacy of your argument. You confound a single party with the parties to the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

They are not the same thing. An individual state is not the same thing as the Several States. Nor do they wield the same power. As the Father of the Constitution himself makes ludicrously clear. Madison takes it farther still in a letter to Daniel Webster on the same topic:

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The sovereignty is imbued in the people of the several states. The people of an individual state are not the People of the Sovereign States. The People mentioned in the constitution are the People of the Several States.

"The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism."

James Madison

The constitution must be exited by the same community it was entered into: the Several States. It cannot be exited unilaterally by a separate community anymore than you can unilaterally declare that your house is its own country.

You lack the authority to make that decision for the people of the State and Country you live in. Just as an individual State lacks the authority to declare its the territory it shares jurisdiction over with the Agent of the Several States is now the individual State's alone.

The Several States get a say. And given that the Constitution subordinates the will of an individual State to the will of the Several States, the Several States get THE say. And excercise that authority through their agent:

The Federal Government.

 

[Centinel]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

They would have had to give up their individual sovereignty to become part of the republic. As they are no longer the Supreme Authority. The Several States are.

Lets use your pattern and see if it holds up. The State is the agent of the people. The people are the principals and the State is their agent. The people cannot embue the State with sovereignty if the People do not at some point have sovereignty themselves. Per your logic, that means that the State can *never* impose any rule on any citizen as the citizen is a principal. And thus retain their status as sovereigns.

That's not how our system of law works. Or has ever worked.

The individual is not a sovereign. They are subject to the will of the relevant majority as a member of the State. And the State most definitely *can* apply rules and regulations created by the authority of the relevant majority. And impose those rules regardless of the desires of the individual. Though with individuals there are rights which limit State action.

With Article V, there are no limits. An amendment can do....anything.

The States *were* sovereign. But transformed themselves into a republic by common compact. And as a republic they are beholden to the will of the relevant majority. They are not sovereigns anymore than an individual is sovereign over the State in which they are a citizen.

Your 'principal/agent' dichotomy doesn't preserve sovereignty over the individual state. As the principal isn't the individual State. The principal is the Several States.The Several States are sovereign. The individual States are not.

Just as the State is the servant of the People. Not an individual person. Its the People that are the sovereigns. Not any one person.

Your argument is that it is the individual that is the sovereign. That the individual gets to decide what the Constitution means, what the law mean, everything. And that's simply not the case in our system of law.

Nor has it *ever* been.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty.

Of course it diminishes their sovereignty. They are no longer the Supreme authority in their own territory. But share it with the agent of the Several States to whom they are beholden. The Several States can strip an individual State of any power, any territory, and authority. They can disband the State if they wish. The Several States can do....anything. And the individual State cannot stop them.

Nor is there a square inch of territory that any State has exclusive jurisdiction over. They share all of their territory with the Agent of the Several States.

That's not sovereignty.

And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Nope. As when the States entered the compact they became equally bound to the will of the Several States. They remain bound until it is agreed by the same common compact that they no longer are. James Madison makes it very clear unilateral secession is no part of the Constitution. Nor ever was. Both during the ratification of the Constitution and after.

"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. "

This is the fundamental fallacy of your argument. You confound a single party with the parties to the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

They are not the same thing. An individual state is not the same thing as the Several States. Nor do they wield the same power. As the Father of the Constitution himself makes ludicrously clear. Madison takes it farther still in a letter to Daniel Webster on the same topic:

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The sovereignty is imbued in the people of the several states. The people of an individual state are not the People of the Sovereign States. The People mentioned in the constitution are the People of the Several States.

"The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism."

James Madison

The constitution must be exited by the same community it was entered into: the Several States. It cannot be exited unilaterally by a separate community anymore than you can unilaterally declare that your house is its own country.

You lack the authority to make that decision for the people of the State and Country you live in. Just as an individual State lacks the authority to declare its the territory it shares jurisdiction over with the Agent of the Several States is now the individual State's alone.

The Several States get a say. And given that the Constitution subordinates the will of an individual State to the will of the Several States, the Several States get THE say. And excercise that authority through their agent:

The Federal Government.

When a state enters into a treaty with other states, it does not relinquish its sovereignty. It simply agrees to be bound by certain rules as condition of remaining in the treaty.

Can you cite the language in the constitution that forbids any state from leaving?

 

[Skylar]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

They would have had to give up their individual sovereignty to become part of the republic. As they are no longer the Supreme Authority. The Several States are.

Lets use your pattern and see if it holds up. The State is the agent of the people. The people are the principals and the State is their agent. The people cannot embue the State with sovereignty if the People do not at some point have sovereignty themselves. Per your logic, that means that the State can *never* impose any rule on any citizen as the citizen is a principal. And thus retain their status as sovereigns.

That's not how our system of law works. Or has ever worked.

The individual is not a sovereign. They are subject to the will of the relevant majority as a member of the State. And the State most definitely *can* apply rules and regulations created by the authority of the relevant majority. And impose those rules regardless of the desires of the individual. Though with individuals there are rights which limit State action.

With Article V, there are no limits. An amendment can do....anything.

The States *were* sovereign. But transformed themselves into a republic by common compact. And as a republic they are beholden to the will of the relevant majority. They are not sovereigns anymore than an individual is sovereign over the State in which they are a citizen.

Your 'principal/agent' dichotomy doesn't preserve sovereignty over the individual state. As the principal isn't the individual State. The principal is the Several States.The Several States are sovereign. The individual States are not.

Just as the State is the servant of the People. Not an individual person. Its the People that are the sovereigns. Not any one person.

Your argument is that it is the individual that is the sovereign. That the individual gets to decide what the Constitution means, what the law mean, everything. And that's simply not the case in our system of law.

Nor has it *ever* been.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty.

Of course it diminishes their sovereignty. They are no longer the Supreme authority in their own territory. But share it with the agent of the Several States to whom they are beholden. The Several States can strip an individual State of any power, any territory, and authority. They can disband the State if they wish. The Several States can do....anything. And the individual State cannot stop them.

Nor is there a square inch of territory that any State has exclusive jurisdiction over. They share all of their territory with the Agent of the Several States.

That's not sovereignty.

And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Nope. As when the States entered the compact they became equally bound to the will of the Several States. They remain bound until it is agreed by the same common compact that they no longer are. James Madison makes it very clear unilateral secession is no part of the Constitution. Nor ever was. Both during the ratification of the Constitution and after.

"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. "

This is the fundamental fallacy of your argument. You confound a single party with the parties to the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

They are not the same thing. An individual state is not the same thing as the Several States. Nor do they wield the same power. As the Father of the Constitution himself makes ludicrously clear. Madison takes it farther still in a letter to Daniel Webster on the same topic:

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The sovereignty is imbued in the people of the several states. The people of an individual state are not the People of the Sovereign States. The People mentioned in the constitution are the People of the Several States.

"The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism."

James Madison

The constitution must be exited by the same community it was entered into: the Several States. It cannot be exited unilaterally by a separate community anymore than you can unilaterally declare that your house is its own country.

You lack the authority to make that decision for the people of the State and Country you live in. Just as an individual State lacks the authority to declare its the territory it shares jurisdiction over with the Agent of the Several States is now the individual State's alone.

The Several States get a say. And given that the Constitution subordinates the will of an individual State to the will of the Several States, the Several States get THE say. And excercise that authority through their agent:

The Federal Government.

When a state enters into a treaty with other states, it does not relinquish its sovereignty. It simply agrees to be bound by certain rules as condition of remaining in the treaty.

The constitution isn't a 'treaty'. Its a solemn compact that transformed the States from individual sovereigns into a republic. Not an agreement on the width of wagon axles across State lines.

Your 'principal-agent' assumptions simply don't work. As the People are the principals in the creation of a State in the exact manner that the Several States are principals in the creation of the United States. If your assumption that any individual State can unilaterally separate their territory from the United States, unilaterally interpret the Constitution as they see fit, and unilaterally ignore any amendment or statute that they don't like...

....then an individual citizen of a State would have the same authority to ignore any of the same created by the State of which they are a citizen. And could unilaterally declare any property they own to be their own country.

But this has never been the way our laws works. You are in error on who the principals are, and who they are agents for. The principal is not an individual State. Its the Several States. And the United States Federal government isn't the agent of any individual State. But of the Several States.

Just as the Principal in the creation of a State is not any individual person. But The People of that State, as expressed in a relevant majority. With the State judiciary, executive and legislatures being agents of The People. Not any individual person. And if an individual person violates the laws established through the will of The People, they are subject to enforcement, adjudication and punishment. The individuals are not sovereigns. The People are the sovereign. With individual citizens being subject to the will of the People. Though as mentioned before, the actions of the State are limited by rights. There are no such restrictions in the relationship of the Several States to the individual States

When your pattern and assumptions is applied in an explicitly analogous arrangement, it breaks. And it breaks because you're engaged in the very fallacy that the Oregon Militia engaged in, that the Sovereign Citizen movement is engaged in, that Madison himself warned and argued against:


The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. - James Madison


This is your fallacy. Your entire argument is predicated on the single party having the exact authority as the Parties to the Compact. And that's simply not the case. As Article V and the Supremacy Clause makes ludicrously clear. As an even passing appraisal of individual citizens as their relationship with the agent of the People, their State makes clear. And you've resolved none of these huge, theory killing holes in your argument. You've simply refrained from addressing them.

They yet remain.

Can you cite the language in the constitution that forbids any state from leaving?

The Preamble alone breaks your argument. As it defines the Principal engaged in the compact of the Constitution: we the People of the United States. The people of an individual State alone are not the 'People of the United States' anymore than the folks in your livingroom are the 'People' in your State in any legal sense.

Any changes to be made to this compact must be done by its Principal. And with the same threshold of the exercise of authority as created the compact. As Madison makes ridiculously clear. There's a reason you refuse to address Madison's argument on this topic. As he obliterates yours.

 

[12icer]

SO for your purpose you admit that the United States violated the Constitution, and committed an offense that was sufficient for redress by levying tariffs on the southern states and they were only wrong in their method of withdrawing from the Union before the Civil War. That being settled The Civil War then was the complete fault of the Union, and of the President. The consideration for the redress and the dissolution of the Union would have taken 2/3 of the states of the Union at the time, or the changing of the Constitution to allow unequal tariffs being levied on states would have taken the same? Is that your position? Very interesting position, it would require a state by state tariff inspection, and a complete reading of the levied tariff. as to the availability of the goods in all venues. I guess you have a good knowledge of all these facts., since I'm sure you feel the destruction of the southern states was justified, and the people killed were vile disgusting racist, not just people protecting their homes.

 

[Skylar]

SO for your purpose you admit that the United States violated the Constitution, and committed an offense that was sufficient for redress by levying tariffs on the southern states and they were only wrong in their method of withdrawing from the Union before the Civil War.

Nope.

That being settled The Civil War then was the complete fault of the Union, and of the President. The consideration for the redress and the dissolution of the Union would have taken 2/3 of the states of the Union at the time, or the changing of the Constitution to allow unequal tariffs being levied on states would have taken the same? Is that your position? Very interesting position, it would require a state by state tariff inspection, and a complete reading of the levied tariff. as to the availability of the goods in all venues. I guess you have a good knowledge of all these facts., since I'm sure you feel the destruction of the southern states was justified, and the people killed were vile disgusting racist, not just people protecting their homes.

I've expressed no position on anything you've posted.

Are you sure you're in the right thread?

 

[12icer]

I am giving an example of the idea you are promoting only, The collective vs the individual. If the collective has to treat ALL individuals equally according to one of the parts of the constitution you quoted, then it has to do it at all times to remain justified to exercise the power of the part involved, otherwise it is NOT following the agreement and voids the contract by default.

 

[Centinel]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

They would have had to give up their individual sovereignty to become part of the republic. As they are no longer the Supreme Authority. The Several States are.

Lets use your pattern and see if it holds up. The State is the agent of the people. The people are the principals and the State is their agent. The people cannot embue the State with sovereignty if the People do not at some point have sovereignty themselves. Per your logic, that means that the State can *never* impose any rule on any citizen as the citizen is a principal. And thus retain their status as sovereigns.

That's not how our system of law works. Or has ever worked.

The individual is not a sovereign. They are subject to the will of the relevant majority as a member of the State. And the State most definitely *can* apply rules and regulations created by the authority of the relevant majority. And impose those rules regardless of the desires of the individual. Though with individuals there are rights which limit State action.

With Article V, there are no limits. An amendment can do....anything.

The States *were* sovereign. But transformed themselves into a republic by common compact. And as a republic they are beholden to the will of the relevant majority. They are not sovereigns anymore than an individual is sovereign over the State in which they are a citizen.

Your 'principal/agent' dichotomy doesn't preserve sovereignty over the individual state. As the principal isn't the individual State. The principal is the Several States.The Several States are sovereign. The individual States are not.

Just as the State is the servant of the People. Not an individual person. Its the People that are the sovereigns. Not any one person.

Your argument is that it is the individual that is the sovereign. That the individual gets to decide what the Constitution means, what the law mean, everything. And that's simply not the case in our system of law.

Nor has it *ever* been.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty.

Of course it diminishes their sovereignty. They are no longer the Supreme authority in their own territory. But share it with the agent of the Several States to whom they are beholden. The Several States can strip an individual State of any power, any territory, and authority. They can disband the State if they wish. The Several States can do....anything. And the individual State cannot stop them.

Nor is there a square inch of territory that any State has exclusive jurisdiction over. They share all of their territory with the Agent of the Several States.

That's not sovereignty.

And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Nope. As when the States entered the compact they became equally bound to the will of the Several States. They remain bound until it is agreed by the same common compact that they no longer are. James Madison makes it very clear unilateral secession is no part of the Constitution. Nor ever was. Both during the ratification of the Constitution and after.

"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. "

This is the fundamental fallacy of your argument. You confound a single party with the parties to the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

They are not the same thing. An individual state is not the same thing as the Several States. Nor do they wield the same power. As the Father of the Constitution himself makes ludicrously clear. Madison takes it farther still in a letter to Daniel Webster on the same topic:

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The sovereignty is imbued in the people of the several states. The people of an individual state are not the People of the Sovereign States. The People mentioned in the constitution are the People of the Several States.

"The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism."

James Madison

The constitution must be exited by the same community it was entered into: the Several States. It cannot be exited unilaterally by a separate community anymore than you can unilaterally declare that your house is its own country.

You lack the authority to make that decision for the people of the State and Country you live in. Just as an individual State lacks the authority to declare its the territory it shares jurisdiction over with the Agent of the Several States is now the individual State's alone.

The Several States get a say. And given that the Constitution subordinates the will of an individual State to the will of the Several States, the Several States get THE say. And excercise that authority through their agent:

The Federal Government.

When a state enters into a treaty with other states, it does not relinquish its sovereignty. It simply agrees to be bound by certain rules as condition of remaining in the treaty.

The constitution isn't a 'treaty'. Its a solemn compact that transformed the States from individual sovereigns into a republic. Not an agreement on the width of wagon axles across State lines.

Your 'principal-agent' assumptions simply don't work. As the People are the principals in the creation of a State in the exact manner that the Several States are principals in the creation of the United States. If your assumption that any individual State can unilaterally separate their territory from the United States, unilaterally interpret the Constitution as they see fit, and unilaterally ignore any amendment or statute that they don't like...

....then an individual citizen of a State would have the same authority to ignore any of the same created by the State of which they are a citizen. And could unilaterally declare any property they own to be their own country.

But this has never been the way our laws works. You are in error on who the principals are, and who they are agents for. The principal is not an individual State. Its the Several States. And the United States Federal government isn't the agent of any individual State. But of the Several States.

Just as the Principal in the creation of a State is not any individual person. But The People of that State, as expressed in a relevant majority. With the State judiciary, executive and legislatures being agents of The People. Not any individual person. And if an individual person violates the laws established through the will of The People, they are subject to enforcement, adjudication and punishment. The individuals are not sovereigns. The People are the sovereign. With individual citizens being subject to the will of the People. Though as mentioned before, the actions of the State are limited by rights. There are no such restrictions in the relationship of the Several States to the individual States

When your pattern and assumptions is applied in an explicitly analogous arrangement, it breaks. And it breaks because you're engaged in the very fallacy that the Oregon Militia engaged in, that the Sovereign Citizen movement is engaged in, that Madison himself warned and argued against:


The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. - James Madison


This is your fallacy. Your entire argument is predicated on the single party having the exact authority as the Parties to the Compact. And that's simply not the case. As Article V and the Supremacy Clause makes ludicrously clear. As an even passing appraisal of individual citizens as their relationship with the agent of the People, their State makes clear. And you've resolved none of these huge, theory killing holes in your argument. You've simply refrained from addressing them.

They yet remain.

Can you cite the language in the constitution that forbids any state from leaving?

The Preamble alone breaks your argument. As it defines the Principal engaged in the compact of the Constitution: we the People of the United States. The people of an individual State alone are not the 'People of the United States' anymore than the folks in your livingroom are the 'People' in your State in any legal sense.

Any changes to be made to this compact must be done by its Principal. And with the same threshold of the exercise of authority as created the compact. As Madison makes ridiculously clear. There's a reason you refuse to address Madison's argument on this topic. As he obliterates yours.

Your analogy doesn't hold because I am not a sovereign state whereas each of the member states of the union is a sovereign state.

And you still haven't cited the language in the constitution that prohibits any of the states from unilaterally choosing to exit the unioni.

 

[Skylar]

Ruling territory and setting rules for it is sovereignty. The Federal government is answerable to no one but itself over its own territory. No state claims such territory, sets any rule for it, nor has any jurisdiction. The Federal government applies its own rules.

Which is the definition of sovereignty: supreme authority.

The States are subject to the authority of the Federal government over all State territory. While the Federal government is subject to the authority of no State in Federal territory and property.

Save that there's no restrictions to the rules that the Federal government can apply to its own territory. Look at the Property clause. No such restrictions exist. Congress can set rules and regulations on its own territory and property as it sees fit. Unilaterally without any input from anyone.

And while the Several States can override the federal government, the Federal government in dealing with a single State isn't dealing with the Several States. The Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment allow the Federal government to restrict any individual State actions that violate the constitution. With the Federal government delegated the authority to interpret the constitution as part of the judicial power.

The Federal government isn't an agent for any individual State. But of the the Several States.

So we're talking about two different relationships. The Federal government in relation to an individual State. And the Federal Government in relation to the Several States. And these relationships are quite distinct and profoundly different.

Remember, the individual States were bound through compact to the will of the Several States. The Federal Government is the agent of the Several States that any individual state is beholden to. And the Federal government has vast authority over an individual state by nature of the compact that bind the individual States. With the Supremacy Clause, the Judicial Power and the 14th amendment granting the agent of the Several States the ability to impose the constitution on any individual State.

This is again analogous to citizens within a State. An individual doesn't wield the power of the State government. But a relevant majority does. And this relevant majority establishes law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies to enact its will. These bodies have vast powers over individuals, but can be overridden by relevant majorities through specific legal procedures.

In this analogy, the individual citizen an individual state. The relevant majority is the Several States. And the law enforcement, legislative and judicial bodies are the Federal government. The relationship of the State government with a relevant majority is profoundly different than its relationship with an individual citizen. Similarly, the relationship of the Federal government is profoundly different with the Several States than its relationship with an individual State.

Of course it does. As the States *though* the Treaty are beholden to the will of the Several States. Whatever the Treaty says, an individual State is bound to it. See the Supremacy Clause.

And the Several States can make the Treaty say.....anything. There are no restrictions in Article V as to what amendments can or can't be made. The Several States can seize any power, any territory, do anything to any State. To use crass but thoroughly accurate parlance, if the law is whatever I say it is, and you have to follow the law....you're my bitch.

Not a sovereign.

An individual State is no more a sovereign by your reasoning than an individual citizen is. An individual State is beholden to the will of the Several States in a manner similar to the way an individual citizen is beholden to the will of a relevant majority. Save in the case of the individual there are rights that limit actions of the State.

Article V has no such restrictions. The Several States can do....anything. There is only one card that trumps amendment: Revolution.

But they're demonstrably not after the ratification of the Constitution, as being bound to the will of the Several States demonstrates. They don't even have exclusive jurisdiction over their own territory. They have to share it with the Federal government. The agent of the Several States.

The Federal Government at least has exclusive jurisdiction over its own territory.

The States were transformed from individual sovereigns to a voting entities in a republic. With the will of the relevant majority (3/4) binding any State to any decision. To claim that a State is an individual sovereign under such circumstances makes no more sense than insisting that an individual citizen is similarly sovereign within a State.

Neither the individual State nor the individual citizen would be. They would both be beholden to relevant majorities.

The judicial power is described by the founders as most definitely including the authority to interpret the constitution. This was not a mystery nor something 'sneaked in'. It was very much part of the debate with the Federalists making it very clear that that among the checks and balances. If the legislature passed a law that was contradicted the constitution, deference was given to the Supreme Law, the Constitution.

Interpreting the law is the role of a judiciary. And the constitution must be considered the supreme law. Which the Supreme Court interprets.

This is what judiciaries do. This is why they exist; to adjudicate. The idea that a judiciary can adjudicate a case about the constitutionality, but never rule against a law that was in violation of the Supreme Law is ludicrous. Of course they can. that's what they're supposed to do. And this was their role before and after the ratification of the Constitution.

Originally this authority was limited to federal laws. With the Several States unbound by the Bill of Rights. Which limited federal action exclusively. But with the 14th amendment, the States were included, bound by many of the same restrictions as the federal government. Well, eventually.

Prior to entering into their compact each of the states was sovereign. They never gave up this sovereignty, and each of them agreed to the terms of the treaty they established between themselves. The federal government only has the powers that the states granted it. While they have delegated to it certain powers, it is merely acting as their agent.

They would have had to give up their individual sovereignty to become part of the republic. As they are no longer the Supreme Authority. The Several States are.

Lets use your pattern and see if it holds up. The State is the agent of the people. The people are the principals and the State is their agent. The people cannot embue the State with sovereignty if the People do not at some point have sovereignty themselves. Per your logic, that means that the State can *never* impose any rule on any citizen as the citizen is a principal. And thus retain their status as sovereigns.

That's not how our system of law works. Or has ever worked.

The individual is not a sovereign. They are subject to the will of the relevant majority as a member of the State. And the State most definitely *can* apply rules and regulations created by the authority of the relevant majority. And impose those rules regardless of the desires of the individual. Though with individuals there are rights which limit State action.

With Article V, there are no limits. An amendment can do....anything.

The States *were* sovereign. But transformed themselves into a republic by common compact. And as a republic they are beholden to the will of the relevant majority. They are not sovereigns anymore than an individual is sovereign over the State in which they are a citizen.

Your 'principal/agent' dichotomy doesn't preserve sovereignty over the individual state. As the principal isn't the individual State. The principal is the Several States.The Several States are sovereign. The individual States are not.

Just as the State is the servant of the People. Not an individual person. Its the People that are the sovereigns. Not any one person.

Your argument is that it is the individual that is the sovereign. That the individual gets to decide what the Constitution means, what the law mean, everything. And that's simply not the case in our system of law.

Nor has it *ever* been.

Likewise, Pennsylvania is not sovereign over New York, nor vice versa. Each is a sovereign and equal state. The fact that they and others have entered into a voluntary treaty does not diminish either of their sovereignty.

Of course it diminishes their sovereignty. They are no longer the Supreme authority in their own territory. But share it with the agent of the Several States to whom they are beholden. The Several States can strip an individual State of any power, any territory, and authority. They can disband the State if they wish. The Several States can do....anything. And the individual State cannot stop them.

Nor is there a square inch of territory that any State has exclusive jurisdiction over. They share all of their territory with the Agent of the Several States.

That's not sovereignty.

And if 3/4 of the states were to change the rules of the treaty in a way that was unacceptable to, say, Pennsylvania, then there is no prohibition in the treaty against it leaving the union.

Nope. As when the States entered the compact they became equally bound to the will of the Several States. They remain bound until it is agreed by the same common compact that they no longer are. James Madison makes it very clear unilateral secession is no part of the Constitution. Nor ever was. Both during the ratification of the Constitution and after.

"The essential difference between a free Government and Governments not free, is that the former is founded in compact, the parties to which are mutually and equally bound by it. Neither of them therefore can have a greater fight to break off from the bargain, than the other or others have to hold them to it. And certainly there is nothing in the Virginia resolutions of –98, adverse to this principle, which is that of common sense and common justice. The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. The latter having made the compact may do what they will with it. The former as one only of the parties, owes fidelity to it, till released by consent, or absolved by an intolerable abuse of the power created. "

This is the fundamental fallacy of your argument. You confound a single party with the parties to the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

They are not the same thing. An individual state is not the same thing as the Several States. Nor do they wield the same power. As the Father of the Constitution himself makes ludicrously clear. Madison takes it farther still in a letter to Daniel Webster on the same topic:

The Constitution of the U.S. being established by a Competent authority, by that of the sovereign people of the several States who were the parties to it, it remains only to inquire what the Constitution is; and here it speaks for itself. It organizes a Government into the usual Legislative Executive & Judiciary Departments; invests it with specified powers, leaving others to the parties to the Constitution; it makes the Government like other Governments to operate directly on the people; places at its Command the needful Physical means of executing its powers; and finally proclaims its supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, over the Constitutions & laws of the States; the powers of the Government being exercised, as in other elective & responsible Governments, under the controul of its Constituents, the people & legislatures of the States, and subject to the Revolutionary Rights of the people in extreme cases.

It might have been added, that whilst the Constitution, therefore, is admitted to be in force, its operation, in every respect must be precisely the same, whether its authority be derived from that of the people, in the one or the other of the modes, in question; the authority being equally Competent in both; and that, without an annulment of the Constitution itself its supremacy must be submitted to.

The sovereignty is imbued in the people of the several states. The people of an individual state are not the People of the Sovereign States. The People mentioned in the constitution are the People of the Several States.

"The only distinctive effect, between the two modes of forming a Constitution by the authority of the people, is that if formed by them as imbodied into separate communities, as in the case of the Constitution of the U.S. a dissolution of the Constitutional Compact would replace them in the condition of separate communities, that being the Condition in which they entered into the compact; whereas if formed by the people as one community, acting as such by a numerical majority, a dissolution of the compact would reduce them to a state of nature, as so many individual persons. But whilst the Constitutional compact remains undissolved, it must be executed according to the forms and provisions specified in the compact. It must not be forgotten, that compact, express or implied is the vital principle of free Governments as contradistinguished from Governments not free; and that a revolt against this principle leaves no choice but between anarchy and despotism."

James Madison

The constitution must be exited by the same community it was entered into: the Several States. It cannot be exited unilaterally by a separate community anymore than you can unilaterally declare that your house is its own country.

You lack the authority to make that decision for the people of the State and Country you live in. Just as an individual State lacks the authority to declare its the territory it shares jurisdiction over with the Agent of the Several States is now the individual State's alone.

The Several States get a say. And given that the Constitution subordinates the will of an individual State to the will of the Several States, the Several States get THE say. And excercise that authority through their agent:

The Federal Government.

When a state enters into a treaty with other states, it does not relinquish its sovereignty. It simply agrees to be bound by certain rules as condition of remaining in the treaty.

The constitution isn't a 'treaty'. Its a solemn compact that transformed the States from individual sovereigns into a republic. Not an agreement on the width of wagon axles across State lines.

Your 'principal-agent' assumptions simply don't work. As the People are the principals in the creation of a State in the exact manner that the Several States are principals in the creation of the United States. If your assumption that any individual State can unilaterally separate their territory from the United States, unilaterally interpret the Constitution as they see fit, and unilaterally ignore any amendment or statute that they don't like...

....then an individual citizen of a State would have the same authority to ignore any of the same created by the State of which they are a citizen. And could unilaterally declare any property they own to be their own country.

But this has never been the way our laws works. You are in error on who the principals are, and who they are agents for. The principal is not an individual State. Its the Several States. And the United States Federal government isn't the agent of any individual State. But of the Several States.

Just as the Principal in the creation of a State is not any individual person. But The People of that State, as expressed in a relevant majority. With the State judiciary, executive and legislatures being agents of The People. Not any individual person. And if an individual person violates the laws established through the will of The People, they are subject to enforcement, adjudication and punishment. The individuals are not sovereigns. The People are the sovereign. With individual citizens being subject to the will of the People. Though as mentioned before, the actions of the State are limited by rights. There are no such restrictions in the relationship of the Several States to the individual States

When your pattern and assumptions is applied in an explicitly analogous arrangement, it breaks. And it breaks because you're engaged in the very fallacy that the Oregon Militia engaged in, that the Sovereign Citizen movement is engaged in, that Madison himself warned and argued against:


The fallacy which draws a different conclusion from them lies in confounding a single party, with the parties to the Constitutional compact of the United States. - James Madison


This is your fallacy. Your entire argument is predicated on the single party having the exact authority as the Parties to the Compact. And that's simply not the case. As Article V and the Supremacy Clause makes ludicrously clear. As an even passing appraisal of individual citizens as their relationship with the agent of the People, their State makes clear. And you've resolved none of these huge, theory killing holes in your argument. You've simply refrained from addressing them.

They yet remain.

Can you cite the language in the constitution that forbids any state from leaving?

The Preamble alone breaks your argument. As it defines the Principal engaged in the compact of the Constitution: we the People of the United States. The people of an individual State alone are not the 'People of the United States' anymore than the folks in your livingroom are the 'People' in your State in any legal sense.

Any changes to be made to this compact must be done by its Principal. And with the same threshold of the exercise of authority as created the compact. As Madison makes ridiculously clear. There's a reason you refuse to address Madison's argument on this topic. As he obliterates yours.

Your analogy doesn't hold because I am not a sovereign state whereas each of the member states of the union is a sovereign state.

My analogy is perfect as your entire argument is based on your conception of principal and agent. The *exact* relationship between the People and the State. Yet when we apply your assumptions of the Principal/Agent relationship to the People and the State......your conceptions break. If they were valid, they would work in either instance.

You're cherry picking your conception of the the Principal Agent relationship, applying it when convenient to your argument and ignoring it when it isn't. Just as you ignore James Madison who explicitly and repeatedly contradicts you. Whereas my conception of the Principal Agent relationship 1) Works in both instances perfectly 2) Matches the description of the relationship by the Founders, including James Madison. 3) Matches history.

Your argument breaks on James Madison. So you ignore him. It breaks on the People of the United States. So you ignore any mention of them. It breaks on the rulings of the Supreme Court. It breaks on history.

These are not minor failings.

And you still haven't cited the language in the constitution that prohibits any of the states from unilaterally choosing to exit the unioni.

Of course I have: the Preamble. It defines the Principal: the People of the United States. Which an individual state isn't.

You can't base your entire argument on the Principal/Agent relationship and then ignore the very conception of a Principal/Agent relationship. Your version of the Principal/Agent relationship is nonsense. It doesn't exist in our system of law. Its contradicted by application, consistent logic, and the Founders themselves. With James Madison not only destroying your argument, but doing so repeatedly, even citing the very fallacy you've fallen into:

Confounding a single party with the Constitutional Compact of the United States.

That's your fallacy. And the Father of the Constitution destroyed the entire argument generations ago.

 

[Skylar]

I am giving an example of the idea you are promoting only,

No, you told me that I've 'admitted' things I never mentioned, and brought up issues I've never addressed. And still haven't. The word 'tariff' didn't occur anywhere in my argument. Nor did I even mention the Civil War.

Are you sure you're not confusing me with someone else? Because your post reads like its pulled from the middle of a conversation that just isn't happening here.

The collective vs the individual.

And by 'collective', you mean The People of the United States? As in 'We the People of the United States'?

If the collective has to treat ALL individuals equally according to one of the parts of the constitution you quoted, then it has to do it at all times to remain justified to exercise the power of the part involved, otherwise it is NOT following the agreement and voids the contract by default.

Can you quote me saying any of that? Because you're kind of raising the Strawman Fallacy to an art form here. When did I say that the 'collective has to treat all individuals equally'?

As I recall claiming that the Several States can do anything they want to an 'individual state'. With no restrictions. Which is about as far as 'the collective has to treat all individuals equally' as you can get. The only 'equally' in my argument is that the Constitutional Compact binds individual States equally to the will of the Several States.

If we're going to have a conversation, its probably best that you respond to the arguments I'm actually making. Rather than whatever predigested rhetorical cud you were chewing before you got here.