"The several states composing the United States of America are not united on the principle of unlimited submission to their general government; but by a compact under the style and title of a Constitution for the United States, and of amendments thereto, they constituted a general government for special purposes [and] delegated to that government certain definite powers and whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of no force. To this compact each state acceded as a state, and is an integral party, its co-states forming, as to itself, the other party. The government created by this compact was not made the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself, since that would have made its discretion, and not the Constitution the measure of its powers."

Quote by:
   
Thomas Jefferson
(1743-1826), US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Source:
   
in his draft of the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which were written in response to an attempt by Congress to expand the criminal jurisdiction of the federal government through a set of laws entitled the "Alien and Sedition Laws."

I would suggest Mr Jefferson had it right. The States shared their power with the union, and are co-participants in the governing of the country. The created can never be greater than the creators.

Quote
I would suggest Mr Jefferson had it right. The States shared their power with the union, and are co-participants in the governing of the country. The created can never be greater than the creators.

Of course they can. That's how a bunch of German principalities joined together with Prussia to form the German Empire. And no one has ever argued that the states were not semi sovereign and co participants in governing the country. It's why we had the Senate - until progressives fu**ed that up. It's one of the reasons that Europeans have trouble understanding the US. Their provinces are nothing like - and have none of the power - vis a vis the central government - that US States have. But the states agreed that the Constitution would be the supreme law of the land. Having done so then the only way to change that law is via the methods set forth in the contract they all agreed to. No renegotiation jut because you had a one good season. 

Quote from: mdgiles on July 15, 2012, 10:07:49 AM
Of course they can. That's how a bunch of German principalities joined together with Prussia to form the German Empire. And no one has ever argued that the states were not semi sovereign and co participants in governing the country. It's why we had the Senate - until progressives fu**ed that up. It's one of the reasons that Europeans have trouble understanding the US. Their provinces are nothing like - and have none of the power - vis a vis the central government - that US States have. But the states agreed that the Constitution would be the supreme law of the land. Having done so then the only way to change that law is via the methods set forth in the contract they all agreed to. No renegotiation jut because you had a one good season. 

Sorry, MD, but we are not talking Prussian here. We are governed by the Constitution, a compact of the States that formed the union. If the States, meeting in convention, can create the union, those same States, meeting in Convention, can dissolve their participation in that union. That truism should be so obvious even a caveman should be able to grasp it.

When nine of the original States seceded from the Confederation, as governed by the Articles, did the original union cease to exist? As an exercise in thought, if only the original nine required for the creation of the new union had done so, would the four that had remained in the old union have been forced to join the new union?

As envisioned, the new Law of the Land only applied to federal laws created by the Congress.

Quote from: Shooterman on July 15, 2012, 10:28:07 AM
Sorry, MD, but we are not talking Prussian here. We are governed by the Constitution, a compact of the States that formed the union. If the States, meeting in convention, can create the union, those same States, meeting in Convention, can dissolve their participation in that union. That truism should be so obvious even a caveman should be able to grasp it.

When nine of the original States seceded from the Confederation, as governed by the Articles, did the original union cease to exist? As an exercise in thought, if only the original nine required for the creation of the new union had done so, would the four that had remained in the old union have been forced to join the new union?

As envisioned, the new Law of the Land only applied to federal laws created by the Congress.

You keep saying the created can't be greater than the created and I showed you a quick example of why you're wrong. In any case EXCEPT FOR THE INITIAL 13 STATES, THE REST OF THE STATES DIDN'T CREATE THE UNION - THEY JOINED IT. And they joined it under the conditions that were already in existence when they joined. You can make any argument you want for why Virginia for example could succeed, but that argument simple will not hold for Alabama or Texas.

Quote from: mdgiles on July 15, 2012, 12:06:26 PM
You keep saying the created can't be greater than the created and I showed you a quick example of why you're wrong. In any case EXCEPT FOR THE INITIAL 13 STATES, THE REST OF THE STATES DIDN'T CREATE THE UNION - THEY JOINED IT. And they joined it under the conditions that were already in existence when they joined. You can make any argument you want for why Virginia for example could succeed, but that argument simple will not hold for Alabama or Texas.

No one State is greater or lesser than another. If conditions apply for one, they apply for all.

Quote from: Shooterman on July 15, 2012, 12:12:04 PM
No one State is greater or lesser than another. If conditions apply for one, they apply for all.

Uh, Uh. you can't have it both ways. You can't base your arguments on the manner in which the compact was made to argue that it can be broken, while exempting those who joined the compact under entirely different circumstances of the states that first made the compact. It was only the compact that allowed those later states to enter as equals of the original states. In any case, the US is demonstrably greater than the 13 colonies that first created it.

Quote from: Shooterman on July 15, 2012, 10:28:07 AM
Sorry, MD, but we are not talking Prussian here. We are governed by the Constitution, a compact of the States that formed the union. If the States, meeting in convention, can create the union, those same States, meeting in Convention, can dissolve their participation in that union. That truism should be so obvious even a caveman should be able to grasp it.

When nine of the original States seceded from the Confederation, as governed by the Articles, did the original union cease to exist? As an exercise in thought, if only the original nine required for the creation of the new union had done so, would the four that had remained in the old union have been forced to join the new union?

As envisioned, the new Law of the Land only applied to federal laws created by the Congress.

Nothing you put up by Jefferson is going to go unchallenged by Giles! I've got a feeling he is still pissed off by that whole Sally Hemings thing...

-Dr Watt

Quote from: mdgiles on July 15, 2012, 12:40:31 PM
Uh, Uh. you can't have it both ways. You can't base your arguments on the manner in which the compact was made to argue that it can be broken, while exempting those who joined the compact under entirely different circumstances of the states that first made the compact. It was only the compact that allowed those later states to enter as equals of the original states.

You're the one trying to have it both ways. It was not only the other states voting to let a new state in, but the new states also, in convention, had to ratify the compact. No where does the Compact ( Constitution ) designate one state better or greater than another. By the way, the Tenth Amendment would negate that thought in any manner.

QuoteIn any case, the US is demonstrably greater than the 13 colonies that first created it.

Sorry, MD, wrong again. Colonies did not create the union. Sovereign and independent states created the union.

Speaking of Jefferson, does everyone remember when Clinton and Gore took a bus to Washington to be inaugurated?  They made a stop at Monticello.  In one of the rooms there, I think it's the room under the dome, there are busts of the Founding Fathers.  Gore pointed at one and asked the curator who it was.  The curator, rather astonished, said, "George Washington."

Quote from: Dr_Watt on July 15, 2012, 01:52:56 PM
Nothing you put up by Jefferson is going to go unchallenged by Giles! I've got a feeling he is still pissed off by that whole Sally Hemings thing...

-Dr Watt

No, actually I think Jefferson was a great man, I simply don't worship him as a Demigod. As I noted earlier, I think Washington was a much finer human being than Jefferson.

Quote from: Dr_Watt on July 15, 2012, 01:52:56 PM
Nothing you put up by Jefferson is going to go unchallenged by Giles! I've got a feeling he is still pissed off by that whole Sally Hemings thing...

-Dr Watt

I don't think so, Doc. I may be wrong and you may be right, but I look on MD as a contrarian much as I am.

Quote from: mdgiles on July 15, 2012, 03:11:22 PM
No, actually I think Jefferson was a great man, I simply don't worship him as a Demigod. As I noted earlier, I think Washington was a much finer human being than Jefferson.

Is that what you think I am doing, MD? Worshiping Jefferson as a demigod? Wow!

If I was to worship any Founder as a demigod, it would be George Mason, who did more for the Constitution and Bill of Rights than any of the others.

Quote from: Shooterman on July 15, 2012, 05:02:39 PM
Is that what you think I am doing, MD? Worshiping Jefferson as a demigod? Wow!

If I was to worship any Founder as a demigod, it would be George Mason, who did more for the Constitution and Bill of Rights than any of the others.

Without Washington to keep the continental Army together there is no Constitution. IMHO, you're falling into the Liberal trap of exulting the intellectual over the man of action. I would say the two mos important Founding Fathers are Washington the General and Franklin the diplomat. And when Washington walked into Congress simply resigned his commission and went home, it stunned the world.

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When King George III heard Washington would resign his commission to a powerless Congress, he told the painter Benjamin West: "If he does that, he will be the greatest man in the world."

http://www.gvsu.edu/hauenstein/george-washington-the-greatest-man-377.htm

QuoteAfter his defeat, while imprisoned on the Isle of Elba, Napoleon wrote: "They wanted me to be another Washington"

Quote from: mdgiles on July 16, 2012, 07:49:16 AM

IMHO, you're falling into the Liberal trap of exulting the intellectual over the man of action.

Doc just may be right.

QuoteI would say the two mos important Founding Fathers are Washington the General and Franklin the diplomat.

Franklin was a philosopher. He never put one thought to paper that passed as legislation or as a a founding within the Constitution.

Quote from: Shooterman on July 16, 2012, 09:40:47 AM
Doc just may right

Whatever. And I am not a contrarian - I'm simply right most of the time 

QuoteFranklin was a philosopher. He never put one thought to paper that passed as legislation or as a a founding within the Constitution.

As you prove my point, for some reason the men who actually made the Revolution successful: Washington, on the battlefield, and the way he used and surrendered power. And Franklin for his diplomacy that convinced the French to enter, against their own best interests (help rebels throw out a King) are shunted aside. Jefferson wasn't even in the country for the writing of the Constitution. Madison did that.