Irrepressible Ambiguity and Relative Sovereignty

What is your assessment of the sovereignty of individual states?

  • Each state has absolutely sovereignty

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Each state has relative sovereignty

    Votes: 9 90.0%
  • Each state has no sovereignty

    Votes: 1 10.0%

  • Total voters
    10
  • Poll closed .
Joined
Jan 10, 2009
Location
USA
Consider the following sources of possible ambiguity concerning the sovereignty of states.

1. The Declaration of Independence says that the colonies are, and ought to be, free and independent states. It says that they have the power to do all the things that independent states may rightfully do, including making wars and treaties. But they also say that the states are united. The meaning of this depends on the meanings of “united” and “independent” which are not defined.

2. The Paris treaty of 1783 was negotiated, signed, and ratified by representatives of the whole USA, not by individual states. But, it refers to the individual sates as “free, sovereign, and independent states.” It’s not clear what the treaty means by “sovereign” but it can’t mean absolute sovereignty. If the states were fully sovereign, the treaty would have needed 13 signatures, one from each state.

3. The Articles of Confederation says that the union shall be perpetual and unaltered, unless an alteration is confirmed by every state legislature. The constitution, later, says that it intends to form a more perfect union. But it doesn’t say that the union is perpetual and it doesn’t say that the states can’t secede.

4. The constitution says that “we, the people” are forming this union, not the states. It does not say that the states are sovereign or independent. Indeed, article I section 10 prohibits the states from assuming any of the major powers of sovereignty, such as making war, treaties, duties, or currency. Article VI says that the constitution and the laws of the USA are the supreme law of the land and that state judges are bound by it. It seems pretty clear that individual states are not supposed to run off in their own directions. But amendment 10 says that powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Which is a pretty big loophole.

5. It is often interesting, but inconclusive, to investigate the opinions of the founders of the nation. Not only do the founders differ with each other but, unfortunately, each of the major founders changed his own opinions over time. In particular, the founders that became presidents changed their opinions on many key issues.

6. Throughout history, the USA engaged in numerous wars and treaties. Individual states never did those things and USA sovereignty over the states was never seriously tested until 1861. There were a couple of close calls, which generated a wide spectrum of opinions, but they were never adjudicated. It’s not even easy to say how they should have been adjudicated.

It seems to me that there was no definitive way to resolve the issue, until amendment 14 came. Then again, I haven’t read the Texas v. White decision yet, so I may have missed something important. Do others here agree that the old legal question is basically a quagmire?

In any case, I am a died-in-the-wool anti-secessionist. In my intuitive sense of “natural law,” the right of basic individual liberty trumps any state’s right.
 
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