Harold,

You have said it very well: there was then, and, indeed, often today,
are conflicting views. It was indeed that illustrious Virginian, John
Marshall, who had much to do with enunciating the idea that there was
one country, not 13 (and more) individual ones. But even he was not
always consistent.

And, no matter whether they voted as state delegations or as
individuals, it was never the less the Continental Congress which
declared independence, not the thirteen now former colonies. Indeed, the
colonies were always more independent of each other than the new states
ever were.

Take care,

Bob

Judy and Bob Huddleston
10643 Sperry Street
Northglenn, CO  80234-3612
303.451.6276   [log in to unmask]



To Bob and All,

  I see where you are going with this argument and I agree with much of
the trajectory, but...
  This question of the nature of the states has to be discussed with
precise specificity as to time.  The US is not a single regime but a
series of at least three;  one might argue four, with one commencing
after Appomattox.  The first regime, that which declared independence,
was the regime under the Second Continental Congress.  It is important
to remember that independence was declared by a UNANIMOUS vote of state
delegations to that Congress.  If the Continental Congress indeed was
sovereign, it exercised its sovereignty in a peculiar manner.  It
proposed to consider independence, but adopted rules that would have
allowed Rhode Island or Georgia to veto it.
  The second regime was under the Articles of Confederation (1781-
1788).  Under that constitution, the states were declared to be
sovereign.  Jean Boudin and subsequent thinkers on the meaning of
sovereignty were in agreement that sovereignty could not be divided
because it was a kind of supremacy.  If the states were sovereign than
they were independent, choosing only to ally through a national
government.  One might say that in the 1780s we were the united States,
while under the Constitution we became the United States.
  Clearly, by omission and the monumental supremacy clause in Article VI
on the Constitution, union under our present higher law is very
different than anything that proceeded it.  Interestingly, it was
Virginian John Marshall, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1801-
1836) who defended national supremacy and state subordination against
all comers:  New Englanders as well as Southerners.
  In one of the Fairfax land claims cases, can't recall the name but it
was decided in 1813, Marshall laid out that Virginia had been free to
seize British owned land in 1776, as it was sovereign, but since this
seizure had not been "completed" before the 1790s, such action was now
blocked by the Constitution itself and by Jay's Treaty, which guaranteed
British property rights.

Harold

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