“Amar, Akhil’s Constitution”
By Brian McCandliss
“Woe to you Scribes and
Pharisees—hypocrites!”
--Jesus, Matthew 23:29
Akhil Reed Amar, professor of Constitutional Law at
While Amar
does admit that the states were each sovereign nations unto themselves prior to ratifying the Constitution, he
claims that ratification ended their
sovereignty, “merging” them into one single nation-- much as one would merge
several corporations to form a single conglomerate. In his own words: “[T]he
We find Amar’s entire explanation of precisely how the Constitution expresss this intent, in the following passage:
In dramatic contrast to Article VII--whose unanimity rule that no state can
bind another confirms the sovereignty of each state prior to 1787 --Article V
does not permit a single state convention to modify the federal Constitution
for itself. Moreover, it makes clear that a state may be bound by a federal
constitutional amendment even if that state votes against the amendment in a
properly convened state convention. And this rule is flatly inconsistent with
the idea that states remain sovereign after joining the Constitution, even if
they were sovereign before joining it. Thus, ratification of the Constitution
itself marked the moment when previously sovereign states gave up their
sovereignty and legal independence. 2
Here, Amar
presumes that the states knowingly, willingly and voluntarily (and above all, permanently) surrendered themselves to a
national Union, in which they could be individually “bound” to the Constitution
by force-- rather than simply by voluntary agreement, which he freely
admits was the case under the 1781 Confederation. However, Amar
gives absolutely no evidence to support
this presumption. Certainly we find no expression of any state relinquishing
its sovereignty-- or authorizing coercive force against it— within the four corners of the Constitution
itself, or any pertinent document written prior to it. Indeed, the term
“nation” is never even once mentioned; rather, the
On the contrary, not only does the
Constitution (or any other document) nowhere
express this intent between the parties to it (i.e. the individual states), but
in fact implies the opposite intent, naming many limitations on federal powers--- all of which would be entirely
subjective and meaningless, without a state’s sovereign power to enforce them against a federal
majority. In short, a national
Constitution, would be no
Constitution.
Meanwhile numerous other documents emphatically express
that the Constitution strictly describes a voluntary
union, rather than a mandatory (i.e. national)
one. Primary among these was The Law of
Nations, in which Vattel explain that several nations can unite while still
remaining sovereign:
Finally,
several sovereign and independent states may unite themselves together by a
perpetual confederacy, without ceasing to be, each individually, a perfect
state. They will together constitute a federal republic: their joint
deliberations will not impair the sovereignty of each member, though they may,
in certain respects, put some restraint on the exercise of it, in virtue of
voluntary engagements. A person does not cease to be free and independent, when
he is obliged to fulfil engagements which he has
voluntarily contracted.3
Here we see,
that as with the Articles of Confederation before it, a Constitutional republic
does not require any state to
surrender its sovereignty to form “one nation.” Rather, here we see additional
precedent that the Constitution could easily provide the federal government
with additional powers to those delegated by the Articles of Confederation,
while still remaining 100% voluntary—as opposed relinquishing sovereignty of
the individual states; this would indeed be extreme indeed, defeating the
entire purpose of achieving it in the first place.
Additionally, each state, in being founded
upon democratic principles, was popularly
sovereign: i.e. its People (i.e. its popular majority of voters) was its ruling
power—not its government, or any other
elite body (as was the case with many other nations). Therefore, no state could
have properly relinquished its
sovereignty, without the express permission of its People. This point is key,
since the people of the states never authorized the Constitution, at all—and thus they could not have
authorized the relinquishment of their respective sovereignty.
On the contrary, the Philadelphia
Convention was only authorized by the People of each state, in order to modify the then-current Articles of Confederation—not
to replace them with an entirely new
document, or form a new union: however, the Constitution did both. Therefore,
even if the Framers of the Constitution
had intended for the Constitution to relinquish the sovereignties of the
several states, and converge them into one sovereign nation (which they didn’t, as we’ll see below), then this
would have been wholly null and void, by the simple lack of express intent by
the ruling sovereigns themselves: the
Peoples of the respective
states. For sovereign nations, by
definition, do not lose their
sovereignty by act of omission, i.e. simply by failing to expressly retain it in their political dealings
with other nations; rather, relinquishing national sovereignty requires a clear
and express statement that explicitly states both the relinquishment and the
details thereof. This is exemplified by the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783, whereby
His Brittanic Majesty acknowledges the said United States,
viz., New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence
Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware,
Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free
sovereign and independent states, that he treats with them as such, and for
himself, his heirs, and successors, relinquishes
all claims to the government, propriety, and territorial rights of the same and
every part thereof. [Emphasis added]
Without
such a requirement, any nation could
legally conquer a weaker one under the claim of “national authority--” and then
legally validate the claim, via the
catch-all that any pesky legal details were “settled on the battlefield.”
(Strangely, this exact same claim was not tolerated for Saddam Hussein when he
conquered the sovereign nation of
In addition to the Constitution itself
lacking any express intent to relinquish sovereignty, such intent is expressly denied in the various other documents written both
before and after the Constitution was ratified by the states. These will be
examined separately in pre-ratification and post-ratification documents, though
neither treatment is exhaustive.
Pre-ratification Documents:
Federalist
No. 39 is the most direct and detailed assurance of this to the people of each
state, holding that that “the act of the people, as forming so many independent
States, not as forming one aggregate nation, is obvious:”
But it was not sufficient," say the adversaries of the proposed
Constitution, "for the convention to adhere to the republican form. They
ought, with equal care, to have preserved the federal form, which
regards the Union as a Confederacy of sovereign states; instead of
which, they have framed a national government, which regards the Union
as a consolidation of the States." And it is asked by what
authority this bold and radical innovation was undertaken? The handle which has
been made of this objection requires that it should be examined with some
precision….
On examining the first relation, it appears, on one hand, that the Constitution
is to be founded on the assent and ratification of the people of America, given
by deputies elected for the special purpose; but, on the other, that this
assent and ratification is to be given by the people, not as individuals
composing one entire nation, but as composing the distinct and independent
States to which they respectively belong. It is to be the assent and
ratification of the several States, derived from the supreme authority in each
State, the authority of the people themselves. The act, therefore, establishing
the Constitution, will not be a national, but a federal act.
That it will be a federal and not a
national act, as these terms are understood by the objectors; the act of the
people, as forming so many independent States, not as forming one aggregate
nation, is obvious from this single consideration, that it is to result neither
from the decision of a majority of the people of the Union, nor from
that of a majority of the States. It must result from the unanimous
assent of the several States that are parties to it, differing no otherwise
from their ordinary assent than in its being expressed, not by the legislative
authority, but by that of the people themselves. Were the people regarded in
this transaction as forming one nation, the will of the majority of the whole
people of the United States would bind the minority, in the same manner as the
majority in each State must bind the minority; and the will of the majority
must be determined either by a comparison of the individual votes, or by
considering the will of the majority of the States as evidence of the will of a
majority of the people of the United States. Neither of these rules have been
adopted. Each State, in ratifying the Constitution, is considered as a
sovereign body, independent of all others, and only to be bound by its own
voluntary act. In this relation, then, the new Constitution will, if
established, be a federal, and not a national constitution.
Here, we see that the will of the
majority of the whole people of the
This-- in dire contrast to Amar’s validation of popular myths-- was the context in
which the Peoples of each individual state ratified the Constitution: i.e.
under the expressed intention that each state would retain its respective national sovereignty, and remain individually and popularly
sovereign thereafter.
While
Madison does express in Federalist No.
39, that the Constitution was indeed “partly federal and partly
national,” this was prefaced by the above—and afterward specified in the
context that “in the operation of these powers, it is national, not federal; in
the extent of them, again, it is federal, not national; and, finally, in the
authoritative mode of introducing amendments, it is neither wholly federal nor
wholly national.” However if the Constitution had indeed surrendered the national
sovereignty of the individual states, then it would be “wholly national,” in every sense other than
name-- thus making the federal government the final judge of its own powers;
and hence this “federal” nature and limitations would be thus wholly subject to
the whims of the federal policy-makers (as they are today).
Likewise explicit is Federalist No. 33, in which Alexander Hamilton undermines any
national context via the so-called “Supremacy Clause” in Article VI of the
Constitution, which many nationalists claim as “absolute proof” of such:
…it will not follow from this doctrine that acts of
the large society which are not pursuant to its constitutional powers,
but which are invasions of the residuary authorities of the smaller societies,
will become the supreme law of the land. These will be merely acts of
usurpation, and will deserve to be treated as such. Hence we perceive that the
clause which declares the supremacy of the laws of the
In other words, the People of each state retained the sovereign power to refuse to obey federal laws; for sovereign rule, by definition, is always absolute. Therefore, conversely, if the federal government (or People) was the sovereign, then it could not technically “usurp” powers, but would again simply be the sole and final judge of its own powers.
In conclusion, we see that the People of each state ratified the Constitution only with the express sovereign intention, that they would retain their sovereignty in the constitutional union, as before it. While, as mentioned in the Law of Nations, they may have delegated additional powers to the federal government to those allowed previously under the Articles of Confederation, there is no reason to believe that this would be any less voluntary among the individual states; again as stated in Law of Nations, such joint deliberations would not impair the sovereignty of each member, but only put some voluntary restraint on the exercise of it as agreed (also as under the Articles of Confederation).
Post-ratification Documents
Shortly after the Constitution was
ratified, Madison and Jefferson were particularly explicit in the 1799 Virginia Resolutions and 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, respectively, that
the states had each retained their national sovereignty under the Constitution.
While less persuasive, due to their timing, than pre-ratification documents,
they do provide testimony of the Founders and Framers (specifically the key
Framer, Madison) regarding the Constitution’s intended meaning.
In the latter document,
Resolved, That the several States
composing, the United States of America, are not united on the principle of
unlimited submission to their general government; but that, 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 — delegated
to that government certain definite powers, reserving, each State to itself,
the residuary mass of right to their own self-government; and that whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative,
void, and of no force: that to this compact each State acceded as a State, and
is an integral part, its co-States forming, as to itself, the other party: that
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; but
that, as in all other cases of compact among powers having no common judge,
each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of
the mode and measure of redress.
Once again, this literally defines each state as sovereign; for if the
Meanwhile in the Virginia Resolutions,
That
this Assembly doth explicitly and peremptorily declare, that it views the
powers of the federal government, as resulting from the compact, to which the
states are parties; as limited by the plain sense and intention of the
instrument constituting the compact; as no further valid that they are
authorized by the grants enumerated in that compact; and that in case of a
deliberate, palpable, and dangerous exercise of other powers, not granted by
the said compact, the states who are parties thereto, have the right, and are
in duty bound, to interpose for arresting the progress of the evil, and for
maintaining within their respective limits, the authorities, rights and
liberties appertaining to them.
It is indeed true that the term "states"
...means the people composing those political societies, in their highest
sovereign capacity....the Constitution was submitted to the "states"
in that sense the "states" ratified it; and in that sense of the term
"states," they are consequently parties to the compact from which the
powers of the federal government result.... The Constitution of the
Here
Unfortunately, this is the federal
policy under which we now live; and which was instituted by the regime-change
that occurred via the “Gettysburg Contest” as Amar
terms it—but which is more popularly known as “the American Civil War,“ in
which the federal officials deliberately killed 300,000 state-citizens who resisted its claims of national
authority over them, brutalizing the individual states and their 8 million
inhabitants (100 million in modern numbers) into submission, and suppressing
the truth through censorship in order to re-write history.
Pundits like Amar simply serve as shills and lackeys to continue this suppression, by lending their professional credentials to support and validate the federal government’s version of truth and history-- such as when he claims that “ratification of the Constitution itself marked the moment when previously sovereign states gave up their sovereignty and legal independence.” As we see above, this is utterly false: since the states never gave up their sovereignty (and in fact expressly retained it); however Amar’s claims lend credence to those of the current regime, through his cloak of neutrality—as well as his credentials, and related betrayal of professional ethics and public trust.
In order to repair the damage done to the Union—and restore liberty-- we must first correct the breaches in the truth; and Amar’s claim is the key falsehood in Constitutional law and history, which must be corrected before the remainder of the Constitution can be recognized and enforced.
In short, the individual states are sovereign nations, by law; meanwhile the
References
1.
Amar,
Akhil Reed.
2. The David C. Baur Lecture: "Abraham Lincoln And The American Union," by Akhil Reed Amar
3. Vattel, Emerich. The Law of Nations, Book I,§10. “Of states forming a federal republic.”