America was not born on July 4, 1776, at which time the Declaration of Independence of the “United Colonies” was only signed, not yet ratified by the individual states.
Nor was it born on March 1, 1781, the day the Articles of Confederation, under which the still-sovereign states had been governing themselves in the Continental Congress since 1777, became fully ratified.
Instead, America gave birth to itself over a period lasting from March 4, 1789-Dec. 15, 1791, the dates when the Constitution and the subsequent Bill of Rights became effective, in a process in which the individual states gave up the sovereignty of their individual selves to the People of the whole in the name of the common good.
America has been reborn again and again and again thanks to Article 5 of the Constitution, which allows for amendments and is bad news for reactionaries and historical revisionists masquerading as so-called “strict constructionists” since the existence of that provision destroys the very ground upon which they stand.
The sovereignty of individual state ended March 4, 1789. The argument for “states’ rights”, advanced by the slave-holding Confederacy and more recently by Chief Justice John Roberts and the right wing of SCOTUS in NFIB v. Sibellius (2012) as well as every power interested in preserving its ability to abuse the rights of the People of the United States within its reach is not an attempt to uphold the Constitution but to overthrow it.
That is the first lesson. The second is like it; do not judge the countries of North Africa and Western Asia which saw regimes change or begin to change during the Arab Spring by the standards of 21st century America but by the process that began in 1770.
Here endeth the lesson.
Chuck Hamilton
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Chuck, you are the typical liberal revisionist - you don’t want to teach history, you want to rewrite it. The Constitution amended the the Articles of Confederation. The States created a Federal Government, not a National Government , as an agent of the States. The Constitution limits the authority of the Federal Government and enumerates it’s powers. Any power not given to the Federal Government or prohibited to the States is reserved by the States or the people. (10th amendment).
“We Federated for foreign affairs only, all domestic affairs are left to the States or to the people” Thomas Jefferson
The States were forced to give up their sovereignty down the barrel of a gun (War for Southern Independence). The Constitutional Republic you write about ended with the 14th amendment (Reconstruction), it was never ratified and was never signed by Andrew Johnson. These United States were incorporated in 1871, creating the corporate entity The United States.
The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 (unconstitutional) gave up the power of Congress to issue our currency to a private group of central bankers making interest on our currency, creating an inflated dollar, not backed by gold and sliver. Several Presidents tried to stop Private Central Banking and paid the price with their lives. Lincoln and JFK issued interest free Currencies.
“I don’t care which puppet makes the laws as long as I control the currency”
Nathan Rothschild
The United States has been under Uniform Commercial Codes since 1934, the year the corporation bankrupted, not the Constitution.
Chuck, you need to go back to class at a private institution that teaches history the way it actually happened, not the way you wish it had happened.
Chuck Davis