The Vague and Ambiguous US Constitution

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
The constitutional illegitimacy of the second constitution, along with its vagueness and ambiguity, probably was a major contributor to why the Civil War happened. It's harder to imagine a Civil War if the Articles had remained in place. The main difference with the Articles is that it was absolutely clear in its meaning and intentions. It's one thing to revise it so that to improve upon it in its clarity, maybe even about issues of decision-making. But to replace it with a document that could mean almost anything to anyone simply opened the government to corruption and conflict.
I can imagine endless Balkan type wars without the Constitution. Slavery, in general, dies in wars, civil wars, rebellions or wars of liberation, rarely peacefully by imperial decree like the British Carribean. Again, the Constitution worked, the AOC wasn't and what-ifs are incredibly slippery.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
For example, Jefferson never could have done the Louisiana Purchase under the Articles. Or consider the Alien and Sedition Acts. It was the overreaching of executive power that began almost from the moment the Constitution was signed. And it is what has plagued the country ever since. This set the stage for the war powers that Lincoln and many other presidents have used since. This is exactly what the Articles was designed to prevent, in the hope of creating a new experiment different than the British Empire, as opposed to simply founding a new empire.
The alternative is 13 maritime States huddling on the Atlantic coast.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
Many European countries, from the Nordic to the Mediterranean, have managed to remain small while maintaining sovereignty. They've done so through alliances and unions, not by giving up most of their power and freedom of self-governance to an imperial-like central government. They were no worse off than the big countries over the past centuries. There is nothing slippery about acknowledging what history has proven to work, at least work as well as any alternative.
A list of such countries to discuss would be nice. Lots of former small countries are now part of France, Germany, Poland and Russia.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
I just don't get the claim of the Articles being a failure. They weren't a failure on their own basis. The Confederation succeeded in what it set out to achieve. The former colonies had become separate nation-states and they were doing just fine. Because of a distant imperial government, they had been left to their own devices since the beginning of the colonial era. They had always been mostly autonomous in their self-governance. The reason why they assumed they could successfully self-govern is because they already had been doing so. Their conviction was based on what they knew. None of this should be surprising. Most governments, since the beginning of civilization, have been quite small compared to the later empires. Even today, most countries are smaller than the largest states in the United States. Are the critics of the Articles to conclude that almost every government in present and past existence has been a failure because of not having massive territories with imperialist or authoritarian centralized governments and highly unequal social hierarchies with ruling elites holding concentrated land, wealth and power?

That seems absurd to me. But that is what makes me an Anti-Federalist. And like other Anti-Federalists, I'm not an anti-nationalist, much less an anarchist. I simply go by the known history of most countries now being and always having been small nation-states or city-states. Why do so many Americans who have grown up in the American Empire have a hard time imagining anything other than imperialism? It closes down the imagination, even from recognizing all the present examples to the contrary. This is what some have called ideological realism or what others have referred to as TINA (There Is No Alternative). It is the rhetorical shutting down of imagination, such that people can't even recognize what exists around them. The early American nation-states failed because they had to fail, according to Federalist rhetoric. It's an entirely self-contained belief system, a hermetically-sealed reality tunnel. There could have been no other possibility or outcome, in this constrained imagination.

That is why it took an Anti-Federalist like Thomas Paine to invoke radical imagination. For those trapped in ideological realism, they couldn't imagine anything other than being ruled by the British Empire, as some now still can't imagine anything other than a variant of the same imperialist impulse. So, if not for the crazy radicals dreaming what some claim was impossible, those alternative possibilities could never become a reality and there would never have been a revolution in the first place for the argument to continue on into the Civil War and now into the present. If the Articles was obviously a failure, someone needs to tell all those small countries around the world that they are logically impossible and need to immediately stop existing. They are defying the laws of reality! How dare they! Some empire should teach them a lesson about how the real world 'works'. That is frustrating for those of us who hope for a better world, not simply a slight improvement on more of the same. Everything in all of existence was impossible until someone did it. Civilization itself was once impossible. Heck, taming fire to cook food was impossible and downright unimaginable for most of primate evolution.
As an effective government, it was such a failure that a handful of revolutionaries toppled it without anyone caring enough to fight. In fact, no one cared to attend Congress meeting the last 6 months of its existence.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
It wasn't intended as an effective national government. That is what the states were, as that is why they were called states. Otherwise, they would have referred to the federal government as the state. National governance, as with most countries in world history, was intended at the state level.

But it is true that empires are highly effective in toppling republics. No one is arguing against that, not even the Anti-Federalists. Still, that isn't any reason to give up on fighting for one's freedom and liberty. Eternal vigilance and all that. The alternative is much worse, though.
One of the interesting aspects of the Constitution was liberty for people from tyranny. States rights by their very nature imply tyranny from local tyrants. Nothing about States rights imply individual rights. In fact in the time of Southern States Rights, anyone opposing the planter class or slavery was in danger of his life and under Southern States Rights, slavery was protected.

There is nothing about States Rights that has States opposing Federal power in defense of their general citizens and a lot of examples of States opposing Federal power in order to protect local tyranny.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
Many ultra-nationalists and imperialists declare my side won, my side gained control of the government in the constitutional crisis, my side defeated the Confederacy. The implication being that, since my side won, I am proven right. But that is simply the cynical pragmatism and utilitarianism of realpolitik or social Darwinism.

Sure, large powerful governments have often won greater power, control and territory. That is how they got so large in the first place. Then again, many small countries have maintained themselves over centuries. It's just the small countries don't dominate public debate on the global stage, as they don't attempt to control the world. Yet these small countries are the majority, even if a largely silenced majority.



I guess you weren't reading my comments then. The American colonies had already been effectively self-governing for most of the colonial era. Other smaller city-states and nation-states have effectively self-governed throughout history. In fact, most countries today still are small. You are surrounded by alternatives and don't have the eyes to see.

It was the alternatives that inspired the American revolutionaries. The Basque republic, the oldest European population, maintained their sovereignty for millennia. That is longer than most large nation-states and empires. And its example was key to the argument even Federalists made for why republicanism was possible, despite critics claim that it would fail. The US may have failed as a democracy, but as a republic it is still here. Republicanism was as unimaginable back then as democracy still is now for many

Yet the self-proclaimed ideological realists and pragmatists back then were wrong. Most countries have since then become republics, a once rare form of government that now is the norm. All because some radicals imagined it into existence.



Sure. But what does that prove? The argument can be reversed with equal truth and force:

There is nothing about Federal power that has the Federal government opposing state power in defense of their general citizens and a lot of examples of Federal government opposing state power in order to protect national and imperial tyranny. That is why the Anti-Federalist argument never fundamentally was about the superficial aspects of government such as being limited to an argument merely over size. It was more of an issue about what kind of governance.

That is why Thomas Paine was as much a liberal progressive and social democrat as he was a libertarian. It was about balance, but balance based on hard-fought principle and hard-earned experience. The colonists knew that they had greater freedom under the early colonial self-governance than they had when the British Empire got heavy-handed in its control later on. It wasn't that self-governance was perfect. But when local government failed, the local ruling elite could be held accountable by the local citizenry in a way not possible with a vast nation or empire with a distant government.

That early colonial experience has continued to inform the post-revolutionary American imagination, if not the official interpretation of the Constitution used to justify ever greater corruption. The Federal government has never done the right thing until local populations get restless and sometimes revolt. That is the entirety of American history, progress coming from the ground up.
No examples of virtuous States v Federal power. There actually is one, when Free States attempted to protect their citizens against slave hunters, it was quoted and an offense to the States Rights of the Secessionists as they left the Union and they enshrined the federal tyranny into their States Rights oriented Consitutiton.
 

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[url=https://civilwartalk.com/goto/post?id=1984731]CW Buff said:[/url]
In my book, the latter are the ones who actually saved this country from suffering infant mortality.
[url=https://civilwartalk.com/goto/post?id=1984731]CW Buff said:[/url]
And what imperialism was there that would not have existed under a confederation, assuming one could have somehow worked?
Good bookends for your post.

In a confederation, one party or a clique of parties can be military dominant over the others forcing them to their will or civil war.
 

jgoodguy

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Andersonh1 said:
Exactly right. The closer you are to your government, the easier it is to influence and control. The further away it is, the less control you have.
Have you ever gone to a City Council meeting to object to something and had success? The tyrants are simply closer to home in small governments and the politicians are cheaper to buy.
 

jgoodguy

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Benjamin David Steele said:
You also made an assertion, but if you do not wish to defend it, then that is the end of it. My assertion, at least, was easily verifiable. I can't imagine anyone who is unable to find such basic info about the size of countries. I just assumed this was common knowledge... at least, it should be. But if you wish to end it by admitting your lack this knowledge, I accept.
Remember it is part of the record that you made an assertion and failed to defend it. If you are claiming that I did not prove you wrong as a defense, you are welcome to.
 

jgoodguy

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Andersonh1 said:
Yes.



They're also often known in the community, and there are many places influence can be brought to bear, not always directly on the local politician. Some just don't care, it's true, but many do.

Whereas every time I try to call or write my senator, it's a wasted effort. I get a canned response in the form of a form letter, or someone in his office takes the call and promises to "pass my thoughts along".
Personally, every time the code enforcement officer drops by, I feel oppressed. Never had that experience from the Feds.
 

jgoodguy

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Speaking of oppressive local government, anyone that lived through the civil rights era knows of oppressive local government. An interesting tidbit about Rosa Parks was that the City of Mongomery Alabama accused her of weeds growing in her front yard. The case went to the Alabama Court of Appeals, where the Code enforcement officer got up in front of god and everybody and testified that if he decided a 40-foot tall oak tree was a weed, by god it was a weed. The Court agreed, but the public relations disaster that followed resulted in a settlement out of court.

A resident of Homewood ended up in Federal Court over growing squash in her front yard.
 

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unionblue said:
I agree. If the Founding Fathers had not had the vision and courage to foresee something much better than the ill fitting AOC, we would be another region of Balkan States, each guarding it's petty rights and customs and the expense of the whole people.

Unionblue
Lots of state's rights though.
 

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OpnCoronet said:
I seem to remember, a long time ago and far far away, reading in my high-school history book that the Constitution had been deliberately left vague and ambiguous so that the operation of the Constitution could define itself, within the framework of its clearly expressed powers.

I see now that the founders deliberately left it vague and ambiguous, also, because since the gov't proposed(gov't of, for and by, the people it governed) there were many theories as to how it would work, but no fhard evidence to base precise instructions as to its operations and no real consensus on the theories, it turned out that theory and necessity required the Constitution to work itself out, by the doing rather than precise instruction.

In the end, I think the Constitution, did a pretty good job.
Good point. I'd add that vagueness allowed most folks to think it agreed with them. It allowed the government to survive challenges by the evolution of legal theory. Examples from the Civil War are emancipation by Contraband solving an age-old legal Gordian Knot of slavery that was severed by war, and that States can not secede, only rebels can rebel allowing the Civil War to proceed.
 

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OpnCoronet said:
I agree, but, sometimes I think we today tend to think the vagueness and ambiguity was deliberate, when, In fact, I believe it was of necessity, because there was no real consensus among the founders of the Constitutional gov't, on how it was supposed to work.

It seems to me that the closest the founders came to a coherent theory of how it was supposed to operate was the Federalist Papers.
IMHO It was a deliberate compromise to get a functioning government up and running in a crisis when there was no consensus. The beauty of it is in the functioning, not the design.
 

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The Constitution was seen as a compromise, a temporary truce in the debate. The Founders decided to intentionally keep the wording at a surface level, for anything deeper would have led to irresolvable conflict. Many of them figured that either it would be revised later on or that maybe an entirely new constitution would take its place. Benajmin Franklin, for example, thought it would only last for a decade. Jefferson was a bit more extreme in that he thought not just new constitutions but new revolutions would be necessary.[/center]
Franklin's opinion makes perfect sense, considering that the AOC only lasted a little over a decade. Why would he expect the new government to last longer until it was tested and tried?
 

jgoodguy

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Franklin's opinion makes perfect sense, considering that the AOC only lasted a little over a decade. Why would he expect the new government to last longer until it was tested and tried?
The Constitution was implemented to address a crisis. It has proved flexible enough to survive. I don't know who among the founding fathers would be delighted and who would be terrified.
 

Andersonh1

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The Constitution was implemented to address a crisis. It has proved flexible enough to survive. I don't know who among the founding fathers would be delighted and who would be terrified.
I'm sure those who lived to see it in operation were quite pleased. I'm talking about what the mindset would have been in the days and weeks after it was first ratified and put into effect, when all they had to compare was the first attempt at a government under the AOC, and all they could do was try the new government and see if they had indeed improved on the first attempt.
 

jgoodguy

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I'm sure those who lived to see it in operation were quite pleased. I'm talking about what the mindset would have been in the days and weeks after it was first ratified and put into effect, when all they had to compare was the first attempt at a government under the AOC, and all they could do was try the new government and see if they had indeed improved on the first attempt.
Yes IMHO the Constitution was a choice between it and disunion with chaos and possible foreign occupation.

However, IMHO it was also a break from the ideals of the revolution as seen by the common man.
 

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I like to point out the states had Constitutions before our nation had one...

snip...

While the U.S. Constitution is often considered the oldest written constitutional document still in use in the world, several American state constitutions are even older than the U.S. Constitution – stemming from the original charters of the thirteen colonies (see Table 5.1). The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is quite likely the oldest written constitutional document still in use; it dates back to 1780. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was considered the first written quasi-constitutional document of its kind in the world, dating from 1638.5 Eleven other American states’ first constitutions precede the U.S. Constitution of 1787 by at least a decade, illustrating that the concept of constitutionalism was well instilled at the state level well before the creation of our current national government.6 In point of fact, many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution meeting in Philadelphia in the late 1780s were quite heavily influenced by their knowledge of and experience with their respective colonial constitutional documents and established governmental practices.

The bill of rights saw not original for many states had Bill of Rights in their Constitutions long before our famous first 10 amendments... Here is a link to a chart that compares all the early Bill of Rights in the states...


snip...

Three rights are unanimously represented in all the State Constitutions, Madison’s list and the Bill of Rights: rights of conscience/free exercise of religion; local impartial jury; and common law and jury trial. There are, perhaps, three surprises by the less than full representation; no establishment of religion/no favored sect; freedom of speech; and no double jeopardy. We must turn our attention to the State Ratifying Conventions and the First Congress for illumination on these three as well as the move in language from conscience to free exercise.

snip...

On May 15, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a “Resolve” to the thirteen colonial assemblies: “adopt such a government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.” Between 1776 and 1780, elected representatives met in deliberative bodies as founders and chose republican governments. Connecticut and Rhode Island retained their colonial charters, but the other eleven reaffirmed the American covenanting tradition and created governments dedicated to securing rights. What transpired was the most extensive documentation of the rights of the people the world had ever witnessed
 

rittmeister

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I like to point out the states had Constitutions before our nation had one...

snip...

While the U.S. Constitution is often considered the oldest written constitutional document still in use in the world, several American state constitutions are even older than the U.S. Constitution – stemming from the original charters of the thirteen colonies (see Table 5.1). The constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is quite likely the oldest written constitutional document still in use; it dates back to 1780. The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut was considered the first written quasi-constitutional document of its kind in the world, dating from 1638.5 Eleven other American states’ first constitutions precede the U.S. Constitution of 1787 by at least a decade, illustrating that the concept of constitutionalism was well instilled at the state level well before the creation of our current national government.6 In point of fact, many of the framers of the U.S. Constitution meeting in Philadelphia in the late 1780s were quite heavily influenced by their knowledge of and experience with their respective colonial constitutional documents and established governmental practices.

The bill of rights saw not original for many states had Bill of Rights in their Constitutions long before our famous first 10 amendments... Here is a link to a chart that compares all the early Bill of Rights in the states...


snip...

Three rights are unanimously represented in all the State Constitutions, Madison’s list and the Bill of Rights: rights of conscience/free exercise of religion; local impartial jury; and common law and jury trial. There are, perhaps, three surprises by the less than full representation; no establishment of religion/no favored sect; freedom of speech; and no double jeopardy. We must turn our attention to the State Ratifying Conventions and the First Congress for illumination on these three as well as the move in language from conscience to free exercise.

snip...

On May 15, 1776, the Second Continental Congress issued a “Resolve” to the thirteen colonial assemblies: “adopt such a government as shall, in the opinion of the representatives of the people, best conduce to the happiness and safety of their constituents in particular, and America in general.” Between 1776 and 1780, elected representatives met in deliberative bodies as founders and chose republican governments. Connecticut and Rhode Island retained their colonial charters, but the other eleven reaffirmed the American covenanting tradition and created governments dedicated to securing rights. What transpired was the most extensive documentation of the rights of the people the world had ever witnessed
you know there's not only the usa on this fair planet
 
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