Civil War Coming?

[Fife]

Hmmm... No amount of adjustment is going to solve that complaint. People are flawed. We would kill each other if we thought we could get away with it. The Constitution is nothing more than an agreement to prevent that from happening. I can't think of a better one that would do the same thing?

Maybe. If questioning the process that produced the constitution is bad, I'll cop to that.

I guess we could fire up the Hot Tub Time Machine and prevent the usurpations of the convention to see how the Articles of Confederation would have turned out. Would we have killed each other if we thought we could get away with it under that form of government? Unlike the million Americans we actually know who King Abraham killed or maimed under authority claimed (somehow) pursuant to the constitution, we'll never know, I reckon.

If the Articles were defendable as a solution, The Constitution would not have gotten traction. Any changes The Constitution needed, it got for the first two Centuries of this country. It hasn't changed in the last 50 years though; that probably signals something? Could be, it's done?

What were the articulated, publicly discussed defects with the Articles? The lack of a free trade zone among the states was one that I know of, that was supported by at least some people unwilling to let the protectionists reap their particular whirlwinds as Smits might say.

I have significant doubts that the Constitution got traction among "the people" as opposed to "the state politicians" because of some bill of particulars against the Articles.

[Martin Hash]

It’s been awhile since I listened to the book about that. (Cassette tape!) Without the Bill of Rights, the original Articles don’t say much, and that’s what was adopted. Maybe you don’t like the Amendments?

[brewster]

All hail Mitch McConnell.

Sure, but when the Constitution dies after the beating you give it, and with it that EC nonsense, unless you're going to go all in on nondemocratic Authoritarianism, where's your electoral control?

The constitution will be preserved, you will prevented from giving it a beating, and there is nothing you can do about it.

You can't preserve it and then beat the hell out of it when it suits you. You can't worship the 2nd amendment and dismiss the 14th & 15th. Hypocrisy is only a stable form of government at gunpoint.

[StCapps]

Sure, but when the Constitution dies after the beating you give it, and with it that EC nonsense, unless you're going to go all in on nondemocratic Authoritarianism, where's your electoral control?

The constitution will be preserved, you will prevented from giving it a beating, and there is nothing you can do about it.

You can't preserve it and then beat the hell out of it when it suits you. You can't worship the 2nd amendment

Just watch them.

[BjornP]

What were the articulated, publicly discussed defects with the Articles? The lack of a free trade zone among the states was one that I know of, that was supported by at least some people unwilling to let the protectionists reap their particular whirlwinds as Smits might say.

I have significant doubts that the Constitution got traction among "the people" as opposed to "the state politicians" because of some bill of particulars against the Articles.

https://herb.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/1266

Amos Singleterry, 1788 (farmer):

We contended with Great Britain—some said for a three-penny duty on tea, but it was not that. It was because they claimed a right to tax us and bind us in all cases whatever. And does not this Constitution do the same? Does it not take away all we have—all our property? Does it not lay all taxes, duties, imposts, and excises? And what more have we to give?

They tell us Congress won't lay dry [direct] taxes upon us, but collect all the money they want by impost [import duties]. I say, there has always been a difficulty about impost.... They won't be able to raise money enough by impost, and then they will lay it on the land and take all we have got.

These lawyers, and men of learning, and moneyed men, that talk so finely and gloss over matters so smoothly, to make us poor illiterate people swallow down the pill, expect to get into Congress themselves. They expect to be the managers of this Constitution, and get all the power and all the money into their own hands. And then they will swallow up all of us little folks, like the great Leviathan, Mr. President; yes, just as the whale swallowed up Jonah. This is what I am afraid of...

Samuel Bryan, 1787 (craftsman):

https://www.constitution.org/afp/centin01.htm

If one general government could be instituted and maintained on principles of freedom, it would not be so competent to attend to the various local concerns and wants, of every particular district, as well as the peculiar governments, who are nearer the scene, and possessed of superior means of information, besides, if the business of the whole union is to be managed by one government, there would not be time. Do we not already see, that the inhabitants in a number of larger states, who are remote from the seat of government, are loudly complaining of the inconveniencies and disadvantages they are subjected to on this account, and that, to enjoy the comforts of local government, they are separating into smaller divisions.

*

*(Long article, but I'm getting the same anti-centralization vibe from them both).

[Fife]

It’s been awhile since I listened to the book about that. (Cassette tape!) Without the Bill of Rights, the original Articles don’t say much, and that’s what was adopted. Maybe you don’t like the Amendments?

The first ten amendments were mainly surplusage used as bargaining chips to sell the document to skeptical state assemblies, and a dangerous sort at that, as they tend to give legitimacy to a federal claim to power that was just laughable to Americans at the time.

They lead to convenient claims by charlatans that the federal government is about positive legal rights somehow. "Muh Second Amendment Rights" Absolute heresy.

[Martin Hash]

The Bill of Rights wasn’t adopted until 2 years after The Constitution, per Madison & Jefferson. I’m still not clear what in The Constitution you’re on about? I know why the Marxists don’t like it; because of the focus on individual liberty & property; and I know the Libertarians don’t like the taxation & regulation aspects; is that why you don’t like it?

[Smitty-48]

The Declaration of Independence above all.

Divine Providence.

The Shot Heard Round the World.

Live free or die.

Striving to free all the slaves everywhere, for all our faults.

Here's to us and those like us.

[Martin Hash]

The Marxists want equality. The Libertarians want an aristocracy. The rest of us want what The Constitution guarantees: security, jurisprudence, welfare, environment. (Healthcare still isn’t settled.)

[Fife]

The Bill of Rights wasn’t adopted until 2 years after The Constitution, per Madison & Jefferson. I’m still not clear what in The Constitution you’re on about? I know why the Marxists don’t like it; because of the focus on individual liberty & property; and I know the Libertarians don’t like the taxation & regulation aspects; is that why you don’t like it?

What Smits just said.

I admit that I hate the idea behind the federal city, and especially aristocracy (most certainly a distant and insulated aristocracy). "Think locally, act locally" is the path to being governed by consent, if at all. The whiskey tax was an abomination before God Almighty, as is every type of theft and highway robbery.