From http://governanceimperative.blogspot.com/2008/11/more-perfect-union.html Akhil Reed Amar is quoted as holding the following:
Contrary to what Lincoln said, it is doubtful that a new, indivisible nation – as opposed to thirteen nation-states in a classic confederacy – sprang into existence in July 1776, four score and seven years before the battle of Gettysburg. In fairness to Lincoln, perhaps we should say that vis-avis the rest of the world, a new (confederate) nation was born in 1776. But the United States did not become anindivisible nation prohibiting unilateral state secession – the crux of the Gettysburg contest – until 1788. Lincoln also stumbled in claiming that none of the thirteen original states had ever been truly sovereign. If the issue were somehow unclear from 1776 and 1788, surely “sovereign” is the right word to describe North Carolina and Rhode Island in April 1789. [America’s Constitution, pp. 38-39]
To seal the case for this interpretation of the Constitution and the absence of a right to secession, the “bookend” of the Preamble – Article V, the article which sets forth the process for proposing and ratifying amendments to the Constitution. Dissolution of the Union must be a decision made by the whole (i.e., three-fourths of the States in accordance with Article V amendment process), not individual states who may, in their own limited parochial judgment, may have legitimate grievances.
So here, Akhil Reed Amar claims that the Constitution-- unlike the Articles of Confederation-- formed a single-nation union among the states out of separate nations, solely because they agreed that the Constitution can be amended by fewer than all the states. Not because they wanted to, or they said they wanted to, or anything else-- solely by this one inference.
As my 9-year old niece says: "Seriously?"
You read it right: Amar seriously argues that sovereign nations cannot-- as in it's impossible for them to-- remain separate nations, if they agree that any condition in the compact among two or more nations can be modified by fewer than 100% of them; i.e.according to Amar, they just automatically lose their sovereignty and become one nation, even if they wish to retain it and form an international union, with the federal government having final authority over the People thereof-- even if the Peoples of the nation ratified it-- not the governments of the nations (states) in question, which are the ones expressly bound by it, as in Article VI, while the Constitution itself is authorized by "We the People" of the individual nations. (Again, that's what Amar seriously claims).
Again: S.M.H.
Amar is indirectly paid by the government to validate its power, but we as citizens should know better, and use our brains-- not abuse them, as does Amar by such crooked thinking.
Likewise, by Amar's reasoning, I guess the UN is a one-world nation-- since as noted in UN Charter, Chapter XVIII, Article 108, the UN Charter can be amended byonly a 2/3 vote among UN states-- not even a 3/4 vote, as with the Constitution.
I can't imagine anything more asinine, than to claim that a Union of nations cannot be voluntary and international, just because it doesn't require unanimity in amendments-- even if the nations in question expressly intend for it to be voluntary and international. Obviously, a voluntary union can simply refuse to abide by such amendments, if the sovereign rulers of one of the nations so decreed. Rather, Amar's argument is 100% circular, because it assumes its conclusion-- i.e that the Constitution forms a national union, because
Seriously, it's sad to think that America's Law Schools' "finest" would make such a moronic statement; and it just shows that the government is installing mindless yes-men to validate its illegitimate rule as legitimate.
Rather, Amar can't even differentiate state governments, from a state's People, despite the clearly-written wording "We the People" as the first three words of the Constitution itself-- and after Amar finishes admitting that they ratified it as sovereign nations, and thus the phrase "We the People of the United States" therefore referred to them as People of each state as the soveriegn rulers of a separate nation.
Does Akhil Reed Amar have cognitive problems, which would make him make such an obvious error-- or does he just "protest too much to believe the protesting?" In any event, it shows why he's put in the position of an official yes-man, ala a "King's Courtier;" since no thinking person could ever accept such falsehoods with a working conscience, and Amar doesn't strike me as a psychopath.
However he does express a desire for an all-powerful oligarchy, under which the People are mere subjects, in his clear contempt for democratic equality among citizens-- and the bizarre notion that an all-powerful government can safely be trusted with final authority over the power of life and death, simply by writing a few words on a scrap of paper that it shouldn't abuse them, and calling it a "Constitutionally limted republic" solely on tbat basis-- even when said republic has exercised censorship under Total War against the People in the past, under the very ruler which Amar defends, i.e. Lincoln.
I believe, as Ben Franklin said, that "it is the first duty of every citizen to question authority;" but Akhil Reed Amar doesn't seem to be very big on that sort of thing, so much as blindly defending it as some sort of pagan dogma.
I, however, hope that at least some of the spirit of the Foundres still lives among true Americans, and they trust their eyes and senses, more than the politicians and their lapdogs.
