On this July 4 holiday, I see countless columns claiming to define what “America means”; however in this sense they seem to mean re-defining, since they don’t seem to know what it means in the first place.
To begin with “America” is not a country, it is a continent; and there are two of them, North and South. Second, the states were declared to be "free and independent,” not subdivisions of a greater sovereign nation.
As such, the term “United States of America” did not, as modern revisionists claim, refer to various districts joining to form a single nation called “America” – any more than, say, the United Nations of Europe joined to form a single nation called “Europe,” or the United Nations formed a single nation called the “United Nations.”
Rather, as I illustrated in my article “Were the States Sovereign Nations?” each state was declared a separate, sovereign nation unto itself – and remained as such, while the term “America” simply referred to the continent of residence (with the prefix “North” in North America” dropped for reasons of brevity; if South Americans likewise created a “United States” then this would create some confusion: however this didn’t seem likely at that time – or indeed the present time).
These “states” were declared and united under the presupposition that centralized power – even in a democratically controlled republic – was a bad thing; in fact, they had just broken away from such a system, in which democratically-elected parliamentary leaders subjected them to oppressive exploitation – as a recent leader put it, “because they could.”
For this reason, the states remained separate nations, and merely agreed to abide by certain common “by-laws” such as the Articles of Confederation, and later the Constitution, which were negotiated within the nation’s capital – but by which no state was bound to obey under force of law, being once again free and independent nations.
In addition to preserving each state’s separate identity and unique heritage, this freedom and independence was maintained in order to prevent a repeat-performance of the prior fiasco which “impelled the separation,” by simply preserving the power of every state to refuse such federal mandates which were deemed opposite a state’s best interests; contrary to recent historical revision, each state remained supreme and inviolate unto itself, just as per the founding premise that each and every person was equally endowed by a supreme creator with inalienable rights.
In this manner, a federal majority would be precluded from oppressing the states, simply by lacking any legal power to do so: if, for example, the 13 states had suddenly voted 12:1 that the entire state of New York and its inhabitants were to become the sole property of the remaining states to do with as they pleased (with only New York voting naturally against it), then, even though the action would be perfectly legal (the Constitution could always be amended afterward), then New York would still be under no legal obligation to comply under threat of force. Rather, the bounds of national sovereignty would continue to apply, just as with any other nation, regardless of how other nations “vote.”
Likewise, the state of New York would be fully within its legal authority to secede from the Union – which it was likewise at liberty to do for any reason it so chose, being once again a separate entity free from supreme oversight of its internal affairs by any other.
If, on the other hand, the state were subject to federal approval of such refusal or secession, then this would present a definite oxymoron with regard to protection from federal oppression.
Unfortunately, history has overturned this ideal order, with nature taking its course in terms of the strong dominating the weak, rather than the ideal “good vs. evil”; simply put, the states were conquered under a grand ploy of deception regarding this original system of healthy inviolate boundaries between them, and claiming that such was neither ever intended or even necessary, under the claim in Lincoln’s First Inaugural.
As such, the United States now no longer exists as “united states”; rather, it is now simply a single entity known as “America” whose state-boundaries are now secondary, and which exists as a shell of its former self. It is no longer a land of peace and prosperity, except what little can be maintained in an atmosphere of violence and hostile competition as its inhabitants fight for freedom against one another, each struggling via the law of the jungle to “tax or be taxed, regulate or be regulated.” This is only possible in an oppressive, captive environment, which the original system was created to preclude; the only solution, it seems, is to restore this former system, ending federal supremacy and once again restoring supreme sovereignty to the states as a check on such federal excess.
July 5, 2004
