T H E R E T R O B O R O | |
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RETRO EVOLUTION | |
Devolution - the solution to evolutionary dead-ends: | |
For any State unilaterally to legally appoint its Senators, replace | |
central government programs with its own, and relegate the ultimate | |
Court of Appeals to an arbitration service with no need for further | |
Amendments or Conventions, pursuant to Art. VII of the Constitution; | |
and inspired by Jefferson, whose attachment to the theory of state | |
sovereignty and skepticism toward the Constitution isn't surprising, | |
considering his opposition to the strong federal government that it | |
enables. In fact, Madison, his closest political ally through much | |
of his career, led by example in restraining Jefferson's more anti- | |
Constitutional rhetoric. However, as Jefferson aged, and especially | |
near the end of his life, his position hardened on nullification, | |
writing privately that the time might come when the southern states | |
would have no choice but to use nullification against the growing | |
power of the federal government or to even dissolve the Union. The | |
presentation here proposes devolution as a viable alternative to | |
nullification, which Jefferson or the South might have thought of, | |
had they been strict constructionists of Article VII that allows | |
for States of the Union not to be States of a compact in which the | |
United States is defined as the trustee vis-a-vis THE United States | |
of America--"the Union" as defined in the Articles of Confederation | |
& Perpetual Union. | |
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