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Friday
March 29th, 2024
L&T Opinions Page

earl watt mugL&T Publisher Earl Watt

 

The age-old question can lead to philosophical and enigmatic conversations that leaves more questions than answers — Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

We will leave the scientists to debate the intricacies of that debate, but there’s another question that’s similar when it comes to government that does have a clear-cut answer — Which came first, state government or federal government?

Why is this question important? Yesterday, Elizabeth Warren called for the elimination of the Electoral College, one of the cornerstones of the Constitution, wanting a popular vote president rather than the president chosen through the Electoral College, which balances both the popular vote with statehood.

Why should statehood matter when it comes to the federal government? It is supposed to represent all of us, right?

Well, yes, and no.

State government existed long before the federal government, and the current Constitutional government was actually the third attempt by the states to unite the states under a shared federal authority.

The first was the First Continental Congress which united the colonies to declare independence from England.

The second was the Articles of Confederation which was ratified in 1781 and formed a very weak centralized government.

Each state still had the ability to tax other states and to use their own currency. The federal government basically only received funding from the states as a voluntary measure.

The states didn’t like the Articles of Confederation, and they convened a convention in Philadelphia to amend them. We know that convention today as the Constitutional Convention, but it certainly wasn’t called that back then.

Each state sent a delegation to discuss changes to the federal government, but they quickly scrapped their purpose and decided to form a new government altogether.

These people weren’t representing a unified nation. They each went with the sole purpose of protecting the interests of their state while at the same time recognizing that there had to be uniformity throughout the colonies.

This is half of the evidence of the chicken and the egg question that the states came first, and the federal government came second, but there are more instances that we will share.

During the ongoing debates, it became clear that some states with large populations didn’t want to be told what to do by smaller states, and smaller states didn’t want to be told what to do by larger states.

To insure that neither would be able to dictate to the other, Congress was divided into to chambers, the House and the Senate.

In the House, population would rule, but it would also be recognized as the lower chamber with its members only getting two-year terms.

In the Senate, each state would be equal, and it would be recognized as the upper chamber with its members being elected to six-year terms.

Clearly, popular decisions by the masses in the House would have to gain the approval of the multiple states in the Senate, and the Senate couldn’t use multiple small states to overcome the more populous House members.

It was a perfect answer to force regional compromise n to show that statehood was at least equal to if not greater than the population as a whole.

But how to balance the executive branch? The geniuses that developed the Constitution developed the Electoral College, which again balanced the will of the masses in certain geographic locations against the will of states with smaller populations.

But how did the Constitution become the law of the land? Was it passed in a nationwide vote?

No.

The Constitution became the law of the land when nine of the 13 states agree to it.

June 21, 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution, which made it the law of the land.

So, the creation of the federal government we have today was done by the states.

Now, we have large state representatives trying to restart the conversation of erasing state lines and making the executive branch solely answerable to the demands of largely populated states.

This is simply a lack of understanding about how the nation was formed from the state level up, and where the separations exist.

In other words, they are confused about the chicken and the egg of government when there is no debate at all — states came first, states created the federal government, and the federal government is still answerable to the states.

For us to continue with a republican form of government that recognizes the sovereignty guaranteed to each state by the Constitution, it is important to know why the Senate exists and why the Electoral College exists. The vast resources of the United States is divided among 50 states. Perhaps these leaders from the more populated regions would like to do away with those lines that protect our rights form mob rule so they can determine how all of those resources are allocated which would surely be to their benefit. Already they are proposing ideas that would eliminate the beef, pork and chicken industries by advocating a vegan diet, claiming animals contribute to climate change.

No one seems to make the connection that the production of these animals predominantly takes place in rural America and helps reduce poverty and starvation as part of a balanced healthy diet.

States will defend their own industries, but get rid of the Electoral College and the Senate, and its much easier to push complete federal control.

This makes their agenda really clear, the only way to remove freedom and impose federal control is to erase state lines.

The problem for them is the states made the federal government, not the other way round.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR, Reita Isaacs, Liberal

 

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