The Constitution required ratification based on the Articles of Confederation. The Articles of Confederation were ratified by state legislatures. So the legitimacy of the Constitution relies on the legitimacy of both the Articles of Confederation and the individual state legislatures. So where does the legitimacy of the state legislatures come from?
This is all based on my research from the last 10 minuets, so I may have missed something.
I think the Constitution states its own requirements for ratification in Article Seven. The Articles just “disappeared”; the Constitution’s ratification isn’t based on anything written in the Articles.
Well there’s “legal” legitimacy and “de facto” legitimacy. I’m not sure how state legislatures claim their legal legitimacy… perhaps through majority voting and majority support. De facto, any government is “legitimate” if it is successful at exercising power of the people. The state governments successfully enforce taxation, regulation, eminent domain, and a monopoly of police and judicial services. Morally, the state governments do not, and never had any legitimacy.
You are correct. I misread the source on that one. “Contrary to the process for “alteration” set out in Article 13 of the Articles, Congress submitted the proposal to the states and set the terms for representation.”
So really the question is only whether or not the state legislatures were legitimate.
I am referring to legal legitimacy on the assumption that power must be delegated to the state by the people (if there is to be any government).
The constitution is just a piece of paper. Once the colonies, the de facto ruling power in North America, decided that the constitution was good enough for them, it was so.
I have been trying to find info on the development of colony governments before the articles of confederation. If the colony governments have no legitimacy, then federal government has no legitimacy. I suppose the converse would also be true. That is why I believe this is an important issue.
Read the text of the Treaty of Paris and you will find the answer you seek.
The Treaty of Paris was between the government of Great Britain and the united states of America. Thus, this is a circular argument because the source of the state/colonial governments’ authority originates from a treaty that was signed by representatives from said state/colonial governments. Even if that weren’t the case, it would only beg the question as to where the authority of the British government originated?
The authority of the U.S. Constitution is based on a hypothetical agreement. Because of the Presumption of Freedom (which can be defened on purely epistemological grounds), the burden of proof is on those who would assert that we have a obligation to obey the state. If this burden cannot be met successfully, the default position is that the state is a criminal gang writ large, and so, has no authority (other than “might makes right”).
The Queen seems to think God put her in charge of that lot.
Its authority comes from ratification by the sovereign states.
The british government is the product of hundreds of years of social evolution.
The only thing that commands is force. If force is no longer in dispute due to a contract recognizing force would that be evidence of authority?
In the war of independence the colonies established their sovereingty. The union was formed on the basis of that authority.
That begs the question: where does state sovereignty come from? To be legitimate, its sovereignty must come from the people it represents. I am not interested in the might makes right argument since the constitution does not cite that as the source of its authority.
That begs the question: where does state sovereignty come from? To be legitimate, its sovereignty must come from the people it represents. I am not interested in the might makes right argument since the constitution does not cite that as the source of its authority.
State sovereignty comes from other states’ recognition of sovereignty. The modern state system was put in place by the Treaty of Westphalia, where all the states agreed that they would be the only provider of justice in their domains and that they would not compete with each other. That way sovereign states support each other against uprisings by their own populations.
“Social contract”
And before you ask, I don’t agree with it, but it is sadly still a largely culturally supported notion. (else we’d be stateless already)
They won independence in the war, establishing their sovereignty. The Paris treaty merely recodnized that.
Why, because you said so? I also never talked about representation., that is a side issue.
That is a circular dependency. If states make other states sovereign, how did the first state become sovereign?
To be legitimate, its sovereignty must come from the people it represents.
Because I am asking about de jure sovereignty, not de facto sovereignty.
Also you can’t say it is due to tacit consent because people lived in the colonies before the colonies had a government.
What is de jure and de facto sovereignty? The distinction is unclear to me.
About tacit consent, I have never said anything about anything like that.
The tacit consent argument was made by another poster. Sorry for being unclear.
On de jure and de facto sovereignty,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereignty#De_jure_and_de_facto