The Nationalist Myth and the Fourth of July . . .

[redcliffsw]

It is noteworthy that the terms "nation" and "national" do not appear in the Constitution, except when referring to foreign nations. In fact, the term "federal" was deliberately chosen by the framers over "national" to describe the government created by the Constitution, thereby defining it as the creation of the Union and the common agent of the ordaining sovereignties. The compacting States agreed to surrender certain enumerated powers to this common agent for the general welfare of all, while reserving to themselves the continued exercise of all other powers not so enumerated. One of the reserved rights of any sovereign when entering into political compact with other sovereignties is that of withdrawal should the agreement fail to answer to its purpose. We find this reserved right expressly stated in the ratifications of three of the original thirteen States — Virginia, New York, and Rhode Island — and accepted without question or objection from the other ten States. Declarations of sovereignty were also embodied in many of the State constitutions, such as that of Massachusetts, and the reserved right of secession was proclaimed numerous times throughout the first several decades following the ratification of the Constitution by both Northern and Southern States. Thus, it is beyond dispute that the United States of America were legally a confederacy, not a nation, and were repeatedly described as such in the writings of the earliest political commentators.

Read on:
http://dixienet.org/rights/the_nationalist_myth_of_the_fourth_of_july.php