A Nation or a Federation?

The Founders Knew Latin

by Larry L. Beane II

The founders of the American Republic knew their Latin.

That is why they carefully chose the word "federal." In James Madison's original draft of a proposed new Constitution (the "Virginia Plan"), the word "national" was used to describe the proposed new Union. However, this word was explicitly rejected by the Constitutional Convention, specifically because the founders did not see the United States as a "nation" but rather as a "federation." Their vision was for the United States to be a union of sovereign states as opposed to a consolidation of the states into "one nation, indivisible" – and this reality is embedded in the very word "federal."

Convention delegate Gouverneur Morris addressed this distinction in the debates on May 30, 1787.

The Latin motto "e pluribus unum" also captures the plural nature of the Union. It was never meant to be collapsed and rolled into into "one nation." This is even evident in common grammatical usage, for while the architects of the Union were still living, the singular verb "is" was not paired up with the plural subject "United States."

But within decades, the federal government became increasingly heavy-handed with the states.

The struggle between the forces of centralization and decentralization intensified between 1830 and 1861, when political compromises failed, and the Union fell into disunion. Seven states of the deep south had seceded and formed a new federation, acting on what is often called the "compact theory" of the American union of 1789. This approach to the Constitution holds that the states are sovereign, and that the Union is a "compact" between them. The compact theory holds that unless power is delegated to the federal government, that power remains reserved to the states or to the people – a concept written directly into the Constitution itself as the Tenth Amendment. A clear and concise overview of the compact theory and its historical implications, past and present, can be found in chapters three and four of Thomas Woods's Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.

In spite of the Tenth Amendment and the intent of the founders, by the 1860s, those who opposed secession and who ultimately annexed the seceded states by raw military force were denying the compact theory, and offered instead its diametric opposite: the "nationalist theory." Though this theory had been around for decades, it was a minority view without teeth until Lincoln and his associates put it into force by force. This alternative view saw the Union as "one nation" that gave birth to the states and not vice versa – though one will hunt in vain for the words "nation" and "national" used to describe the Union in the Constitution itself.

After the conclusion of the War to Suppress Southern Independence, the compact theory was largely discredited (if not derided as treason) and cast aside in favor of the highly-centralized and seemingly invincible "nationalist" model. Even those who defend this radical shift in federal-state relations describe it as nothing short of a "revolution."

We all know which side won the War of 1861–1865. But as President Jefferson Davis of the Confederate States of America pointed out: "A question settled by violence, or in disregard of law, must remain unsettled forever." In other words, might does not make right – might only suppresses discussion. I believe most Americans today simply accept the outcome of the war to be a legal and salutary affirmation of our republic as a "nation," as though the Constitution can be legally amended at bayonet point. Furthermore, it is now common, and even expected, to make the grammatical error of mixing the plural subject "United States" with the singular verb "is.".........

Continued - http://lewrockwell.com/orig7/beane9.html