| October 21 |  |
Editor says, what if America was the Confederacy that the Founding Fathers had intended? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the October 2009 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1808, the drift towards Republicanism that America had entertained in the thirty years since independence came to an abrupt halt with District Judge Davis' landmark ruling on this day in the case of " United States v. The William". Unwittingly, the architect of the legal decision was Thomas Jefferson (pictured), the father of the Democratic-Republican Party.
The States Fight BackBecause in 1798 Jefferson had co-authored a resolution for the legislatures of Virginia and Kentucky that affirmed the states' right to resist federal encroachments on their powers. Through the principle of "nullification" that would later be codified into the Tenth Amendment, the States could locally override unconstitutional federal laws.
"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated" ~ Thomas Jefferson.But ten years later, the General Government was struggling with more practical problems such as the quasi-war on the high seas with the British in league with America's former allies, the French. Now in the White House, expediency required Jefferson to compromise his own principles. He imposed an embargo under which no American ship could depart for any foreign port anywhere in the world, hoping that this economic warfare would hurt British and French prosperity, forcing their governments to change tack.
But the decision would have dire consequences for the trading economies on the eastern seaboard. In the landmark case of "United States v. The William", the embargo was ruled unjust, unconstitutional and oppressive. "While this State [of Massachusetts] maintains its sovereignty and independence, all the citizens can find protection against outrage and injustice in the strong arm of the State government," they said. The embargo, furthermore, was "not legally binding on the citizens of this State".
Entry posted by Todayinah Editor
© Today in Alternate History, 2004-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Beasts Source: Tenth Amendment Center Labels: Tenth Amendment, Confederacy, Constitution , Thomas Jefferson, America. Editor says, please note that extensive amounts of content have been repurposed from the source articles.
~ My guess is that foreign powers would find it easy to meddle, and you'd have states falling under their control, rather quickly.
~ USG was quite weak for most of the 19th century and more so before the USCW. With this it becomes near to vestigial.
Comment from Brian Hartman on Facebook: It's a faulty premise. The Founding Fathers *didn't* intend America to be a confederacy. That was the whole point of chucking the Articles of Confederation.
Comment from Quilly Mammoth on Facebook: The Whole Reason Adams came down was because the situation on the frontier was so bad he didn't think the current organizational structure would work.
Sheesh...that's the whole argument of the Federalist and the anti-Federalist papers. Gue...ss which side won?
And the Anti_federalists won in the Bill of Rights which was supposed to restrict the new Federal Government from invading certain areas of personal Liberty.
~ Why am I getting visions of the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm from a century before?
~ "Nullification" was certainly not codified in *our* Tenth Amendment, which merely states that thlose powers not granted to the federal government by the Constitution remain with the states or the people. Indeed, the Constitution explicitly states, in what is called the "supremacy clause," that where state and federal laws conflict, the federal law prevails.
Was the Tenth Qmendment written differently in this timeline? And if so, how does the U.S. keep from blowing apart into a hodgepodge of lesser sovereignties? Or does it?
~ Succession would happen eventually, who would do it and why would be up to the timeline, but eventually someone (*cough* South Carolina) would take off.
~ Eric:
I can't see how the country would've kept together under the Articles of Confederation (which is basically what this timeline envisions). Give the states that much independence, and eventually, people are going to start taking their marbles and going home, since any disagreement they end up on the wrong side of is an excuse to secede.
~ Seccession could be avoided here, simply because the central government is so irrelevant as to be a bad joke. After all, who walked out of the Post Westphalia "H""R""E"?
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
