Chapter 12 3. Where is the United States going?

As mentioned earlier, the so-called United States can be either the Confederation or the Federation.Confederacy and Federation are different.A confederation is a union of two or more states.Confederation member states retain sovereignty but act in concert in military, diplomatic, etc. areas.A federation is a unified country formed by the union of several administrative regions (states or states) with national characteristics.His characteristic is that the whole country has a unified constitution and supreme government, and each administrative region also has its own constitution and government.The former one distinguishes a confederation from a federation.The latter distinguishes a federation from a unitary nation-state (nationg).That is to say, the administrative regions (provinces, cities and counties) of unitary nation-states do not have regional constitutions and governments established in accordance with regional constitutions.The Confederacy does not have a unified constitution and a supreme government, but the Confederation does.In addition, the members (countries) of the confederation have completely independent sovereignty, and the administrative regions (provinces, cities and counties) of the nation-state have no sovereignty at all, while the states or states in the federal system have both sovereignty and part of their sovereignty.It can be said that it has "semi-sovereignty".

From this point of view, the United States of America before 1787 was a bit of a nonsense, neither a donkey nor a horse.Although she is not a federation, let alone a unitary nation-state, she is not a confederation in the strict sense.Because her members are not really a country with complete independent sovereignty, but a state with a semi-national nature.These states are "united and independent" (that is, jointly established), and even they themselves can't tell whether they are sovereign states.Therefore, the union cannot remain unchanged.Of course, there are two ways to change.One is that the 13 states are completely independent and each establishes a state. After the state is established, if they are willing to unite, they will form a confederacy; if they are unwilling to unite, they will disband.Or those who are willing to unite will unite, and those who are not willing to unite will not unite, or they can unite in twos and threes to form several confederations (such a confederation was established by the male states during the Civil War).Another reform is for 13 states to completely give up their sovereignty and form a unified republic, that is, to become a unitary nation-state with "one sovereignty, one constitution, and one government".The earliest ideas of Madison, Randolph, and Hamilton were the latter.

Therefore, as soon as the Philadelphia meeting started, they put forward the slogan of "the highest government in the country".In theory, of course, there is nothing wrong with this.Everyone knows that the Confederacy is not doing well simply because there is no such government.Therefore, at the beginning of the meeting, 6 states were in favor of this proposal (Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina), 1 state was opposed (Connecticut), and 1 state abstained (the New York delegation was in favor of opposing half). Passed, becoming the first political resolution of the Constitutional Convention.

However, although most people are in favor of establishing a "supreme government in the country", everyone has no idea how this government should be established, and there are different opinions on the specific plan.For example, the national parliament, some advocate two houses, and some advocate one house; the chief executive, some advocate one person, and some advocate multiple people;It is even more difficult to unify the tenure, remuneration, selection method, etc. of members of parliament, the president, and judges.These ideas are so different from each other, even running in opposite directions, and the public is right, and the mother is right, so the meeting changed from the original idea of ​​a hundred-mile race to a middle-distance race, and finally turned into a marathon.Therefore, as the discussion deepened, the representatives discovered that the matter of establishing the highest government in the country was far from being as simple as imagined.Even Reed, the head of the Delaware delegation, believed that merely improving the Confederate system would not help.In his June 6 speech, Reed said tinkering with the old Confederates was nothing more than putting new clothes on top of old robes.The Confederation was originally founded on some temporary principles, which could not last or be repaired.The only way out is to build a good government on a new foundation.This is also the consensus of most representatives.It seems that the task of this meeting will not only change from treaty revision to constitution-making, but also from system reform to nation-building.

The key to nation-building is authorization, but the situation is different from constitution-making.The issue of constitution-making is where the new constitution will be authorized; the issue of nation-building is who is authorized by the new constitution.In other words, the trouble of constitution-making is "who will grant it" (authorized by the people or the states), and the trouble of nation-building is "who will be awarded" (the national government or the governments of the states).Therefore, the differences in constitution-making are mainly reflected in the disputes between the rights of the state and the rights of the people;In Lan Xin's words on June 20: Is the Constitutional Convention adhering to the current confederation, or is it going to deviate from this foundation?In Randolph's words on June 16, it was: should we stick to the alliance plan, or should we implement nation-building?

Madison and the others certainly advocated the founding of the nation.In fact, according to Madison's original idea, it was to confiscate the power of the state governments and concentrate on the "supreme government in the country", but it was not stated clearly.It was Hamilton who articulated this assertion, on 18 June.Hamilton was present on May 18, but remained largely silent for a whole month.One is out of respect for those older, senior and respected representatives, but because of his embarrassing situation-he and the other two representatives of the state delegation have fundamentally opposite views.But on June 18, he couldn't resist giving a five-hour speech, focusing on his constitutional program and nation-building proposals.He believed that any tinkering with the Confederacy would be useless if the states were left to cling to sovereignty.The only way is to centralize all sovereignty in a general government, even if it is a monarchy.Because in his opinion, the British government is the best in the world.The British can govern the country so well thanks to their outstanding constitution.Therefore, a constitutional monarchy is the best system.It would be better if our monarch was still elected.On the contrary, it is hopeless to establish a republican government in such a vast country; and to expand the powers of the Confederate Congress will either make a bad government (nothing can be done) or no government (government authority is overwhelmed). States disintegrated).Anyway, in the same territory, it is impossible for two sovereignties to coexist.Therefore, the general government must annex the states, or it will be divided among the states.

Of course, this is typical "nationalism" speech.Nationalism, often called nationalism.Its political program and views advocate the construction of a unitary nation-state.Correspondingly, those who advocate the establishment of the United States as a federation are called federalism.But federation is the result of the final compromise. There was no "federalism" before, and there was no dispute between nationalism and federalism. There were only groups emphasizing state power and states emphasizing power.The latter are known as "state rightsists".The compromise between nationalism and the emphasis on state power resulted in "federalism".Therefore, before the two parties reach a compromise, the opposite of "nationalism" should be called "nationalism", not "nationalism", just like the state before the "Federal Constitution" came into force should be called a state instead of a state .After the compromise, those who still advocate building a unitary nation-state are called "nationalism"; those who still advocate maintaining the confederal system are called "confederalism"; and those who agree to the coexistence of national power and state power are called "federalism."I think the only way to say this is to respect history and to reveal why the original nationalists (actually nationalists) later became federalists.Like Hamilton, Madison started out as a nationalist, though not as radical or as sharp-edged as Hamilton.He merely advanced a proposition for the establishment of a supreme government in the country.But even so, one country, one highest, is enough to make many people have doubts.In fact, just after the meeting began, two representatives of Pinckney from South Carolina raised questions. Among them, Charles Pinckney asked, "Does Mr. Randolph mean to abolish the state governments completely?"Since then, Delaware's representative Dickinson on June 2, Delaware's representative Reed on June 6, and Massachusetts' representative Gerry on June 8 have also raised similar questions.These people are not or not entirely state rights advocates, but they all advocate the retention or proper retention of state rights, which shows that things are by no means as simple as Hamilton imagined.

The staunch statesmen were mainly Luther Martin in Maryland and Lan Xin in New York.Moreover, they all use Britain as an example.Lan Xin said on June 20 that the harm that nationalism will cause is even worse than that of Great Britain back then.Luther Martin said in his speech on June 19 that the separation from Great Britain would leave the 13 states in a state of nature, but only in a union.They entered the Confederacy as equals, and they are equals now.If anyone wants to make them unequal, he will never give in. This statement of Luther Martin was refuted by Wilson.Who said, said Wilson, that the colonies were independent of each other when they became independent from Great Britain? That's not what the Declaration of Independence says (he read it).The Declaration of Independence states that "these United Colonies are and shall be free and independent states".It can be seen that the states are independent, but they are not independent, but united and independent.And, at the time of Independence, it was the Confederacy.The meaning of this is of course very clear. Without union, there is no independence. Our states are not the same as those countries that are already independent.

However, having said that, whether it is Wilson, Madison, Randolph or even Hamilton, they are very clear in their hearts: the governments of various states cannot be completely abolished.State mandates must also be properly retained.For the United States is, after all, the result of the union of states.Without the union, of course there would be no states, and without the states there would be no union.In this sense, Delaware's representative Dickinson is right - the state is the cornerstone of the long-term stability of the country in the future. Therefore, on June 20, the first day of the second phase of the Constitutional Convention, the delegates unanimously agreed to change the title of "National Government" in the constitutional plan to "Government of the United States". States).This is not a word game, nor is it a sneaky change of concept, but a major change in the concept of founding a country.It means a tacit compromise between nationalism and nationalism.Because almost all representatives realized that neither the confederacy nor the unitary system would work.What they designed for the future United States of America will be a new national system-the Federation.

In fact, if we want to establish state power and retain state power, we can only implement federalism.For only the Federation has both a national constitution and a national government, as well as state constitutions and state governments.However, the final solution of this problem was caused by another problem.That is, how should the cake be divided?