I like the amendment ideas that were reported out.
If we're truly going to right the ship however, I think we need an impeachment procedure for Federal Officials in which *the states* impeach and *the states* convict. If, say, 1/2 of the *state legislatures* passed a given resolution to impeach a SCOTUS Justice, and if a committee of *state legislators* were called specifically to serve as the jury and voted 2/3 to convict, then we'd be putting some teeth back into state sovereignty for the Reserved Powers.
You can probably see that I believe the 17th Amendment, which essentially divorced the Senators from the State Governments they were intended to represent, is a critical flaw in the current Constitution. But we'll never get it repealed.
Of course this specific is just "pie in the sky", but I do wonder whether the state level is the battleground to choose.
@HoustonSam During the Philadelphia convention, a proposal was made to permit the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, rejected it. Minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: “A union of the states containing such an ingredient would provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound.â€
During the ratification debates, Virginia’s delegates said, “The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression.†The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments; namely, they held the right to dissolve their relationship with the United States.
And the following is quoted from:
BLACKSTONE'S COMMENTARIES: WITH NOTES OF REFERENCE, TO THE CONSTITUTION AND LAWS,
OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES;
AND OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA.
IN FIVE VOLUMES. WITH AN APPENDIX TO EACH VOLUME,
CONTAINING SHORT TRACTS UPON SUCH SUBJECTS AS APPEARED NECESSARY
TO FORM A CONNECTED VIEW OF THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA,
AS A MEMBER OF THE FEDERAL UNION.
BY ST. GEORGE TUCKER, PROFESSOR OF LAW, IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WILLIAM AND MARY, AND
ONE OF THE JUDGES OF THE GENERAL COURT IN VIRGINIA.
PHILADELPHIA: PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM YOUNG BIRCH, AND ABRAHAM SMALL,
NO. 17, SOUTH SECOND-STREET.
ROBERT CARR, PRINTER.
1803.
(These were the law books universally used by every institution in this land from the time of their publication until the late 1850s and are still used as references to this very day.)
"Although the federal government can, in no possible view, be considered as a party to a compact made anterior to its existence, and by which it was, in fact, created; yet as the creature of that compact, it must be bound by it, to its creators, the several states in the union, and the citizens thereof. Having no existence but under the constitution, nor any rights, but such as that instrument confers; and those very rights being in fact duties; it can possess no legitimate power, but such, as is absolutely necessary for the performance of a duty, prescribed and enjoined by the constitution. Its duties, then, become the exact measure of its powers; and wherever it exerts a power for any other purpose, than the performance of a duty prescribed by the constitution, it transgresses its proper limits, and violates the public trust. Its duties, being moreover imposed for the general benefit and security of the several states, in their politic character; and of the people, both in their sovereign, and individual capacity, if these objects be not obtained, the government will not answer the end of its creation: it is therefore bound to the several states, respectively, and to every citizen thereof, for the due execution of those duties. And the observance of this obligation is enforced, by the solemn sanction of an oath, from all who administer the government.
The constitution of the United States, then being that instrument by which the federal government hath been created; its powers defined, and limited; and the duties, and functions of its several departments prescribed; the government, thus established, may be pronounced to be a confederate republic, composed of several independent, and sovereign democratic states, united for their common defence, and security against foreign nations, and for the purposes of harmony, and mutual intercourse between each other; each state retaining an entire liberty of exercising, as it thinks proper, all those parts of its sovereignty, which are not mentioned in the constitution, or act of union, as parts that ought to be exercised in common. It is the supreme law of the land, and as such binding upon the federal government; the several states; and finally upon all the citizens of the United States.... It can not be controlled, or altered without the express consent of the body politic of three fourths of the states in the union, or, of the people, of an equal number of the states. To prevent the necessity of an immediate appeal to the latter, a method is pointed out, by which amendments may be proposed and ratified by the concurrent act of two thirds of both houses of congress, and three fourths of the state legislatures: but if congress should neglect to propose amendments in this way, when they may be deemed necessary, the concurrent sense of two thirds of the state legislatures may enforce congress to call a convention, the amendments proposed by which, when ratified by the conventions of three fourths of the states, become valid, as a part of the constitution. In either mode, the assent of the body politic of the states, is necessary, either to complete, or to originate the measure."
“Their submission to its operation is voluntary: it’s councils, it’s engagements, it’s authority are theirs, modified, and united. Its sovereignty is an emanation from theirs, not a flame by which they have been consumed, nor a vortex in which they are swallowed up. Each is still a perfect state, still sovereign, still independent, and still capable, should the occasion require, to resume the exercise of its functions, as such, in the most unlimited extent."
