A trick question here is “Who was the first president?” The expected answer is George Washington, but the first president under the Articles was Samuel Huntington, a man whose name very few schoolchildren know. However, it’s misleading, as the “president” of the AoC was the guy who ran the Congress, not a chief executive.
There’s several trick answers to that question. The usual answer a “trickster” is going for is John Hanson, who served the first full term under the Articles of Confederation, and was the first to formally use the title “President of the United States in Congress Assembled”. In essence, though, he was President of the Continental Congress, and we might as well nominate Peyton Randolph.
The notion of a written Constitution, laying out the powers of government and superior to ordinary statutory law, dates back at least to the ancient Greeks in the time of Solon. Aristotle later expounded on the virtue of constitutional government in more detail.
In medieval Europe, on the continent at least, the practice fell into abeyance as monarchs ruled by divine right. But England preserved at least some of the substance of constitutional government, if not the modern written form, from the time of Magna Charta.
Constitutional notions received further reinforcement from the royal charters the English kings and queens used to found the American colonies. The charters specified how and by whom the new colonies were to be governed, and usually allowed the settlers to elect an assembly. The assembly might be subservient to a royal or proprietary governor, but even so, the charters accustomed the colonists to living under a written “higher law”.
When the colonies declared independence, they naturally rewrote their charters as “constitutions” (some used that word even before independence), and just as naturally, when they wished to create a central government, they sought to write a written constitution to do so.
Contra the OP, it didn’t take 13 years; one of the first things the Continental Congress set out to do after 7/4/1776 was to draft the Articles of Confederation. Because of disagreements, drafting them required more than a year, and ratification by all 13 states required another four years.
The mania for written Constitutions returned to Europe. The deputies to the French Estates General swore the famous Tennis Court Oath to draft a Constitution in 1789, and few monarchs other than the Saudis have been able to resist the demand in the ensuing decades and centuries.
The Declaration of Independence turned 13 colonies into 13 independent countries. They remained so until the ratification of the Constitution in 1789. In the meantime, as independent countries they remained so, only offering up limited support to each other under the Articles.
As a title, yes. As a sovereign country, no.
I don’t think I’d agree with you there. The United States under the Articles was described as a “perpetual Union”, and acted as a sovereign state…meanwhile, the states didn’t have a lot of the powers that are usually associated with sovereign states…those powers given over to the United States Congress. The states couldn’t engage in foreign relations, declare war, or have an independent army or navy. They couldn’t even form agreements between each other without consent of the Congress. The Congress also had the power to create a standard of weights and measures and a standard of coinage. The individual states also had to turn their western territory over to the United States, and the United States administered it.
So, while it’s true that the individual states had more power, and the national government less under the Articles than under the Constitution, I don’t think it’s true to say that the states were independent under the Articles…they had a kind of limited sovereignty (and still do), but far short of true independence.
Your assertion is without foundation either in fact or in political theory. You clearly fail to understand the concept of a “federation” of states into a nation. I suggest before posting further with this incorrect blather that you educate yourself on the subject; I’m not wasting any further time on such silliness. :rolleyes:
Ok, I’m going to waste some time on it.
The United States of America had all the trappings of a “nation” from July 4, 1776 on. It negotiated with foreign states as a nation. It had a unified military command as a nation. It issued coinage as a nation. It obtained loans as a nation. Each of these powers were confirmed by the Articles of Confederation, adopted in 1781. Indeed, the Treaty of Paris that ended the war shows that England and France and Spain all considered the United States as a single country. These are the actions of a “nation.” They are not the actions of 13 fully sovereign states with some sort of loose agreement among themselves for common defence.
I like this quote, found at Wikipedia: Second Continental Congress
CONGRESS. Cyclopædia of Political Science. New York: Maynard, Merrill, and Co., 1899.
Now if you want to get to the edge of what can be considered a “nation,” I suggest looking at, say, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth from 1447 to 1569. Or the United Colonies of New England (1643 - 1654). A quick look at their articles of Confederation will show the true distinction between sovereigns simply banding together for defence without a centralized government, and the United States of America post 7/4/1776.
It just occurred to me that the constitution is less a set of rules than a set of metarules: rules about how to make rules. Not entirely true, but largely so. Many of the rules in it are subjec to modification by Congress including, disasterously in the case of habeas corpus, the one allowing Congress to change what kind of cases the Supreme Court may hear.
With respect, this is not “disaterous” in any respect of the word. The Supreme Court of the United States is not intended as the final word on everything. It has always had limits on its jurisdiction other than that which is explicitly vested in it by the Constitution. The original enabling act limited its ability to hear certain cases, and that has continued to be true all along. Amazingly enough, the country hasn’t come to a screeching halt or anything because of it.
In general, that is one of the characteristics of a federal state: the central government has certain powers, and the local governments have certain powers, both guaranteed by the Constitution and not subject to unilateral amendment by the other level of government. As well, the laws of the local governments are normally only in force in that government’s territory.
With response to your question about Canadian provinces, the answer is yes. The Constitution Act, 1867 divdes the topics of legislative jurisdiction between the federal Parliament and the provincial Legislatures, primarily in sections 91 (federal powers) and 92 (provincial powers).
In some ways, the provinces of Canada are more powerful than the states are in the U.S. system. For example, under our system, the provincial legislative powers are exclusive - Parliament cannot legislate with respect to one of the subject matters assigned to the provinces, and the federal trade and commerce power has not been given the same broad interpretation as the federal commerce clause has been given in the U.S.
So, for example, most laws governing contract, property and other civil rights are provincial. That encompasses a broad swath of legislation, including issues such as workplace safety and industrial relations. About 85% of workers in Canada are under provincial employment laws, not federal. If you want to see the range of statutes passed by a province, try this URL=Publications Centre]web-page of the Saskatchewan Queen’s Printer, listing all the statutes enacted by the Saskatchewan Legislature. The titles of the Acts should give you an indication of the range of provincial powers.
On the other hand, one of the main areas of federal power in Canada is the criminal law power. There is only one Criminal Code, passed by Parliament and applicable throughout the country. Provinces cannot pass criminal laws.
Can’t speak specifically to the inquiry about Germany, but my recollection is that the German federation has a different allocation of powers between the central and Lander governments, with the central government having primary responsiblity of legisation, and the the Lander being responsible for administring many federal laws. Perhaps one of our German Dopers could assist us on this point.
Solkoe, an excellent book on why and how the U.S. Constitution was written is 1787: the Grand Convention by Clinton Lawrence Rossiter. It’s available used at Alibris.
Thanks, I’ll look for it.
In real life, that’s spot-on. In theory the differences are a bit smaller than in practice. The idea is that Germany is a voluntary federation of originally souvereign Länder (“countries”). Those have their own constitutions, legislature etc. and organize their own internal structure. They retain all powers that aren’t explicitely delegated by the constitution. However in practice large parts of the legislature are, including all criminal and civil law.
As you said, even if the laws are federal, they are mostly implemented by the states. For an ordinary citizen contact with federal administration is fairly limited in everyday life. The Employment Office is federal, railway stations and airports are guarded by federal officers and there are a few other things. Probably I forget something obvious but the rest is mostly relevant to specific groups or very specific circumstances. Although a very large part of our taxes ends up in the pockets of the Federation, only the Länder actually collect taxes. All regular courts are under the control of the Länder, just like most of the police force.
Another difference is that the Länder are directly represented in one chamber of parliament. There are no separate “senators”, that job is done by heads of the Land executives together with Land-level cabinet members and each Land can only vote as a bloc.
Kellner, is my recollection on this point correct: I seem to recall that one of the reasons for decentralising the administration to the Lander, particularly the police and the courts, was that Hitler had centralised control over the police and the courts, making it easier to establish his police state? Decentralising the administration of the law enforcement functions therefore helped to prevent a similar event from happening in the future?
Yes, that’s true. The current constitution is full of measures that are supposed to prevent concentration of power and changes to the fundamental structure of the country. However this model was also a natural choice because Germany has had a strong federalist tradition since the middle ages and handling these things on a sub-national level was the norm for most of German history.