Robert Palmer discussed the way in which the proposed Constitution was drafted, at the Convention in Philadelphia.
He pointed out that the Convention's delegates' own actions were themselves a species of political revolution, in that they violated the specific instructions which all delegates to the convention had been given by their respective state assemblies, and which they knew they were legally bound to obey at the Convention.
Be that as it may, they developed the draft constitution, and also a way to conceptualize how it might be interpreted and put into place by later ratification by each state assembly.
One problem is that the method conceals an inherent chicken or egg dilemma, in terms of authority.
I haven't read enough Rawls to know that he commits the fallacy, but bet he does. Goes back to Locke, at least, really.
The Philadelphia convention, not we the people.
Going back to the states, not themselves created by we the people in the first instance, for ratification of the constitution, a conceptual no no.
Here, I am reading this into Palmer's account, or reading between the lines, perhaps.
It is hard to see how one could ever get, in the first instance, after the state of nature, to a ' we the people '. One could not even get to a conceptually flawed "original position", in anything other than a tiny city state, or better yet, a village. The city state, or a village, are, of course, not an original state of nature position.
See Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, The Challenge, the section entitled "A Word on the Constitution of the United States", pb, p. 228.
Dual state federal citizenship creates another layer of conceptual inconsistency.
Does the federal we the people trump an individual state's, or even collective, states', we the people? I doubt whether Jefferson thought it would, if he even saw the problem at all. It seems certain that Lincoln did.
I haven't read enough Rawls to know that he commits the fallacy, but bet he does. Goes back to Locke, at least, really.
The Philadelphia convention, not we the people.
Going back to the states, not themselves created by we the people in the first instance, for ratification of the constitution, a conceptual no no.
Here, I am reading this into Palmer's account, or reading between the lines, perhaps.
It is hard to see how one could ever get, in the first instance, after the state of nature, to a ' we the people '. One could not even get to a conceptually flawed "original position", in anything other than a tiny city state, or better yet, a village. The city state, or a village, are, of course, not an original state of nature position.
See Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution, The Challenge, the section entitled "A Word on the Constitution of the United States", pb, p. 228.
Dual state federal citizenship creates another layer of conceptual inconsistency.
Does the federal we the people trump an individual state's, or even collective, states', we the people? I doubt whether Jefferson thought it would, if he even saw the problem at all. It seems certain that Lincoln did.
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