NC Renegades

I’ll bet you were never asked this question or formulated it by yourself.  I certainly never thought about it until I started questioning the authority of our government in DC. 

The answer comes out of history … from the writings of John C Calhoun, who contemplated such things in the 1840’s.

” …

The preamble of the constitution is in the following words — “We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution for the United States of America.” The effect, then, of its ratification was, to ordain and establish the constitution — and, thereby, to make, what was before but a plan — “The constitution of the United States of America.” All this is clear.

It remains now to show, by whom, it was ordained and established; for whom, it was ordained and established; for what, it was ordained and established; and over whom, it was ordained and established. These will be considered in the order in which they stand.

Nothing more is necessary, in order to show by whom it was ordained and established, than to ascertain who are meant by — “We, the people of the United States;” for, by their authority, it was done. To this there can be but one answer — it meant the people who ratified the instrument; for it was the act of ratification which ordained and established it. Who they were, admits of no doubt. The process preparatory to ratification, and the acts by which it was done, prove, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that it was ratified by the several States, through conventions of delegates, chosen in each State by the people thereof; and acting, each in the name and by the authority of its State: and, as all the States ratified it — “We, the people of the United States” — mean, — We, the people of the several States of the Union. The inference is irresistible. And when it is considered that the States of the Union were then members of the confederacy — and that, by the express provision of one of its articles, “each State retains its sovereignty, freedom, and independence,” the proof is demonstrative, that — “We, the people of the United States of America,” mean the people of the several States of the Union, acting as free, independent, and sovereign States. This strikingly confirms what has been already stated; to wit, that the convention which formed the constitution, meant the same thing by the terms — “United States” — and, “federal” — when applied to the constitution or government — and that the former, when used politically, always mean — these States united as independent and sovereign communities.

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