Talk:Article Seven of the United States Constitution

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[edit] "Illegal adoption"

The text in the following section was added to the article United States Constitution. I moved it from that page to this page because it was only peripherally relevant to the original article, and, in any event, was far too detailed for the general subject of the "United States Constitution". Another user then removed it from this page, saying the section was about the constitution as a whole. I think that while the text of the section discusses the constitution in general, it is specifically related to the topic of ratification. I think this material should be incorporated into this article. — Mateo SA | talk July 9, 2005 18:51 (UTC)

[edit] Was the Constitution illegally adopted?

One historical controversy is whether or not the Constitution was illegally adopted. For example, historian Joseph Ellis in Founding Brothers charges that there is truth in the allegations that the:

1. "Convention was extralegal, since its explicit mandate was to revise the Articles of Confederation, not replace them."
2. "Machinery for ratification did not require the unanimous consent dictated by the Articles [of Confederation] themselves."

Constitutional lawyer Michael P. Farris disagrees, arguing that:

1. "No limits were places on the authority of the convention to make amendments." It did present its results as a new document, but that merely describes the format of its proposed amendment, and is not substantial. Many matters in the Articles and the Constitution were the same (e.g., the name of the nation, that states retained all undelegated power, mutual defense, and state citizenship was granted upon movement). The name of the document was changed, but "it is a recognized legal principle that the title of a law is not part of the body of the law" (and thus has no legal consequence).
2. "Congress and all thirteen state legislatures approved the new ratification process as required by the Articles." The U.S. Constitution proposed a new ratification process, using state conventions (not legislatures) and requiring only 9 of 13 approvals. However, this new ratification process was approved using the approval process required by the Articles of Confederation. The Articles required Congress to approve a change, and then gain agreement by all state legislatures. Congress unanimously approved of the Constutition, and sent the proposal (including its proposed change for final ratification) to the states legislatures. Eleven states held ratification conventions and approved the Constitution by July 26, 1788; since these conventions were approved by the legislatures, these legislaturs did directly approve of the change in procedure. North Carolina's legislature authorized the election of delegates for this purpose; while the delegates voted against it, the legislature had "previously approved the change in the process." In February 1788, Rhode Island's legislature "adopted a resolution submitting the the (Constitution) to a vote of all the people in the state. In effect, (appointing) all the people of the state (to the convention)." The Constitution was rejected in Rhode Island in this vote, but that "does not detract from the fact that the Rhode Island legislature approved the process." In short, since the Congress approved the process unanimously, and all legislatures accepted the process by creating convention processes, the requirements of the Articles were fulfilled.

At this point such arguments are moot. The Constitution states that its authority derives from the people (its text begins with "We the people of the United States of America"), and having been accepted, it is the supreme law of the United States of America.

I'm the user who reverted this move on this page. (I also reverted the move on United States Constitution, but Wikipedia suffered one of its periodic hiccups and returned a preview page instead of saving it, and I didn't notice and until just recently.) The basic argument was given by the edit summary: although part of this section discusses the ratification process, certainly the whole section does not, and thus it does not appear to be about Article 7, but about the Constitution as a whole document. — DLJessup 21:10, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Cool article

Just to say, cool article. Casts interesting parallels with EU at the moment. --57.66.51.165 15:26, 26 October 2005 (UTC)