The Drunken Prophet/Founding Father Defined Our Voluntary Union in 1787

Mandeville, LA – When one hears the word “secession” today, images of Union soldiers, sanctimoniously mowing down regimented lines of Confederates pulling their slaves by iron chains to battle is demolished by Luther Martin in his tell-all to the MD House of Delegates on the occasion of that Delegate’s return to MD with a Constitution instead of Amendments to the Articles of Confederation.

Read Martin’s description of WHAT makes a State up and then what a Union of those States can do with their “membership” power (hint, they don’t have one.)

Luther Martin: “Having thus established these principles with respect to the rights of individuals in a state of nature, and what is due to each on entering into government, — principles established by every writer on liberty, — they proceeded to show that states, when once formed, are considered, with respect to each other, as individuals in a state of nature; that, like individuals, each state is considered equally free and equally independent, the one having no right to exercise authority over the other, though more strong, more wealthy, or abounding with more inhabitants —”

Andrew Wilkow plays Luther Martin in Mike Church’s “Spirit of ’76, available NOW on DVD and 3 CD audio set in the Founders Tradin’ Post

that, when a number of states unite themselves under a federal government, the same principles apply to them as when a number of individual men unite themselves under a state government — that every argument which shows one man ought not to have more votes than another, because he is wiser-stronger, or wealthier, proves that one state ought not to have more votes than another, because it is stronger, richer, or more populous; and that, by giving one state, or one or two states, more votes than the others, the others thereby are enslaved to such state or states, having the greater number of votes, in the same manner as in the case before put of individuals, when one has more votes than the others — that the reason why each individual man, in forming a state government, should have an equal vote, is, because each individual, before he enters into government, is equally free and independent; so each state, when states enter into a federal government, are entitled to an equal vote, because, before they entered into such federal government, each state was equally free and equally independent —

That adequate representation of men, formed into a state government, consists in each man having an equal voice; either personally, or if by representatives, that he should have an equal voice in choosing the representatives — so adequate representation of states in a federal government, consists in each state having an equal voice, either in person or by its representative, in every thing which relates to the federal government — that this adequacy of representation is more important in a federal, than in a state government, because the members of a state government, the district of which is not very large, have generally such a common interest, that laws can scarcely be made by one part oppressive to the others, without their suffering in common; but the different states composing an extensive federal empire, widely distant one from the other, may have interests so totally distinct, that the one part might be greatly benefited by what would be destructive to the other.”

“It was urged, that the government we were forming was not in reality a federal, but a national, government, not founded on the principles of the preservation, but the abolition or consolidation, of all state governments — that we appeared totally to have forgotten the business for which we were sent, and the situation of the country for which we were preparing  our system — that we had not been sent to form a government over the inhabitants of America, considered as individuals — that, as individuals, they were all subject to their respective state governments, which governments would still remain though the federal government should be dissolved — that the system of government we were intrusted to prepare was a government over these thirteen states; but that, in our proceedings, we adopted principles which would be right and proper only on the supposition that there were no state governments at all, but that all the inhabitants of this extensive continent were, in their individual capacity, without government, and in a state of nature — that, accordingly, the system proposes the legislature to consist of two branches, the one to be drawn from the people at large, immediately, in their individual capacity; the other to be chosen in a more select manner, as a check upon the first. It is, in its very introduction, declared to be a compact between the people of the United States as individuals; and it is to be ratified by the people at large, in their capacity as individuals; all which, it was said, would be quite right and proper, if there were no state governments, if all the people of this continent were in a state of nature, and we were forming one national government for them as individuals; and is nearly the same as was done in most of the states, when they formed their governments over the people who composed them.”

“Whereas it was urged, that the principles on which a federal government over states ought to be constructed and ratified are the reverse; and, instead of the legislature consisting of two branches, one branch was sufficient, whether examined by the dictates of reason or the experience of ages — that the representation, instead of being drawn from the people at large, as individuals, ought to be drawn from the states, as states, in their sovereign capacity — that, in a federal government, the parties to the compact are not the people, as individuals, but the states, as states; and that it is by the states, as states, in their sovereign capacity, that the system of government ought to be ratified, and not by the people, as individuals.”

TheKingDude

Host of the Mike Church Show on The Veritas Radio Network's CRUSADE Channel & Founder of the Veritas Radio Network. Formerly, of Sirius/XM's Patriot channel 125. The show began in March of 2003 exclusively on Sirius and remains "the longest running radio talk show in satellite radio history".

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