America was founded as a republic of sovereign states that chose to join together for limited common purposes. The states created the federal government
- not the other way around.
To me, sovereignty must include consent. A state that freely chose to enter the Union should also possess a peaceful and lawful way to leave it when that Union no longer serves its people or honors the constitutional compact.
The War Between the States rejected that principle through force. It held the Union together at gunpoint, concentrated power in Washington, and moved America away from the Founders’ vision of strong states and a limited federal government.
Making America great again means restoring that original balance: a national government strong in defense, foreign affairs, interstate commerce, and constitutional rights - but limited everywhere else.
It means returning power to the states, communities, and people. It means recognizing that Georgia does not have to govern like California, and Texas does not have to govern like Vermont.
And it means acknowledging that a Union based on consent is stronger and more legitimate than one maintained only because its members are forbidden to leave.
Fifty sovereign states forming one more perfect Union - not fifty provinces ruled from Washington.
@C_3C_3 The pre-Civil War United States - a constitutional union of strong, sovereign states - was the greatest nation on earth. Today’s United States remains the greatest, but we’ve moved away from the Founders’ more perfect vision of federalism.
@sophblue566@GOP_is_Gutless “Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous.”
Source: Letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Jay, August 23, 1785.
@sophblue566@GOP_is_Gutless “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever He had a chosen people, whose breasts He has made His peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue.”
Source - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX.
Nobody tell the progressives, but their favorite Founding Father, Broadway star Alexander Hamilton, actually held some of the STRICTEST immigration views of the entire founding generation. He believed immigration should serve the nation, not that the nation should exist to simply serve the world. And he warned that admitting foreigners indiscriminately into citizenship would be like wheeling the Trojan Horse directly into the citadel of our liberty and sovereignty.