What if the US constitution included...

more interesting changes to the Constitution would be the right of states to secede for the union.

the right of states to nullify federal laws.

I think the best response to this was from James Buchanan - "In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish."

These 'rights' you suggest guarantee fragmentation, with states too weak to protect themselves from each other or outside influences. This guarantees decades of war as Britain, France, and Spain start to gobble up the American successor states combined with fratricidal wars between the American successor states. By 1820, the United States of America would be a memory.
 
I think the best response to this was from James Buchanan - "In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish."

These 'rights' you suggest guarantee fragmentation, with states too weak to protect themselves from each other or outside influences. This guarantees decades of war as Britain, France, and Spain start to gobble up the American successor states combined with fratricidal wars between the American successor states. By 1820, the United States of America would be a memory.

That may have been what Lincoln meant in the Gettysburg Address When he said
"that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth".

The problem what having a strong federal government was American its self become an imperial power that went on to dominate the world.

are the only two possible out comes ?
America becoming an imperial power
or America being carved up by the European imperial powers.

the purpose of nullification is to get the Federal government to obey the constitution.

If what you say is correct that a weak federal government will lead to invasion and the end of the USA, then the constitution should be amended to give this power to the Federal government this power.

The problem is if the Federal government can ignore parts of the constitution it does not like then what value is the rest of the constitution.

Without the USA remaining a single government it way not have been possible with the USA to be come the bully of the world and limit is capacity to launch aggressive wars around the world.
 
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...and why is that necessarily a bad thing?

Yes I think that USA as an imperial power is a bad thing. imperialism is bad idea and adding the USA to all the other imperial powers is not a good idea.
 
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What if the US constitution included:
the right to own slaves

This is the one I'd say would seem the most likely of your list. However, I think it could prove too divisive.

the right to end suffering and die
I think permitting suicide would be too much, even for the certain radicalisms that could be found in Enlightenment thinking.

the right to use drugs
Here's the thing, and the same reason why I will maintain that the second amendment has nothing to do with individual gun ownership outside of the organization of a state militia: No one cares. At that time, no one is preventing anyone from doing a drug, and precious few care. There was no reason for a right to have drugs because no one was preventing you from doing any drug or anything you wished, and in any case there is no specific right to do so beyond the right to be left alone to do as you please (so long as its not detrimental to anyone; at least anyone they considered to have mattered), which is more or less already covered in the ideals of the United States.
 
The US constitution was intended to limit the power of the federal government. Most power was intended to be with state governments.

On the contrary, the US Constitution was intended to increase the power of the federal government. The debate was how much that power would be increased. It could have been much stronger, the Bill of Rights was introduced by a Federalist, but other Federalists thought it was unnecessary.
 
are the only two possible out comes ?
America becoming an imperial power
or America being carved up by the European imperial powers.

Those are not the only two options, but specifically legalizing both secession and nullification means that the US Government is completely powerless. It would have no more ability to affect the actions of the states than the government of Japan.

the purpose of nullification is to get the Federal government to obey the constitution.

The Nullification Crisis was about South Carolina refusing to follow a perfectly Constitutional law, simply because South Carolina didn't like it.

If what you say is correct that a weak federal government will lead to invasion and the end of the USA, then the constitution should be amended to give this power to the Federal government this power.

No, what I said is your completely powerless federal government guarantees the end of the United States, whether by foreign invasion or replacement, probably violently, by a stronger central government.

Without the USA remaining a single government it way not have been possible with the USA to be come the bully of the world and limit is capacity to launch aggressive wars around the world.

Most of US power on the world stage has nothing to do with the US launching aggressive wars.
 
On the contrary, the US Constitution was intended to increase the power of the federal government. The debate was how much that power would be increased. It could have been much stronger, the Bill of Rights was introduced by a Federalist, but other Federalists thought it was unnecessary.

It was design to be a more powerful federal government than under the article of confederation, but it was limited by the The Tenth Amendment "states the Constitution's principle of federalism by providing that powers not granted to the federal government nor prohibited to the States by the Constitution are reserved to the States or the people."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
 

Spengler

Banned
It's best to think of the Declaration of Independence as a philosophical statement rather than something that has legal power.
Try a piece of propaganda.

Belfast are you a constitutional scholar? Because the tenth amendment is quite debatable. Or else "constitutionalists" who deny gay people the simple right to do what they want in their own homes would be worshiping that amendment your holding up.
 
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Spengler

Banned
An Empire of Reason
"
What would it have been like if television had covered the ratification process of the U.S. Constitution?
Such is the premise of AN EMPIRE OF REASON, an imaginative look back at that process which ultimately gave birth of the United States of America.
Walter Cronkite appears as the anchorperson of CTN (Contintental Television Network) nightly news. In the TV news style of the late twentieth century, he reports the vociferous battle between the Federalists and anti-Federalists - to ratify the Constitution and become the United States, or to not ratify and remain affiliated, but autonomous states.
The debate rages on. Alexander Hamilton, one of the authors of the Constitution, and anti-Federalist Melancton Smith duke it out on William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line. Heated arguments on the necessity of a Bill of Rights take place on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report and The Donohue Show.
Interspersed with the larger political and constitutional debates are lively local news items, such as New York Mayor Ed Koch's response to citizen demands for a trash collection alternative to the garbage-eating pigs roaming the city's streets.
Hovde explains that they chose this contemporary format because "The way history is presented is cut-and-dried. It has nothing to do with us. It's people in period costume." AN EMPIRE OF REASON seeks to elucidate the issues so vital to that time - the benefits of a unified nation vs. the fear of a big, distant government; the pros and cons of a single currency, federal income tax, and a Bill of Rights - in such a way as to reveal the continued presence of these issues in contemporary American political discourse. What is at stake is nothing less than the still ongoing debate over the meaning of the word "democracy."
"A super way to learn about our history!"—Marvin Kitman, Newsday"
http://www.icarusfilms.com/new99/empire.html

The video is here
http://www.wabash.
edu/vmr/open_home.cfm?media_ID=3194&course_ID=0


The point of this is?
 
Stop hijacking the thread with your own political agenda. If you want to post this stuff, post it in Chat.


An Empire of Reason
"
What would it have been like if television had covered the ratification process of the U.S. Constitution?
Such is the premise of AN EMPIRE OF REASON, an imaginative look back at that process which ultimately gave birth of the United States of America.
Walter Cronkite appears as the anchorperson of CTN (Contintental Television Network) nightly news. In the TV news style of the late twentieth century, he reports the vociferous battle between the Federalists and anti-Federalists - to ratify the Constitution and become the United States, or to not ratify and remain affiliated, but autonomous states.
The debate rages on. Alexander Hamilton, one of the authors of the Constitution, and anti-Federalist Melancton Smith duke it out on William F. Buckley Jr.'s Firing Line. Heated arguments on the necessity of a Bill of Rights take place on the MacNeil-Lehrer Report and The Donohue Show.
Interspersed with the larger political and constitutional debates are lively local news items, such as New York Mayor Ed Koch's response to citizen demands for a trash collection alternative to the garbage-eating pigs roaming the city's streets.
Hovde explains that they chose this contemporary format because "The way history is presented is cut-and-dried. It has nothing to do with us. It's people in period costume." AN EMPIRE OF REASON seeks to elucidate the issues so vital to that time - the benefits of a unified nation vs. the fear of a big, distant government; the pros and cons of a single currency, federal income tax, and a Bill of Rights - in such a way as to reveal the continued presence of these issues in contemporary American political discourse. What is at stake is nothing less than the still ongoing debate over the meaning of the word "democracy."
"A super way to learn about our history!"—Marvin Kitman, Newsday"
http://www.icarusfilms.com/new99/empire.html

The video is here
http://www.wabash.
edu/vmr/open_home.cfm?media_ID=3194&course_ID=0
 
Wouldn't that fall within 'the pursuit of happiness'?

Not in the constitution (the phrase comes from the Declaration of Independence). It sounded good in the opening statement of the Declaration, but it's so open-ended that no government would be possible if it was recognized as an absolute right. The only legal status that I can think of it having is that it underlies the outer limits of the states' police powers.
 
What if the US constitution included:

the right to own slaves

How would these initial inclusions in the original constitution effect the USA and its development in the future

In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court basically found that it was included. Not explicitly, but clearly implied in several provisions such as the fugitive slave clause and the enumeration clause.

The issue in Dred Scott was whether a slave became free when he set foot in a state or territory which had abolished slavery. The Supreme Court found that he or she didn't, because the slaveowner's property interest was protected by the Fifth Amendment's prohition against taking property without compensation. Justice Curtis wrote a dissent, which is worth reading.

If there had been a more explicit slave clause, the issue of abolition wasn't going to go away; its opponents would have had to try to remove it by amendment.

In practice, time would probably run out before any amendment was passed. Lincoln put it best -- the country couldn't continue half slave and half free forever: there would still have been a Civil War.
 
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