Bring back the Articles of Confederation of 1781.

Bring back the Articles of Confederation of 1781.

But with the Articles of Confederation, the Federal govt would have little power

Salty said:

But with the Articles of Confederation, the Federal govt would have little power

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Exactly, that is why I support bring the Articles back. I stand with Patrick Henry and the other anti-Federalists who saw the disaster that the present Constitution would eventually become, as we see today.

To quote Lysander Spooner, when he wrote about this about the Constitution, "it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it."

The COTUS would be ok - IF Congress did not get involved in un-constitional actions.
I would agree the Articles are too weak - - we need something in the middle.

But I thought the 10th Amendment was supposed to balance that out.

Salty said:

I would agree the Articles are too weak

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The Articles were WAY better than the Constitution has proven itself to be. Under the Articles, the national government could not have grown to the Leviathan it is today, nor could it have put the American people $39 trillion in debt for government profligacy - approximately $115,000 for each and every man, woman, and child in the United States today.

KenH said:

The Articles were WAY better than the Constitution has proven itself to be. Under the Articles, the national government could not have grown to the Leviathan it is today, nor could it have put the American people $39 trillion in debt for government profligacy - approximately $115,000 for each and every man, woman, and child in the United States today.

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You can eliminate the budget problem right now … just end all Social Spending (Social Security, Unemployment, Heath Care, Education) and all Defense Spending (Army, Navy, Air Force) just like the Articles of Confederation would not have supported and there is no more budget problem. The debt should be paid off in no time.

The issue is people want the Federal Spending but not the Federal Taxes … so WE THE PEOPLE have exactly what we demanded of our craven elected officials.

So no defense spending - in that case we would now be speaking German - and saying “Heil Hitler.”

Salty said:

So no defense spending - in that case we would now be speaking German - and saying “Heil Hitler.”

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Well, the point of a CONFEDERATION is that the STATES have all the power individually. The Federal Government had to request money from every state to support a navy and had to request State Militias to field an army. That is why the Confederation was replaced by a Federation and the Articles by the Constitution a mere 10 years after the American Revolution (the Confederation just didn’t work).

We would likely have lost the war of 1812 and been part of the British Empire during WW2.

atpollard said:

The issue is people want the Federal Spending but not the Federal Taxes … so WE THE PEOPLE have exactly what we demanded of our craven elected officials.

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Thus, we know who is bringing about of the fall of the American Empire - WE THE PEOPLE.

Salty said:

So no defense spending - in that case we would now be speaking German - and saying “Heil Hitler.”

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I disagree. The Congress determined defense spending and the States supplied the revenue for it, as well as the soldiers. I think it is quite logical to think that in the case of an invasion that the States would have rallied together in defense of the country.

Also, under the Articles, it is much less likely that the United States government would have gone all over the world sticking its nose in other countries' business, and would not have hundreds of military bases and several tens of thousands of military personnel scattered hither and yon around the world. Under the Articles, the United States would have been much less likely to have joined with the United Kingdom and overthrown the elected government of Iran in 1953 and installed the Shah.

atpollard said:

We would likely have lost the war of 1812 and been part of the British Empire during WW2.

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I disagree. See my post #10 above.

Also, even under the Constitution, at the time of the U.S. Civil War, about 60 years later after its adoption, the defense of the various States was largely based on state militias, not a national army.

KenH said:

I disagree. See my post #10 above.

Also, even under the Constitution, at the time of the U.S. Civil War, about 60 years later after its adoption, the defense of the various States was largely based on state militias, not a national army.

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Read about the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation that IN WARTIME nearly disbanded 3 times because States failed to provide the money, food and supplies that they had promised … or the need for Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) to flee Philadelphia because Pennsylvania refused to pay the militiamen that fought the back pay that they were promised.

We don’t have the Constitution we started with concerning federalism.
Repeal the seventeenth amendment.

atpollard said:

Read about the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation that IN WARTIME nearly disbanded 3 times because States failed to provide the money, food and supplies that they had promised … or the need for Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) to flee Philadelphia because Pennsylvania refused to pay the militiamen that fought the back pay that they were promised.

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and how were they paid - by giving land to the GI's. That is much of how Upstate NY was occupied.

atpollard said:

Read about the Continental Army in the Revolutionary War under the Articles of Confederation that IN WARTIME nearly disbanded 3 times because States failed to provide the money, food and supplies that they had promised

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The Articles did not go into effect until about seven and a half months before the Battle of Yorktown that effectively decided the American Revolutionary War.

atpollard said:

or the need for Congress (under the Articles of Confederation) to flee Philadelphia because Pennsylvania refused to pay the militiamen that fought the back pay that they were promised.

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I can easily point out that just over 5 years ago(under the Constitution), the U.S. Capitol was stormed by Trump supporters and members of Congress were forced to flee and hide.

Look, I quite understand that I, a minarchist, am WAY out of place politically in the United States in 2026. Like the Founders, especially those who were part of the anti-Federalists, I want a minimalist government, which follows the early American principles of individual liberty, free enterprise, and non-interventionist foreign policy.

I am quite aware that I am one of a very distinct minority, probably at best around 5%(I received around 4% of the vote in my 2014 run for U.S. Representative in the 4th District of Arkansas) of the U.S. population.

There were more of my kind when I was kid growing up in the 1960s (remember Barry Goldwater?) or even as recently as my young adulthood in the 1980s (remember Ronald Reagan?).

I just occasionally feel motivated to stand up and express support for the principles of limited government that I cherish from my youth.

I freely admit that I am old, can be cantankerous, and yell at clouds.

Here are the principles of government I support:

"The state therefore has two natural functions, functions essential to the existence of any peaceful, ordered society: to protect the rights of citizens against violent or fraudulent assault, and to judge in conflicts of right with right. It has a further third function, which is another aspect of the first, that is, to protect its citizens from assault by foreign powers. These three functions are expressed by three powers: the police power, which protects the citizen against domestic violence; the military power, which protects the citizen against violence from abroad; and the courts of law, which judge between rights and rights, as well as sharing with the police power the protection of the citizen against domestic violence.
…
But since this institution must possess a monopoly of legal physical force, to give to it in addition any further power is fraught with danger; that monopoly gives to the state so much power that its natural functions should be its maximum functions."

- Frank S. Meyer, In Defense of Freedom: A Conservative Credo, published in 1962

Ben1445 said:

We don’t have the Constitution we started with concerning federalism.

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True. Patrick Henry and the other anti-Federalists warned about such in opposition to adopting the new Constitution.

And as Lysander Spooner in the 19th century wrote about the Constitution, "it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it."

A lot changed after the War of Southern Independence.

Would be interesting what would have happened had the CSA won?

Salty said:

Would be interesting what would have happened had the CSA won?

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I read a book years ago entitled, Forget the Alamo, by Wallace O. Chariton, published in 1989. Very interesting. It is historical fiction as to what might have happened if the Alamo defenders had chosen a more defensible mission to defend, and if they had won the battle instead of lost it, and, briefly at the end of the book, what the impact might have been with different leadership in Texas, namely, Davy Crockett(who would have survived the battle in San Antonio), on the outcome of the U.S. Civil War.

Here is the description of the book on Amazon:

"Historians have argued for years that William B. Travis and the men in his command made a tragic mistake when they chose to face Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna's army from the huge, dilapidated mission San Antonio de Valero - the Alamo. The theory is that the 180-odd men in Travis's command might have fared much better had they chosen to make their dramatic stand against tyranny from one of the smaller, more compact missions in the San Antonio area. But does the theory have validity? After years of intensive research, Wallace O. Chariton has addressed that question and the answer is dramatic. Much of what you read in this book is absolute historical fact. The remainder is interpolated fiction based on the actual events and on predictions of how the main characters might have reacted under slightly different circumstances. This is a book of what ifs: What if Travis, Bowie, Crockett, Bonham, and the others had chosen Mission Concepcion as their fortress of destiny?"