Allies Believe U.S. 'No Longer a Good Model of Democracy,' Poll Shows

>>"The States of the United States ...."

That would not be proper English nor make any sense linguistically.

If you believe that the Founders thought the States were not independent, and sovereign in their own right then you clearly have not read the Federalist Papers. Take a close look at Federalist 17 as an example

If the States were not separate but equal, i.e the foundational principle of our style of governance, then why call the nation the United *States*, why not just call it America or some other name all together

No the founders clearly believed the States should not be servant to the Federal Government, nor should the Federal Government be servant to individual state governments.

>>Second, the issue was conclusively settled at Appomattox and with the ensuing enactments of the 14th and 15th Amendments.

I disagree that it was conclusively settled, nor do I agree that application of the federal constitution to the states by default makes the states Subservient vassals of the federal government

Further last I check the passage of an Amendment requires the ratification of said amendment by 3/4 of States thus proving they are in fact not vassals as if they were then their consent would not be needed.

>In the modern era that might still be viable if the Senate's power were only to veto enactments by the House, perhaps by a supermajority vote

Yea... no

That does not make any sense historically, legislatively or logically. Having a chamber that can only act in the negative would be a pointless chamber of government.

Bills should be assumed to be Bad and at every level require affirmation.

Your process of legislative review makes about as much sense as a criminal system on the principle of Guilty until Proven innocent.

Laws should be hard to pass, laws should be extremely hard to pass, and federal laws should be almost impossible to pass ensuring the federal government does very little and most governance is done at the local level where it should be done.

In general the government that governs the least, governs the best, and this is quadruple true for a Federal Government

So your entire response boils down to sexist misandry combined with and appeal to authority fallacy and/or credentialism...

Awesome...

>>The whole reason the Framers wrote the Constitution was that the Articles of Confederation were based on the "governs least" principle, and that didn't work out too well.

Well had been alive in that time, I would have been an Anti-Federalist, The Anti-Federalist have been proven right in their fears of what the Federal Government would become, and Madison has been proven wrong time and time again.

However it is complete mischaracterization to proclaim that the Article of Confederation was either a "governs least" document, or collapsed because of it.

The Article of Confederation collapsed not because the federal government governed too little, but rather there was no actual separation of powers between the States and the Federal Government. The purpose of the Constitution was that the States (and the people) would enumerate limited powers to the exclusive domain of the new Federal Government (foreign Trade being one of them, and national defense) but all others would be reserved to the people and the States. Creating a Separate but Equal government, not a superior government

The Articles of Confederation the Confederacy could not enter in to any trade deals with other nations or pay any obligations because it had no actual authority to act on behalf of the states.

The idea that is because it need to "govern more" at that State level is simply false, and Historically ignorant.